Our Every Day

Five years ago this week, I found out that I was expecting - my first pregnancy. Mike and I had been married five years, and we didn't think having kids was God's plan for us - and then there was Grayson! Sweet, funny, beautiful, loving Grayson. His first picture ;) His latest picture :) One year ago this week, we learned that our sweet first kiddo has autism and sensory processing disorder, along with a language delay and global developmental delays. We are a year out now. It's been a hard hard year. I have mourned so much this year. When we were driving home from Grayson's diagnosis appointment, Mike and I sat in silence. Grayson was completely worn out from the testing he had to go through and was fast asleep in his carseat. The diagnosis wasn't a surprise by any means, but we were still shocked. I know that sounds crazy, but until you have been through it...the finality of it, it was officially official...well I was angry. I went into mom-mod...

A couple weeks ago, I came across a blog post written by an Autism Dad and police officer. I read it to Mike, and we both found it rather compelling. It was called  7 Things First Responders Want People With Autism to Know: A Response to Autism Speaks . Since I have been keeping in touch with local law enforcement about Grayson and autism, I sent the link to our police chief via email. He wrote me back and asked if anyone had contacted me about Project Lifesaver. Our country just received the program through a grant in the fall. To learn more about Project Lifesaver, read here.  I had seen an article about it in the paper, but at the time I didn't really feel like it was a good fit for our family. My limited-government upbringing made me question the safety of having our son wear a transmitter that would allow law enforcement to track him. I know. I know. I sound like a crazy person. But when the police chief suggested it to me, Mike and I discussed it - A LOT - and we d...

I am contemplating taking a blogging break for awhile. February kicked our butts and now March is gearing up to do the same. I don't have a lot of happy things to share right now. We are adjusting to first shift life but haven't had a great go at it because Mike has had to be in training and inservice for a few days every week for the last three weeks. We have seen a small change in Grayson's sleeping habits - he is sleeping better for sure, but Easton's sleeping habits have continued to deteriorate as well as mine too because he isn't sleeping. I feel like almost everything people say to me grates on my nerves OR I say something stupid. I have been on edge this entire pregnancy - but lately I have had to step back from everything because I don't want to upset anyone. I have cried more tears over stupid comments and mean-spirited things to me said by people I love in the past 20 plus weeks than I have in years. It's been really difficult - and I am not s...