About Us
I am a survivor of chaos, master
of reinvention, and a quick study.
Life with Autism has thrown
me a curve ball or two
almost everyday.
As a quick study I learned pretty early that
the curves of parenting an austistic child weren't
going to quit coming, and that I needed
to learn how to catch them.
When my youngest son got his autism diagnosis,
all the autism signs were there but I was in
denial, acceptance came much later for me.
I learned the hard way autism cannot be ignored,
denied or cured. Like everything else in my chaotic life the
best approach was to tackle it head on
with hard work and the right attitude.
Never do anything that you wouldn't want to explain to the
paramedics, I have tried to live by this philosophy, If only
I could teach that to my son! There's no other feeling in
the world like leaving your doctor speechless and scratching
his head over something your child did going
...um mm.. good question, what do we do about this?
This child of mine has been a mystery to me each
and everyday. Jerry Seinfeld once said
"A two-year-old is kind of like having a blender
, but you don't have a top for it."
My name is Renee, I am a proud devoted mother of five children,
two of which are on opposite ends of the Autism spectrum
from one another. My youngest son is severally
affected by the Characteristics of Autism, such as sensory issues,
and Pica eating disorder.
With the severity of my son's autism, the dreams a parent
has for their child may never come true for my son. Life with him
is never boring and always unpredictable!
I have had to become an advocate for my children, about
educational issues, health issues, and behavior issues.
When you are told that your child has Autism you can
drown in denial or swim in knowledge. I might not have
swam at first but my head is above water now.
My two boys have made me a better parent by teaching
me patience. Each child we have has been an education for
us in different ways. The first child-with-bloody-nose was
rushed to the emergency room. The fifth child-with-bloody-nose
was told to go to the yard immediately and stop bleeding on
the carpet! The thing about autism is that you just have to laugh at it.
I used to cry and get embarrassed at some of the things my
son would do, but realized no matter how much I cried about it,
he still did it. Autism behaviors are obscene, they are unpredictable,
but always hilarious after the fact. Sometimes we become so focused
on the future, that we fail to find joy in the present.
I have a ton of cute funny stories about all the times
my son embarrassed us at church, school, or the grocery store.
I didn't see the humor in it at the time we were being thrown
out of these places but now around the holidays and at
family gatherings my family often sit around telling the stories
of "do you remember when.." Laughter, a great attitude and
learning how to take everything with a grain of salt is
the cure for Autism.
that perhaps I was to emotional during to notice. Through out my
website, in these green boxes are my personal accounts of situations
that I learned something from but only afterwards.
Hind sight is twenty, twenty, I can think back to so many different
situations where I would not do the same thing now that I did then.
When my son would do something dangerous we would find ways to baby
proof it and keep him safe. A fine example of this would be his window
seal. He loved standing in his window. When they are little its kind of
cute and helped with his balance and you really don't see the harm in
this when they are little. The bigger he got the more dangerous this became.
My husband and I installed Plexiglas over his window not
just because his window was on the second floor but because he had
started hitting the glass every now and then. At the time I didn't
think twice about it, I felt it had to be done for the safety of my child.
That was not the solution as my son proved when he went to school and
started climbing in their windows. We should have taught him not to hit
or climb on the windows because he is going to be around windows for
the rest of his life and they are not all going to have safety glass!
Thanks to Autism I am now a stay at home mom. You could
say Autism has become my full time job. I work around the clock
at the strangest hours, dealing with some very unusual, never
saw coming situations. We have had good days, and we have
had Autism bad days. It has been a very long journey that has
taught me more than any other experience in my life. I am
making this website for the parents out there that have had and
are having the Autism bad days, who are feeling lost and very alone
in their journeys. Sometimes just hearing what other families affected
by Autism are going through remind us that we are not alone, even
on the bad days. Someone else shares your heart ache and is living
with your fear. I made a lot of simple common sense mistakes
in the beginning that stems from my lack of awareness.
This time cost my children an immeasurable difference.
I believe our children get better only with our guidance,
and our pushing hands. I believe that no matter what
treatment you choose for your child, there will parents who
will say that was the Autism cure for them.
I would like to think that the parents who
get involved with their children's therapies,
invest their time and efforts into their child, are
seeing results because they are seeking, hoping
and working towards them. When your child is in
treatment you are paying close attention to every goal,
holding on to every bit of hope this will be the cure, and
learning more with open eyes then you ever have before.
