I know I already put up my Sunday Best links post today, but I decided to join in on the linky love over at The King and Eye.
Today’s Blog Gems is the fifth time Jen has published this fortnightly list, and the prompt for today is to share your first public post. All you do is link up your post and then you are asked to read and comment on the two posts listed before yours (at least!).
Visit Blog Gems #5 to link up your post or read some other entries and feel free to visit my own first post, Where to start?, while you’re at it!
Phew! This week we met with the 2nd grade team, and it went so much better than I even hoped! Thank the Lord!!
Today, I wanted to share a few posts that have really touched me in one way or another over the past couple of weeks. I hope you will find something that speaks to you as well.
Challenging Low Expectations But What If They Can? is an intriguing essay at Hopeful Parents about the many times we hear that our kids “can’t” do something and how the Common Core State Standards (which were adopted in PA on July 2nd of this year but which I had never heard of before this post) say they can.
Shortly after reading this, I was blown away by a real-life example of how two different therapists could have wildly different views on whether a child with a disability should be expected to learn how to write and how a mom’s Writing Dreams were brought to life through a team member who said she could and should.
The Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism
I have only been reading this blog for a few weeks, and I only wish I had found it earlier. What a wonderful resource! Here’s a couple of recent posts that I just had to bookmark for future reference:
Getting to Know Your Neighborhood: Reaching Out and Building a Network – This post by Susan Walton is an exhaustive primer on how to assemble a team of support, both personal and professional. It is quite long but worth taking some time to read, and definitely worth holding onto for all the times you talk to “new” parents who could use some direction.
‘Autistic’ or ‘Person with Autism’? – One of my favorite bloggers, Jean from Stimeyland, writes about why she uses these phrases almost interchangeably, despite the fact that some would say they are opposing terms. As someone who does this as well, and for mostly similar reasons, I greatly appreciated her insightful post.
Lives Lost to Autism
This one is hard to read and has become somewhat controversial already, but I think it is an important part of autism awareness to also recognize that there are tragedies that involve people with autism which likely would not have happened if they did not have this disorder.
Lives Lost to Autism is a blog that has been started by Ginger Taylor, who explains the reasons behind it on her blog Adventures in Autism. It is a collection of news stories where a life has been lost, either of or by a person with autism. There is no commentary on the site and no comments allowed; it is simply a compilation of news stories where a death has occurred.
Coming Up on Another Piece of the Puzzle
Stay tuned this week, as I have my first blogger interview post coming up. My guest will be Amy Fenton Lee from The Inclusive Church blog, and I think it will be spread over two days since she has a lot of great information and advice to share with us!
P.S. I’d love to hear your reaction to any of these posts or what you’d like me to keep my eyes peeled for! Have a great week.
I recently received a review copy of Cowboy & Wills: A Remarkable Little Boy and the Puppy That Changed His Life by Monica Holloway, which is the story of her son Wills’ diagnosis with autism and the journey she embarked on to find answers and the help that he needed. Amazingly enough, one of the best answers she found was in Cowboy, the golden retriever puppy who made the biggest difference of all.
As I read this book, I could really identify with Monica’s struggles to deal with all of the emotions that come along with having a child with autism, accepting the diagnosis and finding your way through the maze of therapies and programs that are out there.
Although my husband was not living apart from us, as Monica’s was due to his job, I definitely took on the burden of researching and filling out forms and making appointments for my son, as I think most moms do. (My husband is more than willing to take time off work for whatever meetings and other needs Michael has, but my schedule and organizational strengths made it natural for me to take the lead in that area.)
It is always difficult to see your child not fit in to a typical recreational or educational setting, and even harder when the professionals in those settings aren’t willing to do what it takes to make inclusion successful for everyone involved. I cried along with Monica when the director of Wills’ private kindergarten says they will deal with it:
Maybe we’d found a place where we belonged. I broke down into embarrassing sobs.
Neal was sympathetic. “I know this is difficult, Monica.”
I shook my head, rifling through my purse for a Kleenex or a Starbucks napkin. “I’m not crying because it’s difficult, it’s always difficult. I’m crying because you care so much. I’m crying because you aren’t giving up on Wills.”
“CCS is a community,” Neal explained. “It’s good for other students to see that someone can struggle and still be accepted.”
Monica seeks out many different resources for Wills’, but it is when they get him a puppy that they really see him start to come out of his shell. Cowboy is a natural draw for adults and children alike, and Wills begins to gain confidence and interact more with the world around him through her. Although she only lives for 2 1/2 years due to illness, she truly changes his life.
If you are interested in reading an excerpt from Cowboy & Wills, simply click on the link to download it. (Please let me know if you have any trouble with this, as it is the first time I have tried to link to a Word document on my blog.) You can also view the trailer below – here’s the link to the source if it’s not coming through on here.
Don’t Forget the Giveaway!
I am excited to be able to offer a free copy of this book to one of my readers with a US mailing address. All you have to do to enter is leave a comment on this post and include a valid email address so I can contact you if you win. Comments will be closed at midnight on August 7th, and the winner will be announced shortly thereafter.
What would you say to someone who has just learned that their child has special needs? What do you wish someone had said to you?
If you have any thoughts to share on this topic, please leave your comment either here or on the official post. Or if you want to write a post that addresses this topic (or already have one in your archives), add your link to the Mr. Linky at 5 Minutes for Special Needs.
On a side note, I realized that at some point I stopped posting a link to Try This Tuesday here lately, so here are the ones you may have missed:
I am always brainstorming for new topics to use for this column and would love to hear any and all of your suggestions. (I’m begging here – a girl can only think of so many ideas all on her own!!) So shoot them at me, either here or by my contact form. I greatly appreciate the help.
Although I have been using Blogger since the end of January and spent a lot of time playing around with various layouts and widgets, WordPress is definitely a challenge to learn.
I am hoping to spend some quality time on it this weekend, even though I have to work on Saturday to make up the hours I will lose due to the Labor Day holiday on Monday.
Some other things I have to do:
Find out if the van is picking Michael up from school today or if I have to take off work to go get him
Call my husband’s cousin to see if her mother would like a visit tomorrow
Keep doing the mountain of laundry I started this morning
Finish the revisions to the parent booklet for the non-profit group I am involved with
Write blog posts for the weekend
For now, I will leave you with this quote from Charlotte Bronte:
Cheerfulness, it would appear, is a matter which depends fully as much on the state of things within, as on the state of things without and around us.”
I have been thinking about the questions of why I started blogging and what my goals are, and one thing I know is that I was drawn to it by a group of women who are or have been members of the moms’ group at my church. I have not been a regular MIA attendee since my son’s diagnosis with autism a little over three years ago, mainly due to work and therapy schedules, so having the chance to connect with some of them in this way has been a wonderful experience.
There has been a lot of posting of lists from the bloghopping parties and such, and I have met lots of great new people that way, but I also really love visiting these women who are sharing their hearts and encouraging one another (and me) through the various struggles and triumphs that arise through life as a mom, a wife, a friend and a Christian. So I wanted to share them with everybody else:
Growing up in my family, when you were putting a puzzle together you kept the box cover out the whole time to help you figure out the right way to do it. You also started with just the edges and put the entire border together before even looking at the center pieces. In my husband’s family, you put all the pieces out on the table, put the box away and start putting together whatever looks promising. Eventually it all comes together and looks good, but it stresses me out the whole time!
I feel like my whole life has been spent trying to figure out all the answers and the right way to do something before I even put the first two pieces together. In my head, I realize you have to put yourself out there and do the best you can, but the rest of me always tries to pull back to safety. So, although it may not seem like a big step to most people, I am starting this venture without having read up on all the technical aspects of blogging or even the social/etiquette rules of the blog world. I am going to learn as I go along.
So, that’s it for today; tonight I am seeing a friend who is moving far away and although gatherings of many people I do not know make me very uneasy, I am going to put away the box for now and focus on the important parts of the picture.
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Blogging & Social Media, Daily Life
Tags: blog gems, blog hops, firsts, getting started
by Monica Holloway, which is the story of her son Wills’ diagnosis with autism and the journey she embarked on to find answers and the help that he needed. Amazingly enough, one of the best answers she found was in Cowboy, the golden retriever puppy who made the biggest difference of all.
