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Soup is a lot like family. Each ingredient enhances the others; each batch has its own characteristic, it need time to simmer to reach full flavor…Marge Kennedy.  In my heart family is a group of people who could be blood related or join together by marriage or dearest friends that stand by you closer than a brother or anyone you share a special connection that make you feel at home. Thus, family is everything because no one gets left behind or forgotten. Every family dynamic is a unique treasure. Often times we do not do realize how much we appreciate our family until we’re dealing with a life-threatening illness like cancer or raising a child on the autism spectrum or just going through changes in our life. Our family keep us grounded and help us not to feel alone in our life journey. Family fill our lives with precious memories. Yes, we can or should be happy being ourselves around our family. These are the ones who know us best and love us despite our flaws. Every family has disagreements at times, after all no one is perfect. In truth even when our family is driving us crazy, we still need our family. They’re a divine blessing to have as a support system, possibly they save us from drowning in despair.  It’s so beautiful when our family is around working together in unity and relying upon each others strength. I am what I am thanks to my mom, my dad, my brothers and my sisters…they believed in me. In turn I want M to know he has a family that loves and believe in him. I want him to feel welcomed and valuable like every member in our family. Today after therapy, M and I spent time together in a quite eatery. We laughed and ate good food. It was relaxing and M personality shined. When we walked out of the eatery, M took my hand and said “love you”.  M is teaching me our family is truly blessed to have him…life goes by really fast…enjoy quality time with family…those moments are priceless.

Simply an autism mom learning

Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear, and the blind can see. –Mark Twain. Kindness is a quality demonstrating warmth, consideration, generous and friendliness. Today more than ever kindness is priceless. In truth no act of kindness, no matter how small is ever wasted. Every kindness act creates a ripple with no real end that can change our life even the world. The root of kindness is about treating every human being like you want to be treated and helping those in need. Kindness in thinking and giving is a part of true beauty in a human. Kindness is in our power. In fact the spirit of kindness give no thought of any rewards or no ulterior motives. Hence, if everyone spoke and act with kindness misunderstandings, mistrust, and hostility would dissolve. I can imagine how different the world would be…there would be no bullying for children like my M or anyone with a different ability. Kindness has a healing effect on our soul. It’s a divine gift because it blesses one receiving and one giving. We can never show kindness too soon, life is unpredictable we never know how soon it will be too late. Kindness starts at home. Today M surprised me while walking to our home. He stopped and picked up a leaf. M handed me the leaf and said “thank you”. I took it and replied “thank you”. M displayed the most beautiful smile. I realized in his own way he was showing kindness. Later this evening M sat next to me on the sofa and offered me a half eaten cracker…he said “thank you” and I replied “thank you”. Yes, I ate the half eaten kindness cracker and M beautifully smiled. M is teaching me that kindness in thinking and giving equals love…never too young to learn kindness.

Simply an autism mom learning

Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet. Jean-Jacques Rousseau  It’s often stated that patience is a virtue that’s not always easy to practice. All of us face many issues or changes in our life that require us to be adaptive along with admitting if something is not in our ability to control in which case patience is critical. The very essence of patience goes beyond accepting or tolerating a delay, its encompass our attitude and behavior while we wait. Often times things aren’t clear right away but having patience and perseverance helps in a unique way of making difficulties disappear or lesson and obstacles vanish or shrink enough to step over in time. Patience with all things starts first with ourselves, the more we know ourselves the more likely we demonstrate patience towards what we see in others. The keys to patience is acceptance and faith. Becoming parents to a child on the autism spectrum heighten your capacity for love, understanding, and a new level of patience. You look realistically at your child potential and have faith with a whole lot of patience nurture them in the direction needed to be successful. Such endeavors of our child progress to success is not formed in a week or a month. It’s develop little by little day by day with patience and time. Noteworthy, I believe yelling, swearing or belittling a child or adult not to be hallmarks of a patient attitude or behavior. Having  patience in all things is difficult before they become easy. Last Saturday our M had an accident in which he cut his finger. In the past such incident would have been met with total meltdown and hours of trying to calm M down. However, months of therapy  is helping M learn various strategies to regulate his emotions. In truth it did take the assistance of other family members to treat his injury. However M managed to regulate his emotions in the mist of his injury, he kept repeating “Ok …Ok …Ok…calm down”. Yes, M did scream in between his self comforting words. I was proud that he was self-regulating with words. In fact less than an hour later, he was saying “All better.” M is teaching me with love, trust in our Creator, therapy and exercising patience go hand and hand…yielding forth amazing progress.

Simply an autism mom learning

The broad medical/scientific definition of autism denote a mental condition present from early childhood. It’s generally characterized by difficulty in communication, using language, understanding abstract concepts, forming relationships with other people, repetitive behaviors, possible seizures, and sensory issues. Yes, there is so many manifestations of it, so many kinds of expressions of it, every individual with autism is particular. Hence, that is why autism is considered a wide range spectrum. Mild autism can give you a genius like Einstein too severe autism in which you can remain non verbal. Noteworthy, autism is not contagious but rather genetics after all we’re all imperfect. I found this important to mentioned because sometimes people do not allow their child around my M as if he would infect them with autism. True, as parents of an autistic child you’re often judged and yes I know first hand what its like for people to stare at you in public when your child having sensory issues or do not act normal in their eyes. Autism unlike some disabilities does not carry a particular physical attribute. So many outsiders make assumptions base on mere appearance of a child/adult with autism. Often, I hear M look fine or he will grow out of it or autism just an excuse for a bad child or worse you need to make him normal. In honesty, these individuals do not understand M’s beautiful mind is like a computer that has its cables hookup or wired differently in which thinking becomes more sensory base in pictures, smells, touches and combining such into sensory base memories. There is no cure for autism at this time. However, we have many different types of therapy offered to help improve social interaction, adjust certain behaviors and verbal (sign language) communications. Sadly, like myself, many parents of an autistic child make sacrifices in getting better insurance coverage to accommodate the significantly high cost to obtain the best therapeutic services. I treasure meeting other families affected by autism. Their strength is inspiring. M is a blessing to our family regardless if no one else sees it. I would not trade my M’s uniqueness for the considered norm, in fact I am exhausted of people saying he need to be like everyone else. M is teaching me, he is always unique totally intelligent sometimes mysterious!

Simply an autism mom learning

How blessed are some, whose lives have no fears, no dreads; to whom sleep is a blessing that comes nightly and brings nothing but sweet dreams-Bram Stoker.  Sleep is that warm winter coat or blanket that make you feel comfortable and warmth relaxing your soul. Sleep is best for meditation, it allow our mind to shut down for a bit. It’s all about recovery time for the brain and body. It build our soul back up in order to embrace life. Often we can have peace of mind and enjoy sleep knowing our day was full of giving one hundred percent to our endeavors.  In truth our anxieties can be lessened by a good night sleep. Though sleep is our best friend, it’s a friend that can keep us waiting at times. We sleep, but the web of life never stops and the intricate line pattern that was started when the sun set is still being design when the sun rises. Many parents, like ourselves, have develop qualities needed to get through sleep disturbance nights with our autistic child. These qualities encompass patience, discipline, perseverance, and willingness to forego sleep. Thus our ability to weather crises and accept exhaustion as a fact of life become a merit badge of unconditional love for our child that no one ever sees. In fact such sleepless nights or early rising at 1 a.m can spill over into days or weeks. Perhaps sleep resistance, bouts of insomnia, night terrors, and waking up screaming/hysterical are common among autistic children. I have discovered even with a routine of lavender bath and relaxing time one hour before actual bed time plus melatonin does not guarantee M sleeping through the night. Although psychology completing this practices should help M obtain freedom to relax into sleep, sadly often times he can not regulate the inner chatter within his beautiful mind. Around 1 a.m this morning our M awaken again…it was not until sometime after six before he could find inner peace to crawl into our bed and sleep.  M has taught me these truths…when M is so tired and actually fall asleep wherever in the house, let him sleep and do not I repeat do not bother to put on pajamas; if we didn’t get any sleep coffee/caffeine is a definite plus in keeping our unfailing optimism that tonight we may sleep too at least 5 a.m….dare to dream.

Simply an autism mom learning