To be clear, I did not go to medical school. I am not a doctor. I’ve never even played one on television. I am not educated in the world of neuroscience, or brain development, or psychology. Hi. My name is Carrie. I am a forty-five-almost-forty-six year old housewife with five kids. My husband Joe is […]
Dearest Mama, I enjoyed talking to you tonight, and meeting your little guy. While he darted in and out of line and dumped the Tic-Tacs all over the floor, you explained he has autism. I got very excited because I also have a son with autism. His name is Jack. He is sixteen. The hard […]
The especially fun thing about autism is the way it’s always presenting me with predicaments that I never, in my life, imagined. For example, how fast can you chase a toddler who figured out the lock on the front door, if you are wearing only a towel? How do you handle yourself when he fills […]
My life has become something of a hamster wheel, if you will. I get out of bed when I hear my son Jack and his autism stomp down the hall and turn on the shower. Drink coffee, let the dog out, answer questions about spiders in Brazil. Then some yoga, or the treadmill. Rouse teenagers […]
What can I say that you don’t already know? My son has autism. His name is Jack. He is sixteen years old. People ask me lots of questions about stuff like gluten-free diets, applied behavior analyses, and medication for anxiety. I try to answer as best I can. I say that we don’t eat glute-free […]
Do you remember going to those meetings before we got married? In that pretty house down the street? We sat on big green couches, and listened to a couple maybe ten years older than us talk about vows and Catholicism and family. At some point a small boy raced through the room. The husband smiled […]
Listen, I like rules. I like order. I like a clean kitchen at night and I make my bed every morning. Hi. My name is Carrie. I live in New Hampshire with my husband Joe, our five kids, and a silly dog named Wolfie. Our second son, Jack, has autism. Autism is the conversation that […]
We just started the college application process with our oldest son, Joseph. Some people call him Joey, or even Joe. I call him Buca. I’ve done it since he was two weeks old. I can’t really explain why. Anyway, this college stuff is pretty overwhelming. There’s a lot to it—GPA, test scores, activities, clubs, letters […]
Hi, my name is Carrie. I have five kids and my second son, Jack, has autism. Time is a curious thing. It compresses, and expands. And when it comes to keeping a teenage boy with autism busy at the end of June, it stands still altogether. I wake up every morning mapping out possibilities. A […]
