I have never once sat in the bleachers and rooted for you to hit a homerun. I have never sat in a stuffy middle-school gym and rooted for you to spell the word paragraph into a microphone. That’s the tricky thing about autism. It makes me consider how we don’t root for the same things as most. […]
Last night our son Jack called to say his debit card was declined. We sat on opposite ends of the couch, trading the phone back and forth, trying to calm him down. He was trying to order food from Uber Eats. French fries and a frozen Pepsi. We checked the account. There was money in […]
My oldest son. My firstborn child. This is a letter I never wanted to write. I am counting on you. Of course I am. How could it be any other way? It isn’t fair. I know. I used to think life was fair. Then autism came on the scene in the shape of a 9-pound, […]
My son. Autism connected us together in the complicated ways. For eighteen years, we were a “we.” I spoke when you couldn’t find the words. My regulation was the barometer for your own. I fought. I sat in stuffy conference rooms and made a case for inclusion and behavior therapy. I wrote emails. I made phone […]
Is he high functioning? People often ask me this. It usually comes on the heels of my original offering—the offering of my son’s autism diagnosis, all baby bird in my upturned palm. I understand the question. I understand the desire to find footing upon the slippery bell curve. I understand because I do it all […]
When my son Jack was six years old, he ran right in front of an oil truck. It was early October. The leaves crunched underfoot—a carpet of red and gold fit for royalty. We were passing out flyers for our annual Halloween party, tucking them into mailboxes down our long, winding street. It was one […]
In our house, we chose the dinner table. It wasn’t always easy. With five kids and autism, there was a fair amount of chaos and noise. Arguments over spilled milk, forks dug into the wooden table, sibling rivalry, arguments about peas. When our son Jack was little he got up and circled the table nine […]
Lately, when it comes to our son and his autism, we are not, as they say, on the same page. I mean, it’s not like we haven’t been here before. Typically I latch onto an idea—integrated preschool, music therapy—and you don’t say much. You nod your head and I take that as agreement. Except we aren’t […]
Pssst, hey you. Yes, you. The Mama whose brain is a catalogue of shoe sizes, permission slips, meatball recipes, and social stories. The woman trying to balance marriage/motherhood/autism and the cart in the grocery store. I see you. I hear you I am you. My name is Carrie. I have five kids. My second son, Jack, […]
My son Jack was diagnosed with autism in 2005. Carrie Underwood had just won American Idol. Matthew McConaughy was named the Sexiest Man Alive by People Magazine, and scientists discovered a dwarf planet called Eris. I knew nothing about autism. Aside from a random documentary I’d once watched, and the movie Rain Man with Dustin Hoffman, I […]