Listen, I get it. He’s twelve. He’s almost as tall as I am and his sneakers are a whole size bigger than the ones I wear. He’s in the seventh grade. His older-by-one-year brother knows. His younger-by-three-years sister is beginning to connect the dots. Quietly, when no one else is in the room, she asks […]
When I was a little girl, I swore I heard your sleigh land on the top of our roof. I must have been about four years old, five at the most. When I said this—that I knew you had come in the night because I heard your sleigh and your reindeer—my father smiled a funny […]
Editor’s note: I wrote this post after talking with Jack about what holiday parties are like for him. He read it over, and reminded me the cookies were shaped like snowmen. I thought they were reindeer. My mom told me we are going to your house on Saturday. For a holiday party. The last time I was at […]
Autism has never been a secret in our house–it is something we talk about regularly with the kids. We talk about Jack’s various symptoms, how old he was when he got his diagnosis, and what his future may or may not look like. Yet we rarely touch on the topic of what it feels like to have a […]
Dear Rose, I have something to tell you. Come a little closer, because it’s kind of a secret. Before this year’s election, I had never voted before in my life. Not even once. I know, that is a terrible thing admit. I mean, in college I studied something called political science and I actually have […]
Dear Alicia, The first time I met you was about six years ago, at the town pool. I was the mom with the five kids and the big bag of towels spilling everywhere. I think my youngest son, Henry, was crying because I forgot to bring money for ice cream. But even with all the […]
I have lived alongside of autism for over twelve years, maybe even longer if you count the time my son spent in the womb, the complicated strands of his DNA twisting and bending. It is he and he is it. Yet it is not wholly him, nor he wholly it. It has tested my marriage, my […]
Three of my boys are in some version of middle school. And three of my boys are in some version of puberty. With a family of five kids and two adults, this means 42.8571429% of my household is beginning the long, jagged descent through adolescence. One of them—my 12-year old son, Jack—has autism, so as […]
Hello. You don’t know me. My name is Carrie. I just wanted to say hi because I know about today. Today is the day that somehow divides a childhood, a marriage, and a family. It is both the beginning of something and the end of something all at the same time. There was before, and now there […]
Research tells us anxiety is an emotion, often characterized by inner turmoil, dread, and the expectation of a future event. It is not the same as fear, because fear is the response to a real, actual event. Science says there are six major types; generalized anxiety disorder, panic attack disorder obsessive-compulsive disorder, phobia, social anxiety […]