And so we begin

I've started this blog as a therapeutic release of my daily dealings with Autism, but also as a way for our family and friends to have an insight as to what we deal with daily.

Maybe I should take things back to day one, or maybe I should just give a brief summary of how our lives ended up here, and then make the day one post a separate post??? I think for now, I'll begin with how we got here, and go from there, that way I don't divulge in everything right now, and be left with nothing to post for a while, ha!

I would have never had my children tested for Autism, had my dad not mentioned to me back in January 2012 if I had ever considered having my youngest, X (who is 2), tested for Autism. I say that, because in the 29 years I've been around, I've only seen and known my dad to take an aspirin twice. He fights out a cold, toughs out pain, and moves on his day; he's not one to mention something if he didn't find any reason to. I took X to his 18 month check up, more like a 20 month check up since I was late in getting him in; we were referred to Early Intervention for his lack of speech but was told everything else was fine (that's a whole other blog post, because everything was not fine). After months of testing he received an Autism diagnosis of moderate PDD-NOS. Among the testing we noticed several of the questions/red flags also pertained to my oldest son, H (who is 8). The psychologist said she would want to test H just to rule it out. Sure enough, this past Wednesday he too received an Autism diagnosis of Aspergers.

So here we are, a family of 5, my husband is currently in the Air Force and I stay at home tending to the multiple therapy appointments that X currently receives and that H will soon begin receiving as well. We also have a daughter who also starts with H, so I'll use another initial so it doesn't get confusing. N is 6 and the biggest girlie girl I know, she and I are out numbered by the men in the house, but that just means more mommy/daughter dates. Feel free to save our blog site, as I'll be writing daily posts (or as daily as it can get in this busy house) about how things are going, more on the testing processes, therapy, and day to day living.

Just know, we do not see this as a prison sentence for our children. We fully embrace it, it is who they are and we wouldn't have it any other way.