eSpecially Ben

I am a mother to four year old boy/girl twins. I have a 20 year old step-daughter who has never lived with us and who we rarely see. My son was diagnosed with Autistic Spectrum Disorder in November 2010. From a very early age, my children were, as the English say 'chalk and cheese' - as different as night and day. My daughter was happy, outgoing, easy to please and to play with, and constantly wanting Mommy's attention. My son was happy, but more content playing on his own. He actually taught himself to walk and now he is teaching himself to read. My daughter has grown up listening to and dealing with my son's tantrums and repetitive play scripts. In order for her to have a playmate in him, she has had to learn to 'read' her brother and play his way, which is sometimes very difficult. I know we often expect much more from her than we do from him and this bothers me. I find myself scolding her for not telling me when he's getting into something or

Matt and I have been married for 12 years. I always wanted to be a mother and I was finally blessed five years ago with a healthy baby boy, Jason. Two years later we welcomed Luke to our family. Luke was born after a normal pregnancy but was sent to the NICU since he was 5 ½ weeks premature. During his hospital stay we learned that Luke had some health issues and was later diagnosed with CHARGE syndrome. Despite his health issues Luke was a great baby. He has an easy-going and happy personality even while under-going multiple surgeries and procedures. The decision to have more children after Luke was not an easy one. On one hand, I loved being a mother to my two amazing boys and yearned for one more child, hopefully a daughter this time (although I would have been happy with three boys too). On the other hand, would we want to take the chance that our next child would be born with a disability? Luke’s expression of CHARGE is relatively mild and I knew it can be so much more debilitat

Here are my annual photos of the first day of school. Sean is just glomming onto his brothers' first day of school. His is next week. Ben and Logan attend different schools but wear similar uniforms - polos with khakis. I was not successful in getting the school to allow Ben to walk onto the bus without the Convaid Stroller - at least for now. However, they are meeting Ben at the bus with his walker. According to the teacher and by judging how tired Ben is at the end of the day, I think he is spending a fair amount of time in his walker. One night, Ben actually fell asleep at the dinner table. New school & environment, but familiar people are with Ben throughout the day. The principal and assistant principle know Ben from when they worked as a team at his preschool. And the kicker...we walked into Ben's classroom at Open House and the teacher is a friend and neighbor with whom we lost touch after they moved away ten years ago. I don't know how i