eSpecially Ben

Rainbow Camp is an annual camp sponsored by a local church.  This is a photo with Ben's counselor and buddy on the very first day. The buddy is Ally and she is the same age as Ben. The counselor, Jacob, is a member of the youth group at the church. He participated in a week long training before serving as Ben's buddy. I will share more as the week goes on. 

In late spring, I purchased a new pair of running shoes. While at the store, I noticed a flyer publicizing an upcoming running series. Each Tuesday during the month of June, at a nearby high school, this running company sponsored 50 meter, 100 meter, 400 meter, 400 meter relay and 1 mile races.  Thinking this may be a fun way to introduce Logan to running, we agreed to go the first night and check it out. As a last minute thought, I called the running store that afternoon and asked if they would allow a wheelchair runner. The woman who answered the phone thought it would be fine. Juliana is one of Ben's direct care providers, and I did not tell her about our plans beforehand. She is a go-with-the-flow kind of person and I was not sure what to expect, so when she arrived at our house in running attire, I knew something in the cosmic sphere was working in our favor. Juliana, in the year and a half she has worked with our family, has never showed up in running clothes. When I fille

About three days after I stopped the Benadryl, and continued "detoxing" Ben from all his sleep aids, Michele Huggins, the editor at Charlotte Parent Magazine , emailed me about writing an article about the benefits of nutrition on special needs children for their September issue of Exceptional Child . I agreed immediately, excited that she would ask me to write again for the magazine. I knew nothing about nutrition for special needs children except for a few buzzwords like gluten-free and, well... that's it. Two days later, armed with articles and research about nutrition, information from interviews with nutritionists, doctors and families with success stories, I decided to launch Ben on a four week Casein Elimination Diet. You will have to wait for my article to publish to find out all I learned, but what I will share is that I was a HUGE skeptic before I started my research. The time, money and energy were enough for me to say "no" to any change in di