You have a special talent for connecting with Aspie children. Even though we no longer see you, I recommend you to the half a dozen newly diagnosed families who call me every month. Well, I used to recommend you. I will no longer do so. I stupidly ignored when you would talk to me about […]
After taking Tommy to the Greek food eatathon, we dropped him off at Pellissippi to spend the day watching hot air balloons with his friend. Then, we went on an extremely rare dinner outing with our friends. Before we even had our food on the table, my phone rang. “The glow is at eight. You […]
“Do you have friends at school?” “Not really.” “Are people mean to you?” “No. I’m kind of invisible at school.” Cue meeting with teachers. What the teachers and I agree on is that Noah is incredibly bright. Nearly perfect tcap scores bright. There is no gifted program in middle school, but it wouldn’t matter because […]
Thursday night, Tommy called to say that he wanted to stay at school instead of coming home. Fine. Then, he asked me to bring him clean clothes. Not fine. I explained that ALL of his pants and underwear were already in his dorm room. Without a moment’s hesitation he asked me to drive up the […]
Earlier in the week, Tommy called to tell me he wanted to stay on campus for the weekend. He then asked me to make the 4 hour round trip drive to give him clean laundry. I told him he could go into town and buy himself a pair of jeans and a bag of underwear […]
Friday night I stayed up until 2 packing for Tommy. The rest of the night I stared at the clock. Saturday morning was a blur of car loading and trying to get out the door. I busied myself with paperwork the entire drive to LMU. As the car entered the campus, Tommy whispered, “I have […]
Tommy’s financial aid award letter finally came. His funding is coming from a dozen different sources and it has three errors I need to get corrected, but I think it’s going to work. Of course, the school still doesn’t want to discuss it with me. I told them the three things and they said they […]
Among the many government aid programs that exist, there is financial assistance for people with disabilities to get vocational training or a college education. I have always known this, because my grandmother earned a college degree with disability funding. The idea is that people with disabilities have skills and knowledge that make them employable and […]
One of the other scout parents has “concerns” about Tommy attending Boy Scout camp for a week without Doug there also. The person who was asked to relay this information only gave us one quote. “Is Tommy annoying on purpose?” I asked the concerned parent if they are annoying on purpose. No. I would not […]
About five years ago I had to take Tommy to another city for a medical test. The test began at 7 a.m. and required that he stay awake the entire night before. Tommy can’t stay awake if he takes his meds, so sans medication, Tommy and I checked into a hotel near the hospital. As […]