For the love of bacon

I knew it when I put that bacon in the microwave. I had sliced it in half yesterday when I was cooking, and I bagged the rest to use later. I fooled myself into thinking that the sliced in half bacon would be sufficient for Addison's breakfast. Two scrambled eggs and three whole slices of bacon with one slice of white bread toast...just the same, every morning since we moved to New Orleans a few weeks ago. I knew that's what he would want but I put that half sliced bacon in the microwave anyway and cooked the eggs for him like it wouldn't be a big deal.

When I put the plate in front of him, he looked at me like I had served him a plate of live squid. He shifted in his chair a little and breathed in and out a few times before saying, “This bacon is short.” I tried to be cool. I played nonchalant and explained why the bacon was smaller than normal. He even ate a piece of it. I could see the wheels turning in his mind. He was really contemplating that breakfast. I actually think he was trying to figure out if he could eat the breakfast. Maybe he even wanted to at first. I realized I was holding my breath when he put his fork down and said, “I'm not hungry.”

I don't know why in the hell I decided at that moment that today was going to be the day...the day that I put my foot down with this kid and made him mind me. Whatever the reason, I dug my nails into the arm of the chair and fixed my expression and said, “You need to eat your eggs.” The events of the next ten minutes were a blurry mess of me first trying to bribe him into eating the eggs and then making compounded threats of groundings to come and him still refusing to eat the eggs. By the time I realized that I wasn't going to win this battle, I had grounded Addison from everything with a plug and/or batteries and also from going anywhere even remotely close to natural light. Still, those eggs sat on that plate untouched.

Finally, I said “Addison, I need you to eat half of those eggs and you aren't going to leave that seat until they aren't on that plate.” He very calmly and coolly picked up the plate and dumped the eggs and that damn short bacon onto the floor. I have to hand it to him. They weren't on the plate anymore, now were they Mom?

Then I laid the gauntlet: “Clean up those eggs right now or I am going to spank you.”

A physical struggle ensued. I lost the shame associated with admitting that this happens in our house a long time ago. I am not a spanker. Never have been...even with my other two boys. I can't count the number of times I have been advised that all Addison needs is a good spanking. But you can't spank Asperger's out of a kid any more than you can spank diabetes out of a kid or spank cancer out of a kid or...well, you get my point. So I very rarely use any physical contact as punishment, but occasionally I have to take it to that place. When I feel Addison escalating to violence (which he has struggled with in the past), I do have to keep him safe from himself and keep others safe from him. I could see it in his face that he was going to that place. He does this thing with his jaw, like halfway between a grimace and a grin but with clinched teeth.

I could see it in his face and I knew it was coming. He was looking around his immediate area for stuff to throw. I grabbed him and held onto him for dear life and hugged and chanted in my head and tried to ride it out. When I began to feel him release a little and heard in his voice that he was getting down from the ledge, I let go. In the 45 seconds it took for him to clean up the eggs, I wrote a novel in my head. I couldn't just let him get away with this, could I? I had to punish the whole mess, right? Should I just let it go? Could I? God I really wish I could just let it go. I don't want to fight anymore. He's only been awake for 30 minutes. What should I do? Can I talk without crying at this point? Don't let him see you cry, Jana. How can I prove my point without pissing him off again? Damn, I just mopped that floor an hour ago.

After he finished, I sent him to the kitchen table and put a notebook and pencil in front of him and said, “Write lines to the bottom of the page: I will mind my mother.”

The conversation went something like this:

Addison: You are not my mother anymore and I am not writing that. I will run away. I will go to the street.
Me: Well, you are not leaving the table until you do.
Addison: I'm not.
Me: Yes, you are.
Addison: You aren't my mother.
Me: Well, you can write “I will mind Jana” if that makes you feel better.
Addison: I am not writing that either.

(Addison rips the page of notebook paper in half and throws it on the floor with the pencil.)

Me: We will sit right here until you write it. I have all day, and you are already grounded from everything.
Addison: How about I just write “I'm sorry.”

(My heart rips in half and I have to look away so he doesn't see me crying.)

Me: Are you sorry?
Addison: No, I'm not. But that's less to write.
Me: OK, you can write I'm Sorry.
Addison: I'm not writing that either. Never mind. I'm leaving. I will find a new family to live with.
Me: Well Addison, I really don't know if you would be able to find a family to let you live with them the way you are acting.

(Thinking to myself...”That will get his attention! He will back down now! Yes!”)

Addison: I wouldn't act like this with another family. I would be nice to them because I would care about their feelings. I don't care about your feelings and that's why I am mean to you.

(Wow.)

I stayed firmly planted by the kitchen counter and we kind of just stared at each other for what seemed like eighty lifetimes but was probably thirty seconds. Finally Addison picked up the notebook and said, “I will write I'm Sorry.” After some negotiations about periods and apostrophes and whether the parakeet would survive without a fresh bowl of water until the lines were done, Addison started to write.

He slowly but surely writes “Im....sor....”and then his face starts to scrunch a little and he says, “My handwriting is not so good mom. I can't do this.” I tell him that the handwriting doesn't matter as long as he does the lines and he says “I'm so stupid. I'm such a stupid little boy. I can't even write,” and his face crumples and tears well up in his eyes. Now I have to summon all my wisdom and pride and Asperger Mom knowledge and decide what is important here. Do I make him write the lines...to prove my authority and to punish him for not eating cold scrambled eggs that I wouldn't have eaten myself? Or do I go over and hug him and tell him how smart and sweet and funny he is and how I have a really cool handwriting dry erase board that we can use to practice his letters on?

I chose the latter. I hugged. I told him that I thought the R's that he wrote were suberb and that I like the way he made his M humps. I helped him write “I'm Sorry” five more times on the page and put the notebook away. When he got up from the table, Addison came over and gave me a kind of side-hug and patted my shoulder and said, “I'm sorry for being a jerk, Mom. I will eat whatever you cook me for lunch,..if its not scrambled eggs.”

Me and my big ass, yellow-bellied, liberal mouth...

So…its been quite a day. For those of you that don’t know, I am a terrorist, a Communist, a dumbass, a Yankee in disguise, and more suited to live in Canada than in America. Well, that is if you take the word of any of the 20 some odd people that felt it necessary to attack me last night and today via Facebook. It was also suggested that me being a teenage mom had something to do with my inability to go along with the typical Southern Republican agenda. This one was definitely the hardest to figure out. I have received 20 email messages, some from people that I don’t even know since 10:00 PM last night. I didn’t even take the time to count the comments on my profile and on other people’s profiles about me. Frankly I just gave up and cooked instead.


I am a bleeding heart liberal. I don’t know how I got this way. I was raised in Vicksburg the same as the rest of you. I guess I can attribute it to the fact that my family raised me to believe in my heart just as much as I believe in my head and encouraged me to form my own opinions about things regardless of whether they were the same opinions as everyone else’s or not. Not implying for a second that you all weren’t fortunate enough to be raised in such an environment. What I mean is that I was given the support to make my own way in the world and out of that came a very liberal attitude towards most everything. My political opinions are my right. Just as you all have the right to believe in whatever you believe in, I do too. That’s what so great about this country. Anyone that wants an opinion is entitled to that opinion.


I don’t make it a habit to discuss my politics unless I am in a situation where a healthy debate is appropriate. Last night when I heard the news about this major historical event, I made a comment on my own Facebook page that a lot of people disagreed with. What happened next can only be described as a full on assault on my character, my intelligence, and my morals. I was all at once astounded and angered. I didn’t go to other people’s pages and push my beliefs on any of them. There is a very simple way to not see a post that you don’t like on someone else’s page. It’s called delete. Delete me! Hide me! Mark me as spam! Don’t come to my Facebook wall where my children frequently look around and call me names! And if you hate our president (which I firmly believe you have every right to do) let’s not make plans to have a pre-election party next go around. And for those of you that took the time to email me personally, did you have nothing better to do today? I didn’t say “thank your president” on your page, so why the hell are you saying how much he sucks on mine? And also, for those of you that kindly reminded me that it was the American military that killed Osama Bin Laden, I realize that. I didn’t have visions of President Obama taking a quick trip over to Pakistan and pulling any triggers. I am a liberal but I am also very supportive and appreciate of our military. There is a very big difference between being anti-war and being anti-military. I am proud of our military and of the team that pulled off this mission with no troop or civilian casualties. I am also tremendously proud of President Obama and the team of advisors that has been meeting behind closed doors for the past five weeks planning this mission so meticulously that the only thing that went wrong was a faulty helicopter.


Mid-day today I made the decision to delete my Facebook and Twitter and just put it behind me. Then I realized that I am absolutely NOT doing that. While I obviously don’t take social media as seriously as some people (insert your name here if you need to get a life/job/clue about the world), I do enjoy keeping in touch with my friends and family on Facebook and sharing pictures, videos, or whatever I want to share with those people.


Say what you want on your own page. Say what you want about ME on your own page. If you choose to comment on my Facebook page, please keep in mind that my children are looking. I won’t come to your page to challenge your opinions on whomever you choose to support politically. I won’t question the conspiracy theorists that are calling this a re-election ploy or those that are crediting GW for yesterday’s events. And if you are emailing me to tell me that I am a terrorist, please save your time. I am done reacting to your ignorance.


I would never treat anyone the way that I was treated over something as insignificant as a Facebook post. Me and my big ass, yellow-bellied, liberal mouth are here to stay, folks. If you don’t want to hear what I have to say, then please don’t look.

How I became a Saints fan/A Superbowl post

I think that I should have been a football fan all my life. Honestly, I don't know how I got around it. I always got the biggest kick out of seeing people's reactions when I said that my dad played for the 49ers...but never really even watching a football game in it's entirety made me un-interested in what that actually meant to fans of the sport. My knowledge of my dad's football career is spotty...I know that he played for SanFran in the early 70s (before I was born) and that he was set to play for the Saints when he injured his knee and retired from the sport. So I guess it could be that I made a conscious effort to NOT like football because it was something that I should have liked alot. I'm a rebel, what can I say?

All that aside, I happen to have stumbled across being a Saints fan the fairly typical girl way. I married a Who Dat. Now don't get me wrong, living on the Gulf Coast for the last 7 years where the Saints are not a sports team but a RELIGION, I had to succumb to fan-dom. I had watched some games! I had tried, by myself and quite unsuccessfully, to figure out what the hell was going on. I knew that when they scored, it was good. But my interest in football was really pretty limited and simple: I founded an all girls fantasy football league in response to a guy I worked with telling me that girls weren't allowed in his league and those of us that joined the league stayed active in it purely for the smack talking that happened weekly on the message board. We could not have cared less who was winning the games. We really didn't even know who was winning the games. Hell, the girl that won the entire season had never logged in one time.

So, I didn't know anything about football. You don't really have to be a football fan to love the Saints. Because as I have learned this season, the Saints aren't just a football team. They are the story of a city. Cheesy? Yeah. I don't care. What I mean to say is that up until this season, I was a fan of the New Orleans Saints as a theory, an entity within the entity of The Big Easy. I didn't really care if they won or lost, I just wanted them to keep playing!

That being said, I was SO missing out! What was I thinking all these years? Football is the ultimate drama/comedy/love story/reality show all rolled up into one intense time slot! You can't script this stuff! I laugh, I cry, I scream, I cover my eyes! When that kick was good and the Saints won their way to the Super Bowl, I jumped on the bed and got hushed by my loud football loving husband! There's nothing more exciting on television.

I still have alot to learn. I spend a whole lot of time thinking to myself, "Wait, what just happened?" Ken is very patient with me. He explains over and over again the same things and he tries to assure me that everything will be OK. I feel like I need a book. Do they make a Football for Dummies or something like that?

Some may say that this qualifies me as a bandwagon fan, but I don't think so. It just so happens that I realized what I had been missing for so long in a year where they won it big. I secretly think they won it big BECAUSE I started watching, but I don't expect anyone else to believe that (except maybe my friend Carmen who thinks that she causes interceptions with her mind like Firestarter or something). Now that I am in love with the Saints, I can't imagine what my life will be like once the Super Bowl is over. And one more thing...what's so bad about jumping on the bandwagon anyway? It's fun up here! Everyone knows that Saints fans can party like its no one's business. Does it really matter if you just took notice of something once it got big and fancy? I know, I know...the long suffering fans who stuck by thru thick and thin...thru losses and, well, losses...they get dibs when the participant ribbons go out. But seriously, everyone that is a Saints fan either was born into it, married into it, or just stumbled upon it somehow.

So maybe I take back what I said about not wanting to qualify as a bandwagon fan. I am a member of the Who Dat Bandwagon, and I am proud.

Not a Christmas post...

There are so many things in life that I can say I am happy to have been through. Of these things, most of them are also things that I think everyone should experience. Love, parenthood, career success...etc. I also have a list of things that I have had happen/I have done that I don't recommend anyone try but I am so glad to have been through them. Dare I say that they make me who I am? Why yes, I believe I do.

1. Natural childbirth. There are very few things that I do really, really fast. Having babies is one of them. While I would like to say that during the process of having my last child I was stoic and calm and not begging for narcotics, that would be a total lie. I was screaming, my mama was screaming, I was BEGGING for something, anything...just please give me a shot! The nurse threatened to remove my mama from the delivery room and for I think the first time I heard her fling a string of obscenities across a room like a sailor. But that being said, I am glad that there was no time for drugs. I did it and have very little recollection of it now. This makes me know that pain is temporary and kind of helps me to be less of a whiny brat when I am sick or something hurts. And I get total bragging rights. Broken hand? Too bad, try natural childbirth...

2. Shaving my head. Two years ago I challenged coworkers to raise $1,000 for the Susan Komen Breast Cancer Foundation and agreed that if they did then I would allow them to shave my head at work. They raised it. I learned so many lessons. It takes being someone that strangers stare at to make you stop staring at strangers. I got sympathetic head nods from so many people that assumed I was sick. The cashier at our usual lunch bunch spot said, "Um, didn't you used to have....hair?" I came to appreciate my hair in a way I can't explain. I have always had thick, heavy, hot hair and it has driven me crazy for most of my life. But when I had NO hair, hot hair is all I craved. I realized too that it is possible to feel feminine with a shaved head but also that I don't ever want to have to do it again.

3. Marrying the wrong person. Spending years in an unhappy and unhealthy marriage didn't ruin me or break me. It just made me know how it SHOULD be. I won't make the same mistakes I did last time. I won't ignore the same things or accept the same things. More than all this, I will recognize when I have it really, really good (which I so do now).

4. Gaining weight. Seriously. I admit to trying like hell to lose it. But I am glad that I know what it is like to be overweight. It's one of those things that you can't imagine unless you've done it. Again, I am not recommending anyone do it. But I am glad I did. And I will be even more glad when I lose it.

5. Losing a friend. I totally absorb my friends. When a friend leaves my life for whatever reason I feel like a part of me is gone. I do know that while losing important friends is not something I strive for, it does make me appreciate the friends that I have left more. It also makes me more aware of the ways in which my friends affect me, whether good or bad.

6. Leaving a friend. When you make the decision to move on from a friendship that is toxic to you or to the other person, it is tough. I am trying this new thing lately of recognizing the difference between being supportive and being an enabler when it comes to my friends. There is a point where you have to stop supporting bad decisions and I have been really bad at realizing that until recently. While my friends might not like losing the old Jana, the one that was always cheering them on no matter what, I think that I will be a better friend in the end. We are not kids any more. And sometimes you just have to move on.

There are more that are too personal to share...but it made me feel good to list these.

Peace, ya'll,
Jana

(My friend Rudy always signed his blog "Peace, ya'll." It always made me smile so much to read those two words. He recently passed away and I thought of him as I was finishing this. I wanted to carry on his "Peace, ya'll" thing...I may not remember to do it every time, but when I do I will think of him and smile big.)

An open apology to Mr. Chad Poovey

I was thinking last night of a conversation that I had with an instructor of mine at Hinds back in around 2001. I had resisted getting a cell phone for years and I was totally judgy about people that always had their phone in their hand. I made the bold prediction that I would never even HAVE a cell phone, much less use one regularly. Mr. Poovey, consider this an open apology. I was wrong in judging you for checking your phone during lectures.

Over the years I eventually got a cell, of course. For a while, I stood firm and fussed at people if they called me on it for anything that wasn't an emergency. But slowly and surely, I caved. It started out small...adding 100 texts a month to my plan or upping my minutes. When I got my first internet connected phone three years ago, I realized I was in for total, hypocritical trouble.

As of this morning, I have downloaded a fifth app to my phone to further my connectedness. What this means, to put it simply is that I am totally addicted to the instant access that my Blackberry affords me. Is it really necessary that I can see a photo someone tagged of me as soon as it happens?

I know for certain that I check my phone as the last thing I do before I fall asleep. I also admit to checking it if I wake up in the night (we can all pretend it is to see what time it is, but come on...if there's a new text, I am so reading it). I am not ashamed to admit that the reason I use my phone as my alarm is so that when I pick it up to turn the buzz off, I see how many emails came in the 3 hours since I looked at it last when I got up for water.

If you need me and you can't call me, you can send me a text. Don't have your phone handy? Just send me an email. Blackberry user? BBM me! No Blackberry? That's OK, hit me up on GChat! Feeling the need for some PDA? Send me an @ Tweet and everyone will see it! Facebook stalking today? Just send me a comment, my phone will go wild!

Now that my new job requires me to spend at least 60% of my time managing the social networking for the mall, I am in even more deep. I am currently in the process of linking the work Facebook and Twitter to my phone so that I can have them at my fingertips at all times as well. While I have thus far managed to resist the urge to have my work email sent to my Blackberry, I am sure that it's just a matter of time before I give in on that front too.

There was an episode of Margaret Cho's short lived VH1 show where she asked all her friends to go to a cabin for the weekend with her and when they got there she took their phones away and locked them up. I believe the point was to see how long it took before people started trying to kill each other...or more specifically her since she had the key to the cabinet where their phones were. I can relate. If I can't find my phone for 2 minutes I freak out. What if I miss a text??

I think that I should challenge myself to disconnect regularly. I could start out small...say 3 hours on Saturday. I would not only turn off the phone, but also give it to someone for safe keeping so I don't sneak in a check or two. It would be like a 12 step program for smartphone addicts like me...Eventually I could work my way back down to a regular phone that I could call for help on if stranded on the side of the road.

Who am I kidding?


"Son, no one gives a shit about all the things your cell phone does. You didn't invent it, you just bought it. Anybody can do that." ~www.twitter.com/shitmydadsays (yeah, it's sent to my phone)

And that is the saddest of all, my girl....

Ken and I watched the movie Adventureland last night. Both of us being total music lovers, we enjoyed the soundtrack just as much as the story line. We also both count mix tapes high on the list of our favorite things, so a scene where a mix tape called J's Bummer Songs caught both of our attention. We agreed to the challenge of the best bummer mix tape. I don't know who will be the judge. Like everything else, we will just decide that we both win...Secretly, I know that he has a much stronger musical focus than I do and his tape will blow mine out of the water, but don't tell him that. And yes, when I say tape I am actually referring to a CD.

So I have started my list. I will try to remember to share it later. In thinking about what I wanted to include, I realized that there are so many wonderful, beautiful, heartbreaking songs that I love that it will be hard to narrow it down to 18 or 19. This is my honorable mention list of 10.

1. If It's the Beaches - The Avett Brothers. Neither of us can use this one because we both love it so much that it cancels each other out. Really, anything by The Avett Brothers is cheating (just like bacon).

2. Space Oddity - David Bowie. "Ground control to major Tom, your circuits dead, there's something wrong." Ugh.

3. Brick - Ben Folds Five. Tragic. What can I say? "Now that I have found someone I'm feeling more alone than I ever have before." Saddest of all, it's true.

4. Tomorrow, Wendy - Concrete Blonde. I dare you to listen to it.

5. Eleanor Rigby - The Beatles. "Eleanor Rigby died in the church and was buried along with her name. Nobody came."

6. Luka - Susan Vega. Whatever. Listen to the lyrics of this pop song and you will hear one of the saddest stories there could be.

7. Fire and Rain- James Taylor. Not only one of my favorite sad songs, one of my favorite songs period. "I always thought that I'd see you again..."

8. Comfortable - John Mayer. Shut up. I love JM. I have often said that this song makes me want to fall in love, get dumped, and be broken-hearted just so I can sing it with the ferver and emotion that it deserves.

9. Always On My Mind - Willie Nelson. Classic story of too little, too late. Get's me every time.

10. Beloved Wife - Natalie Merchant. "A depth so deep into my grief without my beloved soul I renounce my life." It was hard for me to decide between this one and "Seven Years" (both are from Tigerlilly, Natalie Merchant's first solo album).

Listing these 10 has made me think of at least 20 more that are noteworthy. I can remember so many times in my life where I was devastated for one reason or another and the perfect song made me feel altogether better and so much worst all at the same time. This particular verse from the song "That Day" by Poe was the nail in the coffin of a particularly lengthy breakup:



Oh yeah, something else...

I hope one day you call up your father

And you have the guts to tell him how he hurt you

And he made you hurt another

Cause it makes me sad.



There are at least 25 songs by Tori Amos that could be on this list of 10. Same goes for Dar Williams. And Jonatha Brooke. And...the list goes on and on. Then of course there are those songs that make you sad not necessarily because they are the saddest of all but because they hold significance for a particular time or event. I better not start listing those...I could write that post all day.



So here's the challenge: Listen to these 10 songs and see if you don't at least sigh a little. If I listen to all 10 in a row I will be a blubbering fool. Or if you don't like my picks, think about your own. Music is such a driving force. Let it drive you wherever you need to go.



"Put on some old sad bastard music, see if I care." - Jack Black, High Fidelity

We know nothing.

I spend alot of time trying to explain Asperger's Syndrome to people. I have become quite educated about AS since we knew that Addison had it before the doctors would even test him for it.

When someone asks me about it, I usually try to first explain that AS takes away the ability for the person that has it to understand the affect their actions has on other people. In Addison's world, what he does is only of consequence to Addison. People with Asperger's are usually described as aloof, cold, or even at times rude. To you, it may seem extremely rude or undisciplined for my child to tell you that he doesn't want to talk to you right now and wants you to leave him alone. To Addison, this is just a fact and isn't malicious or meant to be hurtful. There is no way to teach a person with AS how to be more socially graceful. My focus shifted a long time ago from trying to change the way he is to trying to change the way people accept him.

People mean well. They think they have the answers. People generally believe that they can fix Addison for me. I stopped letting it bother me a long time ago, but it still doesn't go un-noticed. Have I considered not immunizing him any further? Why yes, I have. Did I hear that a special diet can CURE autism? As a matter of fact I not only heard it, I tried it and it resulted in a mad and hungry little boy that still couldn't look people in the eye. Are you the first person to suggest that he just needs a good spanking? Um, no...you aren't. Have I prayed enough? Read enough books? Taken him to enough doctors? Tried this medication or that medication? Yes, yes, and yes again. If I could have these folks understand one thing it would be this...I stopped trying to change Addison a long time ago. He is accepted 100% just the way he is in my house. If you aren't one of the people that can accept him 100% just the way he is, then maybe you should stay home.

His obsessions rule his life and leave him unable to think about anything else. Some of his obsessions are long lasting (World of Warcraft, for example) and some will last a few hours and then never be mentioned again (the need to use a pencil with a certain color eraser at school which happened recently and resulted in a trip to the principal's office). Lately he has become quite infatuated with listening to ring tones on people's cells. What may seem silly or necessary to me or you might be the most important thing in the world to someone with AS. The thing I try to remind Addison's brothers, friends, everyone else is that if there's not a good reason why you shouldn't just let Addison do what he feels like he needs to do, then why not let him do it? This is not just indulgence of a kid that likes to get his way. An obsession is a deep rooted NEED for someone with AS. That being said, there are times where it is necessary not to partake in an obsession. World of Warcraft almost led to my commitment to Whitfield. Before WOW was banned from our household I would sometimes wake up at 3:00 a.m. to find Addison fully awake at the computer staring blindly at the screen, playing the game. He talked about nothing else for months. I had to take it away from him because it was interfering with the rest of all of our lives and causing him total anxiety and agitation. But listening to ringtones? Come on, let's choose our battles!

The things I wish that people would recognize are simple:

-There's nothing wrong with my child. If he makes you uncomfortable then we understand if you prefer to keep your visits short and sweet.

-You don't need to figure out adjectives that describe Addison when you are trying to point out that he isn't like your son. I don't need you to call him quirky, different, or special and I don't need to you refer to other kids as the normal ones, the regular ones, or whatever else you feel you need to do to distinguish them from each other. They are all just kids. It is fine, however if you want to call him smart, funny, sweet, handsome, or anything else that addresses how wonderful he is. Thanks.

-Staring at my son when he is mimicking something he saw on TV or a computer game is just like staring at anyone else with a disability. You wouldn't stare at a little boy in a wheelchair trying to figure out what is "wrong" with him, would you?

-Most importantly...however hard this is on me or Addison's brothers or other family members or teachers or anyone else the most important thing everyone needs to know is that it is HARDEST on Addison. He asks me often, "Can't you make this Asperger's go away?" We know nothing about dealing with Asperger's. Nothing at all.


Someone once told me that kids with Asperger's live in their own world and it was our job as their parent to not try to bring them to this world but to find our own way into their world. I may have gotten the wording of that wrong, but I like the thought.