Sundays can be rough. Waking up at 7 am to sit in church for hours is going to be tough on anyone, but it hits young kids the hardest. We manage to get Kella through the first hour–full congregation, no breakout for kids–only with a constant stream of snacks and quiet activities to draw her attention away from the person at the lectern drawling on…
I once read an article that claimed young children believed their parents knew everything that happened to them. Even if the parents were miles away. The article went through some song and dance about how children thought they were connected with their parents, as if the parent could see through the child’s eyes. Is it true? I have no clue. But it may go a…
Last week, I had a great opportunity to attend a presentation by Tom Rath, the author of such books as StrengthsFinder 2.0, Eat Move Sleep, and, most recently, Are You Fully Charged? And oh man, for that last one, I am absolutely not. Fully charged, that is. I’m more like the battery of an old phone where the promised 12+ battery life at purchase date has…
Even though I was a huge nerd growing up, the one thing I didn’t do was play Dungeons & Dragons. I’m pretty sure that’s because none of my friends were playing it at the time, but I’ll admit there’s a possibility that I just wasn’t invited. So now that I’m older with children, I’ve been given the opportunity to jump into the strange world of…
Sometimes, the best thing we can get in life is perspective. There’s no more well worn trope than to have a character realize what’s important in life due to a birth/death/disease/zombie apocalypse/extra five minutes of movie trailers/etc. It’s an easy-to-use fallback because, at least for most people I’ve met, there’s a lot of truth to be found in that lazy writing. These past few days,…
When we were going through various diagnostic sessions with Finley, one question that came up again and again was if he was “scripting.” This is a term that is thrown around enough that if you search for “scripting autism” you’ll get helpful results on Google (though “scripting” by itself is apparently more associated with programming on the Goog). To sum up the term, scripting is…
We’ve had our share of seizure scares over the past few months. After a particularly frightening incident, we broke down and bought the SAMi-3 Sleep Activity Monitor, which is recommended by the Epilepsy Foundation to help worried parents get a decent night’s sleep. The camera itself is pretty great (except for the dumb limitation of having to be hooked up to a iOS device). The idea…
Back in my day, The Sims was a phenomenon. Everyone was playing the game, from Granny down the street to the teenage basement-dwelling punk. Finally, a game where you could make your avatar do exciting things like. . .go to work, and exercise, and cook dinner, and use the bathroom. Why would you want to run around like some super hero saving the world when you…
I once read an article about a man who had grown up oblivious to the emotions of others. I can’t recall the details of his situation, but much later in life he went through medical treatments that allowed him to gain the super power of emotion. He hated it. It totally ruined his comfy middle class life. It’s like the 30 Rock episode where Tracy Jordan…
A few weeks ago, I read “The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls” by Claire Legrand. I really enjoyed it, despite some disturbing parts–which were Finley’s favorite. For days after we finished, Finley asked me again and again to read the “Lobby” scene, which was one of the most frightening scenes in the book. Since this is the boy who thinks Rescue Bots is on…