Author: Brittany Dawson
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Mourning A Life
It’s been a few weeks since I’ve written; I’m sorry. After losing my job, I took some time to find a new job (thank God!!) and take advantage of my “extended vacation” to spend time with the kids and my family. My nephew’s baseball team has been kicking ass this year, and we’ve been spending…
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Affection and Emotion
I lost my job yesterday. As you can imagine, I knew it would be hard for Sawyer to understand. In his mind, my bosses and coworkers were part of our family, and I knew he wouldn’t understand what was happening. Sure enough, when he got home from school and I told him I wasn’t going…
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Sportsmanship Is A Struggle
Yesterday, Sawyer participated in his second Special Olympics. Last year, when my sister asked me if I was interested in letting Sawyer compete, I was nervous. You see, Sawyer is not always the best sport… Autistic people have trouble processing and expressing emotions. Where a neurotypical person learns how to express emotion through body movements,…
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IEP Time
It’s time once again to go over Sawyer’s IEP and plan for the following year with Sawyer’s teachers; next week I’ll go discuss what changes we’ll need to make for Sawyer as he enters 5th grade. An IEP is an Individualized Education Program. Before I had Sawyer, I had heard of kids having an IEP,…
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10 Years
This past weekend, we celebrated Sawyer’s 10th birthday. We had a small group of mostly family come together to bowl and play games, and then we finished the day with a trip to the movies to see “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” (which was super cute!). Sawyer had an awesome day, with lots of fun…
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A Birthday with Autism
Sawyer’s birthday is coming up; he turns 10 this year and officially enters the double digits! He is super excited, and can’t wait for his birthday party. Birthday celebrations look a lot different than the typical kids’ birthday party for a lot of autism families. Sawyer has only had two “official” birthday parties in his…
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World Autism Day
This was originally supposed to be published on April 2, but for some reason my post scheduler didn’t push the post out. :\ April is National Autism Awareness Month, and April 2nd is World Autism Day! There is a saying in the autism community that if you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one…
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Autism Made Me a Better Mom
Being a mother is a huge blessing, and my children have always been the center of my world; I’m so very proud of all three of them! However, being an autism mom has made me a better mother and person because of what it has taught me, and because of the things I’ve learned as…
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Help Them Thrive: Training Teachers to Spot Autism
When my girls started school, I didn’t have a lot of fears about it. Both Emily and Caitlyn were social butterflies who had shown me that they would thrive and flourish in a school environment, and I was mostly worried about things like making sure they had the “cool” backpacks, lunchboxes, and clothes; I didn’t…
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Is There a Cure for Autism?
I had a conversation last night with a woman I met on Reddit in a group for special needs parents. Her child was recently diagnosed with autism, and she was freaking out. I felt for her; I remember how overwhelmed I felt when I first realized Sawyer was probably on the spectrum. I reached out…