I’m always on the lookout for autism related websites, organizations, groups, you name it.  Can never have too much information or support right? As I was looking over the site I hit upon their blog and their recent blog post titles caught my attention. They covered everything from clay to rewards including teaching your child to understand emotions, life skills – how to teach your child to wash his hands properly  (we are still working on that one), how to use picture cue cards to read and even what the best dog for your child with autism is.

They cover the different types of Autism (in case you are wondering what the differences are) including:

• Asperger Disorder
• Childhood Disintegrative Disorder
• Classic Autism
• Pervasive Developmental Disorder
• Retts Syndrome

As well as provide information on Attention Deficit Disorder, how Autism is diagnosed, what high functioning, mild and severe Autism are, motor and sensory disorders and sensory processing disorder (as many children with Autism also have these disorders).  So much information for all those questions you’ve got.

• What causes it?
• What are the facts?
• What do you do after you get a diagnosis of Autism?
• And so many more questions.

First and foremost you need to surround yourself with others who understand what you’re going through, who can relate to what you are feeling and can help you find and understand the answers to all your questions. A community of support for those of us raising and loving our children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews, cousins or friends with Autism and bringing Autism awareness to the world, that’s AutismUnited.org.  Find them on facebook and join them http://www.facebook.com/theautismunited

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post but as you know, bringing Autism awareness to the front is very important to me and my family as Autism is a part of our lives as well.

© 2012, Nanette Gomez. All rights reserved.

Today as I dropped the kids off at school, Bug asked me to come have lunch with him.  Unfortunately I knew my work load for today was going to be a bit overwhelming and I told him I couldn’t but I’d try tomorrow.

Needless to say I felt horrible and he was sad. I hate disappointing my kids. Why is it so easy to just let work take over your daily schedule?  It can become so out of control so easily without boundaries.

I know I can’t be everywhere at once and I can’t do everything or say yes every time but when I can even if it means I have to work at little harder or a little faster or juggle my time to make time for family I should and I will.

Today I made a conscious choice and chose family over work and I’ll tell you one thing I am so happy I did.  Yes, I got my work done anyway just had to rearrange my time a little bit. But that huge smile, that hug, that “you’re going to have lunch with me, you can stay?” line and smile was worth any amount of rescheduling. Today was a good day!

© 2012, Nanette Gomez. All rights reserved.

Princess has spent the last few night sleeping next me but tonight she’s back to her bed. When I walked into her room today I saw lots of clutter. She’s a clutter bug I admit it. No matter what I do there’s always more stuff cluttering up her room and bed.  Today when I looked at her bed all of her stuffed toys were on the floor even though I asked her to pick them up and put them on her bed a couple days ago.  As I was about to start putting all those 40 stuffed toys (yes I counted them there are 40) back on her bed I glanced at the bed without them there and it made me a little sad.

I thought to myself, someday you’re going to miss the clutter. She won’t be a little girl anymore. She won’t want stuffed toys on her bed and all around her. She’s going to grow up and the days of princess outfits, cartoon posters, pink play phones, play kitchens and yes even all those stuffed toys will be a thing of the past.

So at that instance, my sigh and “ok, I’ll just put them back on the bed myself” turned to a good feeling.  A smile came across my face and my happiness grew greater and greater with each and every stuffed toy I placed back on her bed. Back on my little princess’ bed with her Hello Kitty bedding.  She is my little girl and for as long as I can I’m going to do my best to help her stay little, stay innocent and enjoy the childhood she has.  It goes by way too fast to not enjoy it while you can.

I probably didn’t put them back in the exact order they belong in and I’m sure we’ll fix them all again before bedtime. And yes believe it or not each of those toys stays on that bed every night, all night and there is actually a tiny bit of room there for her to sleep.  They are her friends and she knows each one by name and cares for them so much.  She has such a big heart, a beautiful imagination and love for her childhood.

Today I decided I don’t want to miss the clutter just yet but sshhh! don’t tell her that or I’ll never get her to clean her room.

© 2011, Nanette Gomez. All rights reserved.

Today thanks to OfficeMax and FoundTheMarbles.com I got to make a teacher’s day a little better.  I won a giveaway that FoundTheMarbles was hosting for Office Max and the required entry was to tell what teacher you would thank and why.

I put my entry in thanking Ms. K, my son’s kindergarten teacher because she really impacted his entire life and to me she is the epitome of what the term “teacher” means.  She went above and beyond and changed our lives so much.  Due to her dedication and concern for him he now dreams of going to college.  It’s a long way off I know but he’s already thinking ahead.

So today as I was saying, I caught up with her in the cafeteria and told her about my entry and that it won and she now had a $50 gift card to go buy supplies for her classroom.  Before I could get past the, “I entered the giveaway choosing you to thank” and it was right as I said “thank” that she put her hand on her chest and said, “that means so much to a teacher to hear”.  By the time I got to the part about the $50 card we were both watery eyed and her voice was cracking.  I didn’t want a big scene in the cafeteria with her students there I just wanted her to know how much her hard work meant to me.  And I could tell she appreciated it.  We hugged and went about our day.

I’m sure it brightened her day and knowing I was able to make her feel good for doing her job it certainly brightened mine.

Thanks Office Max and FoundTheMarbles.com for helping me do that.

It doesn’t take money to make someone’s day, sometimes it just takes a few simple words like “thank you“.

© 2011, Nanette Gomez. All rights reserved.

I just read a post over at Praying for Parker that I just have to share with you.  One because I think it’s a great post and a great site, if you don’t read it you must add it to your google reader. I love reading about Parker and how he’s doing.  He’s becoming such a big boy.  And two, I could totally relate to the statements in the article and I’m sure you can too. The article is entitled “You KNOW you’re a Special Needs Mama when…” Yes, it’s sounds like the beginning of a joke and I’ll bet you anything you will at the very least chuckle a little when you read it. Why? Chances are you’ll be able to relate to at least one or two of them. I did.

It’s all about daily life as a special needs mom and the things that make our life special, sometimes difficult and humorous all at the same time.  I thought I’d throw in a couple of examples here myself. So, you know you’re a special needs mom when . . .

• You hear lines like, “I’m not sticking my tongue out at sister, it’s just getting air”.
• Your great day has just turned into a bad one because someone spilled a little bit of juice on the counter.
• EVERY staff member at the elementary school knows you by name.
• The school secretary knows your voice on the phone without having to ask.
• Your phone contact lists includes at least 10 contact numbers for different areas of the school.
• You remind your child not to eat all of the tic tacs and he holds up the container and says, I didn’t and there are 4 tic tacs still in the container.
• Your sarcasm is totally lost in the translation from your mouth to his ears.
• You have to watch how you word things, cause every word you say is taken LITERALLY.
• You have to hold back your laughter when a bowl of popcorn goes flying through the air when someone holding it sneezed and he didn’t think that was funny. (Yes that actually happened and he and I laughed about it later after he thought about it ).
• You listen to a one sided conversation about cars for hours at a time and can still let your child know you are interested in what he has to say.
• You get to celebrate every little triumph in life from getting eye contact to your child washing their hands on their own.

I’m sure you have many more.  Feel free to share them below or head over to Praying for Parker and leave some there for Tammy and Parker who inspired this brief post.

© 2011, Nanette Gomez. All rights reserved.

“Do you like being alone?” That’s a hard question for me to answer.  I guess sometimes yeah, I like being alone.  There are other times where if I am alone I feel very alone.  When I was young and single I enjoyed being alone, living alone and just being able to be me.  I guess a lot of that came from growing up in a two bedroom house with six sisters. You don’t get a whole lot of alone time in that situation.  You know, when  you don’t get the opportunity to be alone you relish in the time you do.

Once I got married and had kiddos, that all changed. I don’t like being alone much now.  I prefer to be with them no matter what we are doing.  We do just about everything together and I love that.  We are that close knit.  And being a work at home mom, just going one day without talking or chatting online to other online mommy friends of mine can really make me feel alone.

Funny how in what seems like such a short time I have gone from being a loner to needing my family and friends around me. I realize we all need some alone time, I just don’t need much of it. Or at least I’ve convinced myself of that. I’ve tried going shopping without my family and it just doesn’t work for me. And traveling without them oh, I don’t even know if I could do that. I’d probably be in tears the whole time until I got to see them again.

So I guess the answer to “Do You Like Being Alone?” is sometimes (but not for very long).

What about you?  Do you like being alone?

© 2011, Nanette Gomez. All rights reserved.

One of the BlogHer #NaBlogPoMo prompts is “What is the happiest moment of your life so far?”

While there are so many happy moments in my life.  I look back at my childhood and memories of my grandmother and all the times we shared making family memories up until and beyond the day my life was joined with the man of my dreams I never thought there could be any moment happier until the day I became a mom.

The day I learned and shared with my husband we were going to have our first child was amazing but until that first instant in which I saw my first child’s face, I couldn’t believe how much love could be felt, how intense happiness and love could really be. The happiness I felt was beyond anything else I had ever felt in my life.  My life changed forever on that day and that love, joy and happiness has never decreased in fact, it was only increased with the birth of our second child.

For me there is no greater happiness than that of being a mom which continues to grow each and every day.

© 2011, Nanette Gomez. All rights reserved.

I guess sometimes I just don’t realize how quickly time has flown by until I take a walk back down the city streets where I grew up, look at old photos in the photo albums or visit the place I used to work.

Has it really been almost 20 years since I left my first real job?  Some of those very same people are still working there.  Most if not all remembered me.  It was a good feeling in a way to know that I had some impact of the lives of others even if only enough to hold a memory of.  But at the same time, it made so clear a picture for me of how time has passed and how different my life is now.

Each and every time I answered the same question, what are you doing now? And when I replied, I’m a stay at home mom I always got the same type of reply, “oh that’s wonderful” or “oh that’s the job I always wanted” or “you are so lucky to be able to do that”.  And you know what, I am.  Maybe sometimes I don’t realize just how lucky I am to be able to do that. I never take it for granted but sometimes I do let my work at home and computer time take over. And reprioritizing is in order.

Just walking those halls again but this time with my children really made me so proud of what I have now. No not a big house, or paycheck but instead two beautiful children and a wonderful loving husband whose support has allowed me to be the stay at home mom I have wanted to be since the day we became parents.

So, thank you my dear hubby for allowing me to live the role in this life that gives me one of the greatest joys.

© 2011, Nanette Gomez. All rights reserved.