Tag Archives: autistic kids

New Book Release – Sharing Stories on Our Autism Journey

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June is a great month. It official marks summer break from school, as well as the first day of Summer. It is also my birth month, which is why I decided to publish The Road I’ve Traveled on my birthday.

The Road I’ve Traveled is now available for pre-order on Amazon. Its official release date will be on the 19th of June.

I absolutely love the cover. The anchor represents my time in the Navy. The color blue represents my love of the ocean, as well as autism awareness.

The Road Ive Traveled

The Road I’ve Traveled is a compilation of poems and short stories Jennifer wrote during moments of her life where she felt the need to get it all out. She writes about being in the Navy during the tragedies of 9/11, having to deploy to New York where she and her shipmates stayed in New York’s harbor for three weeks, guarding the coastline in hopes of preventing any further attacks.

She writes about loss, love, heartbreak, family. You can see the fondness she had for her grandfather as she includes a heartfelt eulogy she had written moments after his passing.

She also writes about being a single mom, as well as a mom to a child who is on the autism spectrum. The journey they have endured together has been bumpy, but they continue to plow through life, learning about autism and sensory processing disorder as they go.

You can find all of my books, recently published and upcoming, under my name and my pen name, posted on my website: www.twistedcrowpress.com/books
Or, you can find them on Amazon:
For all books published under my name, Jennifer N. Adams on Amazon, click here.
For all books published under my pen name, J. Raven Wilde on Amazon, click here.

Today is National Autism Awareness Day

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autism awareness

Today is National Autism Awareness Day, but to some of us, this is every day. However, I always wear blue on this day in support of my daughter who has autism, along with a long list of other spectrum related disorders.

For the past few years, there has been a controversy going around on Autism Speaks. Whether you support them or not, I believe you should spread the awareness on autism itself. Become a voice for someone who has autism. Educate yourself and spread awareness.

autism awareness 1

Fact: 1 out of 59 kids are diagnosed with autism. There is NO cure. However, there should be acceptance and not ignorance.

When It Storms

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Sometimes it’s hard to be the adult when you’re a parent. I like to act more childish than my daughter at times, though that’s only around her. I enjoy making her laugh, it lightens my heart.

These past few days we’ve been enduring thunderstorms. My daughter is frightened of the thunder…most children are. Every time there’s a loud noise or something that scares her, she’ll run into the hallway. There she finds it safe, probably because there aren’t any windows and it seems more closed in.

When I was growing up we moved around a lot; most of those places were in tornado alley. Every time we had a thunderstorm or tornado warnings and/or watches, my youngest two sisters and I would find shelter under the kitchen table. This was honestly the safest place we could find in our tiny house. We actually turned our kitchen table into a fort. We would turn the chairs around so that the backs would be right up against the table. Then we would hang blankets over the back of the chairs, then place pillows around the back of the chair legs. We made it comfortable and dark, though we always made sure to bring a handful of flashlights with us, as well as books and snacks. Meanwhile, our mother would be in the living room, listening to the weather on the TV, to which we could hear from where we were, under the table. We would stay under there until the storm went away.

That was twenty-five years ago, give or take a year or two, when my sisters and I made our thunderstorm fort. Lately when a thunderstorm comes through, my daughter and I would sit on the couch together, far from the window. I would watch TV, while she would have her headphones on, playing with her Kindle. Yesterday she kept complaining about the thunder. It rumbled so loud, it made the house shake. And each time it would thunder, she would dart off into the hallway. She finally just hung out there for awhile. She looked sad and depressed, not to mention she left her kindle on the couch, so she was also bored. I decided to join her, but with toys, pillows, her kindle, her portable DVD player, and some blankets. I made us a little pad, partially in the hallway, where we stayed until the storms left our area.

 

 

Toilets Aren’t Always So Wonderful

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I woke up this morning to the sound of a toilet being flushed. A few seconds later I heard my daughter shouting, “My toy!” I cringed as I quickly jumped out of bed and headed towards the bathroom. Lately my daughter has been flushing items down the loo. I’ve been trying to tell her that mommy can’t retrieve whatever she flushes down the potty, so once she sticks it in there and pulls the handle to flush it, it’s gone forever.

I walk in the bathroom and immediately she’s pointing at the potty saying, “My toy! My toy!” I tell her once again, “It’s gone baby. Don’t you remember mommy telling you, once you flush something down the potty, it isn’t coming back?” She only stares at me with a frown, then looks at the potty and starts to cry. I pick her up and remind her again that she has to stop flushing things.

I thought I was being clever and putting one of those door knob covers on the bathroom door. I had removed it off of her bedroom door, thinking it was okay. I had not thought about the bathroom door being left open during the night as my grams and I routinely use the bathroom. My daughter is usually the first to get up. Obviously she saw I had removed her door knob cover and let herself out of her room.

I know that there are potty locks, but where do I find one? I’ve searched a few stores, Target and Walmart, but haven’t seen any. I didn’t want to keep the bathroom locked as I want my daughter to be able to let herself into the bathroom to use the potty. A lot of times I cannot be in there, hovering over her, waiting on her to actually pee. Those with kids know how that usually goes. She has her very own little potty, but she has a habit of flushing things down the bigger potty as well as turning the facet water on and washing stuff down that pipe too.

Mommy, what are you doing in there?

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There’s a written law, or code if you will, for Mother’s all over the world. It’s an extensive list and yes, every mother has one. One of the things on that list is the fact that a mother cannot go very far without her children knowing her exact destination or knowing where she is at any given time…it’s under the “Where there’s a will, there’s a way” clause. Your child(ren) can find you, especially if you think you’re going to have a little ‘me time’.

1. A mother locks herself in the pantry just to scarf down a sandwich or cup cake before dinner time – this is due to the fact that she’s the last one to eat, and by the time she does sit down to eat her food she had placed onto her plate, she has noticed it has gone ice cold. She gets up to warm her plate only to be distracted by her child(ren) asking for seconds, set up a movie on their TV, or any other long list of things that will have her coming back to another cold plate. By this time it’s already time to get the kid(s) into the bath, then bed.

2. A mother locks herself in her bedroom closet just to snack on a candy bar – trust me, if you haven’t tried this, you’ve thought about it. That stressful moment when everything is not going the way it should, (your child has dumped the entire contents of the cheetos bag into the floor and now has the color orange all over herself and the carpet. The washer is rocking, the phone is ringing non stop, someone is knocking on your front door, you’re trying effortlessly to clean up the other mess your child has made before you notice the cheetos disaster). All of this has you locking yourself in your closet just to escape for a few minutes peace and quiet before heading back out into the craziness that had you going in there in the first place.

3. A mother locks herself in the bathroom – oh yes, a must do occasionally just to refrain from getting a UTI. How many times have you sat down to pee just because you could not hold it anymore and someone runs into the bathroom crying because you are the only one in the world that could help them. A.) The TV is broken – another way of saying that they can’t reach the cable box to turn it on, their movie is rolling the end credits and they need it restarted right now or their cartoon ended and they don’t like what came on afterwards. B.) They spilled their entire bag of chips and is having a meltdown because they wanted one and now they’re all dirty. C.) I threw my toy into the washroom, but I cannot go in there because the washer is running and I’m scared of it.

I only lock myself in the bathroom when I know I’m not the only adult in the house. But this doesn’t stop my almost four year old from knocking on the door and calling my name in sobs because she needs me for something.

I just got into the shower and stood there under the hot stream. Two minutes had not passed when I heard a knock, knock, knock on the door, followed by, “Mommy, what you doing?”

“Mommy’s taking a bath!” I say calmly. I’m used to her knocking on the door or better yet, bursting through, stripping her clothes off, and getting into the shower without my knowing she even entered the bathroom. Kids are ninjas! I swear they are! Another good reason to lock the bathroom door – so mommy can get a proper shower.

“Mommy, door stuck!” she says with a grunt, referring to the fact that she cannot open the locked bathroom door. She starts to kick the door, then knocks on it again, “door stuck mommy!”

“I know it’s stuck baby, it’s okay, I’ll be done in a few minutes.” I reply, trying to hurry.

“It’s okay mommy, I fix it!” After a brief pause I can hear her yell just a few feet away from the door, “Nena (the name my daughter calls her great grandma – who is on the computer), door stuck! Nena, stuck!”

I could not help but laugh at how funny she sounds. Was she trying to rescue mommy, or was she trying to get into the shower herself. I quickly finish my shower, wrapped the towel around me, and opened the door. She stood there, giving me this mad look, then says with her thumb in her mouth, “Door stuck.”

I bit back a smile and say, “Door isn’t stuck now, what do you want?”

She points in the direction of her room. I followed her in there only to find that the cable box didn’t turn on and she was missing her Dora the Explorer show.