I blame Jess.

Jess of A Diary of a Mom is an amazing blogger. Her posts about her family and its struggle with autism are poignant, funny, sad, inspiring, motivational, calming … I could go on. It’s the first thing I read every morning. As she has to countless other readers, she has become an online friend, someone who is available for a quick moment of advice or counsel, and someone who’s writing can hit so close to home that it sometimes hurts.

A few years ago, she was kind enough to allow me to guest-post on her site. The story was about an attempt to do something to make my son happy that involved his obsessive interest of the moment — garage doors. I had sent it to her as an email in response to something similar she had written, and when she asked if she could post it on her blog, I quickly accepted. The response I received to that post was inspirational. Lots of suggestions for me to become a full-time blogger. And for a time, I was motivated to do just that. But I kept finding excuses and putting it off, even as the stories piled up inside my head.

I don’t know what is that finally got me going this time — but here I am. I can’t promise a daily post or that my stories will resonate with you. But I hope that by sharing some of my family’s experiences with autism I can inspire someone else, perhaps another dad wondering if he’ll ever be able to watch a game with his son, the way that Jess inspired me.

If you read this blog’s “about” page you’ll understand why the title of this blog contains “pucks.” Not every post will be about hockey, but as I started to list out the number of things I wanted to write about, an amazing number of them had some connection to the sport. The blog is not about hockey, it’s about a father, a son, a wife, a daughter. It’s about autism. It’s about finding ways to break through the barriers that autism can present, all from a dad’s perspective.

Thanks for visiting. I hope you find something that was worth your time.