autism

Vacation Ambition

“Family vacation” is a phrase that doesn’t always recall images of tranquility. Many parents return from one feeling like they need a vacation to recover from their vacation — and that feeling is hardly the exclusive realm of special-needs parents. We’ve had family vacation hits and misses, and over the years we’ve learned what works […]

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Something Was Different

Repeating the same activities year after year stands as a convenient way to measure Ryan’s progress. Ryan has played in our town’s summer street-hockey league for five seasons, and he has come a remarkably long way in that time. His coördination, his social skills, his understanding of how to be a good teammate — all […]

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A Spontaneous Outing

Riley would have been up for the trip. Had Ryan been on board, we might well have spent much of Sunday in the car. But when we floated the idea at breakfast, he was not having it. It’s not that he has an aversion to car trips, he’s actually quite good despite the lack of […]

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Photo Friday: Smiles

I’ve been thinking about Wednesday’s post ever since I hit “publish.” Mostly the part where I talked of searching through old photos and finding so many where Ryan looked, sad, scared, detached or confused.

I talked of how I always seem to remember those photos more than the ones where we got a picture of him flashing his wonderful smile.

Well, that’s not what I want to remember. So I went back to my photo archives. It took me all of 15 minutes to put together the following collection of nothing but smiles covering those same toddler years.

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Happy Friday, everyone. Have a great weekend — full of plenty of smiles.

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