Our Version of Normal

picture credit Last night, I went to the Mexican Restaurant where Matt (my hubby for anyone new here) performs every Friday.  I often take Riley and Reagan there to see Matt play live and to eat their addictive (calorie laden) food. Kaelan prefers to stay home and fills in as babysitter.  Well last night, I took Reagan and Leo because Leo had such a long late nap and wasn't ready to go to bed yet. It was nicely crowded and Matt even had the bar crowd dancing and doing an impromptu conga line.  :) On the way home, we were listening to Sirius-XM.  Reagan and I were battling it out as to which station we were going to listen to (he prefers rap or first wave 80's) and we landed on the 70's channel.  A Frankie Valli song ended and Tony Orlando's "Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree" came on the radio. Reagan quickly tried to change the channel, but I stopped him.  I told him how my dad and mom (Grumpa and Moogie to my kids) used to sing that...

I am Catholic. I was raised Catholic by my mom and she took us to church every Sunday. I also went to Sunday School for years (known as CCD back then, but now called Religious Ed or RE). My dad was supposedly raised Methodist, but as far as I know never went to a Methodist church, except for maybe weddings and funerals. He grudgingly attended Catholic events like baptisms, first communions, weddings and funerals, but preferred to stay as far away from church as possible. Every Sunday, my mom would drag us out of bed, make sure we were dressed and fed before racing (literally) to church. We were usually late and of course everyone noticed. It's kinda hard to be inconspicuous with at first four and then eventually six kids entering a quiet church. I rebelled a bit in high school and refused to go to church even with all the Catholic and mom guilt laid on me. I just didn't care.   My first year at IU (Indiana University), I felt an urge to go back to church and my dorm just ha...

I'm been asked over and over what signs Reagan (15), Kaelan (15) & Leo (2 1/2) showed as toddlers that led to their diagnosis of autism.  Since early intervention has been proven to be one of the biggest advantages for children with autism, I wanted to share early signs we experienced with our boys to possibly help facilitate others to seek help sooner than later.   For us, it wasn't until all 3 were a year or older when the signs became apparent. Their first year, aside from the premature birth of Reagan & Kaelan was pretty typical. They smiled, made eye contact and met cognitive and physical milestones for the most part on time.  When Reagan & Kaelan were around 16 months old, I thought something was going on because they were so different from Riley at that age. I attributed the differences due to them being born 5 weeks early. I also thought maybe we'd neglected to entertain them as much as we had Riley with silly songs, patty cakes, peek-a-boos, read...

Do you ever get the feeling like you have a giant booger on your face or maybe forgot to put pants on before leaving the house? I do. I catch people staring or even gawking at us every. single. day. I'm not talking about short little covert glances, but big wide eyed "OMG, would you look at that family!" stares. There are days that I feel like we are the accident in the road and everyone is rubbernecking to get a peek at the gore. Sometimes, it's for the sheer size of our family (which by Dugger's standards, we are kinda small). Other times, it's the "Down's" element. Many times, it's because one or more of the boys are doing something obnoxious, fighting with each other or being disrespectful to us (have you ever tried to rationalize with someone on the spectrum?). And wait, we can't forget Leo's pepperoni sized birthmark on his head because it definitely gets it's fair share of horrified looks. Some think I'm be...