Hearty

I am sure you have all seen my reminders for voting at the About.com page, and if you are on Twitter with me, you are probably sick and tired of them. So, let me say, I am SORRY. Ok, not sorry enough to stop posting and tweeting, but sorry if you are annoyed. Sort of anyway. Through the About.com award race , I have learned some amazing things. Most importantly, I have learned how truly remarkable it is to be a part of four distinct special needs communities. The Adoption Community.   This community was my choice.  And after 7 years as a Foster Parent, and adopting my oldest son, this community has give me support and guidance with incredible compassion.. These parents have nurtured my ability to parent through incredibly difficult times.  This is the community that said, "Let me teach you."  To all of you adoptive moms and dads (or adoptees and/or first-moms and first-dads) out there voting for me, I thank you. The SPD Community . This is where my heart is. My firs...

Guest post by Patty Porch of Pancakes Gone Awry ***** Mention the topic of potty training and I am liable to break out in a cold sweat. Nausea has been known to strike, and I sometimes feel panic gripping me. The issue of potty training has been known to reduce me to tears dozens of times. In all my 7 and a half years of parenting, I can think of few other topics that make me feel quite as inadequate and helpless. Neither of my oldest two children were particularly easy to potty train, and neither of them were trained at a very young age. But Danny, Danny was a spectacularly challenging case, one which we are still working on, even now as he nears his 8th birthday. When Danny was a toddler, I decided to wait a while before training him. His speech was quite delayed and I didn’t know how I could train a kid who couldn’t express his need to go. So, I waited. After all, I had plenty of other things to keep me occupied, what with his speech and occupational therapy, working out a sensory d...

Breaking news from the SPD Foundation's website!  Please read, share, and act! Dear Friends of the Foundation, On Friday February 18, the Oprah Show had an exclusive story titled, "The 7-Year-Old Who Tried to Kill His Mother," a frightening, yet true story of young Zach and his mother, Laurie. "Sensory integration disorder was Zach’s first diagnosis and that has to do with how Zach perceived his world," Laurie stated on the show. "So he was incredibly sensitive to everything. He would do things like throw himself on the ground, thrash his body, where a normal kid, it would hurt, and he would get pleasure. He would laugh. Sound bothered him. Light, clothing, that sort of thing, and everything was accentuated 10 or 15 times of what a normal person would experience. That's what sensory is." Zach has a variety of mental health disorders. The initial diagnosis mentioned by Oprah was " sensory integration disorder ." The majority of the show f...

Someone posted videos on YouTube of us playing at the Hope bluegrass festival last week, and I just had to share them here! One is Micah practicing for his debut on the banjo. (actually, it was his second time to play banjo on stage) The other is a video of us doing one of the new songs I've written, "The Hitchhiker."

Guest post by Caitlin Wray of Welcome to Normal . While many of us may still be shovelling snow, you may also have noticed your local department store has already stocked the patio furniture in their seasonal area, and greenhouses are already sending out their seed catalogues in the mail. These are sure signs that spring is just around the snow bank, so what better time to take an hour by yourself, a cup of tea (or a glass of wine, depending on how your day is going), and plan a simple sensory garden for your children. You don't need to be a gardener, or even have a garden, to make this a fun spring project. You can easily do a raised bed garden by making a simple wooden frame, or even just use containers for your patio or balcony. Keep it simple and stress-free. There are lots of resources out there for sensory gardens, but mine is a little different because it includes all 8 of the senses , rather than just the traditional 5. Sight My favourite choice for the sight sense in a ...

As I am sure many of you have heard, Oprah Winfrey did a show last Friday about mental illness in children, and unfortunately led audiences to believe that Sensory Processing Disorder was a mental illness. Here is the link to the article: http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Children-Dealing-with-Violent-Rage/1 Many people are very upset, me included, as spreading acurate information about SPD in an effort raise awarness and offer support to parents and families is something I am VERY passionate about. Because of that, I felt compelled to write to Oprah and I wanted you all to know what I said. Below is the letter: Dear Oprah, Your recent show about the 7 year old boy with mental illness struck a chord with me. I have a 9 year old with Bipolar Disorder, Autism and Sensory Processing Disorder, who just like the boy on your show, has demonstrated physically and verbally violent behaviors since he was a toddler. For that reason, I was happy to see the stigma and challenge of pediatric mental il...

Guest post by Alysia Butler of Try Defying Gravity ****** I’m so glad you’re here. I understand that you’ve been struggling.  Please, sit down.  It’s a lot to ask, I know, when things are out of control around you, but you’ll feel better if you sit for a moment. Take a deep breath . Again, I’m happy you’re here.  It doesn’t matter how you got here.  Maybe you Googled “my son has meltdowns not tantrums ” and that’s how you found us.  Or maybe your friend suggested a web search for “sensory processing disorder” because she saw something in your daughter’s behaviors that looked familiar, like her own son’s.  Or maybe… Maybe you’re here because you just know something is different about your child.  And you feel so alone. That was me three years ago.  I knew in my heart that my son wasn’t like the other kids.  He was not like his older brother at all. I actually knew it from birth , but it wasn’t until he was almost two years old that I really grasped that something about him was just…diff...

Guest post by Michelle from ShesAlwaysWrite ********** It's no secret that I'm a geek.  In our down time, we're Mythbusting or catching a Doctor Who marathon or YouTubing the latest Neil deGrasse Tyson appearance or debating if Greedo really shot first or kvetching about the travesty of a Buffy movie sans Joss. But on the rare occasions I'm left to my own devices (and have cleared the DVR of cooking shows), I go straight for the scientific documentaries.  Can't get enough of them. The more graphic surgical footage, the better.  But really, I'll take anything medical flavored. When I found myself with a little time last week to browse Netflix instant watch options, I went right for the 2008 National Geographic special Stress: The Portrait of a Killer .  Because, ya know, looking in the mirror to learn the same lesson would have required getting off the couch. It's worth noting the whole darn thing is fascinating and well worth a watch. But there's one seg...

I cannot believe it.  Hartley's Life With 3 Boys and This is Gabriel Making Sense of School are BOTH nominated for an About.com Reader's Choice Award.  Wow!! HLW3B is up for "Favorite Special Needs Parenting Blog" and This is Gabriel is up for "Favorite Special Needs Children's Book".  Yay! A big FAT thank you to whomever nominated me, and a even bigger FATTER thank you to all of you who have been along this journey with me - reading, commenting, sharing and supporting!  I think you're awesome! SHAMELESS PLEA FOR VOTES:  Please vote for HLW3B and This is Gabriel every day (yes, I know that is a lot to ask, but I would REALLY appreciate it.) from now until March 8th!  If you want a daily reminder to vote, email me .  Otherwise, click these links right here: To vote for This is Gabriel click HERE . To vote for Hartley's Life With 3 Boys click HERE . If I have written something that helped you, inspired you, made you laugh, or ANY OTHER REASON, ple...

There is much said about a mother’s intuition, and perhaps even more said about it in the special needs community. You know what I am referring to – everyone who says “Follow your gut” or “I just had a feeling”. Right? Absolutely. There is something innate about being a mom, about having a child you are connected to in a way that allows you to know when something isn’t right or when your child needs you. It is why I would leak breast milk every time Nick cried. Even when I wasn’t there. I just knew . Or how I could feel from the time Matt was just months old that there was something...different...about him.  And LONG before I ever breathed the word "Autism" to anyone - even about Gabriel - I knew Matt had Aspergers.  I just knew it . And I hear the same thing from moms and dads everywhere I go.  Perhaps they are told to ignore their intuition - because the doctor thinks they are just 'new mothers' or their child is 'just spirited', but we as parents know. We j...

Hey everyone - we need your help! We are holding a Name the Octopus Contest  at the SPD Blogger Network today. Head over there and check it out. www.spdbloggernetwork.com HINT:  There are great prizes from Soft Clothing and Stress Free Kids

Guest post by Caitlin Wray of Welcome to Normal ******* If you’ve ever watched The Nanny, with Jo Frost - and even if you haven’t – you’re surely familiar with the recommended practice of putting your child back to bed in silence over and over and over (and over and over and over) until they give up and sob themselves to sleep. I have watched Nanny Jo do this consistently on her show (which I watch occasionally to make me feel better about the chaos in my house, since mine almost never comes close to the chaos she encounters in her travels). Apparently this approach works every time. It’s foolproof. But is it SPD-proof ? My little SPD Aspie, Simon, was still waking up over a dozen times each night when he was two or three years old. “Tired” doesn’t really do justice to the extent of my exhaustion during those years, before we had a diagnosis that made so many of Simon’s challenges more clear. Even without a diagnosis, I didn’t have the heart to let Simon sob himself to sleep as a toddl...

Guest post by Martianne Stanger, full time mom and learner, part time teacher, tutor, blogger at Training Happy Hearts and Sensational Homeschooling Editor at Our Journey THRU Autism . What an honor it is to have been asked back by Hartley to share ideas as a Winter Edition compliment to our summertime Sensory Fun in the Sun (and Shade) post. Even though we rarely don our literal shades during the cold northeastern United States winters we face, we still find ourselves looking through our SPD lenses all the time in order to ensure frugal fun while feeding our son’s sensory diet. Indeed, whether we are rolling about in the snow in our own front yard, trekking through the nearby woods or freeing ice-bound creatures inside, we always do so with an eye for winter exploration and a good portion of sensory input! Perhaps your children will enjoy one of our favorite Winter Sensory Fun Ideas: In the Yard: Painted Snow Angels ( for Motor Planning and Coordination, Proprioceptive Input, Tacti...