Water Week!

  

     It seems all Autistic kids love the water and Robbie is no exception! Both videos today feature Robbie in the water. I swear if he could live in the water, he would! He is in and out like a dolphin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the first video we go to visit my little Godson, Nicky. When Nicky's Mom was pregnant with him, the Doctors told her he would be Mentally Disabled and to abort him. She called me distraught. I told her my point of view which I share in the video. Nicky's Mom even let me interview her about the whole ordeal.

   I took Robbie to Nicky's fourth birthday party in their backyard. Robbie loves the water, so he went and got in Nicky's kiddie pool. He was mellow at first, but then you'll see it turned into a full out water gun party and Robbie had the biggest smile on his face ever!

July 4, 2014

 

   July 4th fell on a Friday this year so it was a whole weekend event. Robbie's group home called me on Wednesday to ask if I was planning to take him home for the weekend. Ummm, no! I didn't know I was supposed to! But everyone else was going home and there would be no staff, so I had to scramble to find something for him to do!

 

   I sent out an S.O.S. on facebook and thankfully I got a response! Day 1 we went to a cousin's house who also has a daughter (my age, much older than Robbie) with Special Needs who lives in another group home. They have a pool for their daughter and we went there. Robbie really enjoyed it.

 

Again, something else I didn't plan, was to go swimming. I did not bring a bathing suit and just sat on the edge of the pool as Robbie swam. Well, he decided I need to come in!

   The next day we were invited to a friend's house who just put in a new pool for their Autistic son.

 Robbie loved it. You'll see he is in his glory! This is probably one of my favorite videos of him because he is very mischievous and very happy!

24-Broken Things

 

 

    Years ago I went to a fancy dinner party at a friend's house. She is sort of a Martha Stewart type. Everything in her house is perfect. She loves to decorate and set a beautiful table. She cooks a gourmet meal with special place settings at the table. When I go, I am sure to use my best table manners.

 

   During dinner, a Christmas wreath hung over the buffet suddenly fell and broke one of her serving dishes. She was so shocked and upset that she couldn't even speak. I understood why she was upset, however from my perspective, broken dishes were a normal thing in my house. If it had been my house, I would have blown it off, picked up the broken pieces, and finished dinner. I probably would have even laughed and made a joke. Actually, if it was at my house, we probably would have been eating on plastic dishes or paper plates, because that's what our life was like!
  The truth was, during the years Robbie was growing up, we rarely had anyone over. The house was too much of a disaster and it was too stressful to cook for people, and the messy house was embarrassing. Robbie had broken a lot of things in the house. He slammed the doors so all the doors were broken off the hinges, he broke my kitchen cabinets, all my dishes, videos, VCR's, video cameras etc. But you know what? It taught me something. Material things just really aren't that important!

 

    I don't worship my house or my car or my things. I don't need to keep up with the Jones's. It's trivial nonsense. Remember, I do Interior Design and I am in hundreds of beautiful homes all the time. So this was a really hard lesson for me to learn. Sometimes I got depressed over it. But I had to remind myself to remember the big picture of what life is really about, my family. People are important, pillows are not! LOL
    In today's video I'll show you old video and pictures of things Robbie has broken over the years. It's not to complain, but to show other parent's of Autistic kids that they are not alone, and there are other people out there that live the same way. And my other point is, to those parents, don't be like me and wait until things are so bad and "broken" beyond repair that you can't take it anymore. Don't wait to ask for help.

15-Sister Sister

 

Robbie has two older sisters. Patti and Denise are twins and they are four and a half years older than Robbie. He was the baby in the family for five years until my son David was born . They have a special bond that I will talk about in the video. I won't say much here, I'll just let you watch.

 

 

 

 Patti (the one in blue on the left) is now a Special Ed teacher. Growing up with Robbie gave her a heart for kids with Special Needs and she's a great teacher. She moved to the Carolinas over the summer. She got great training here in New Jersey working at Robbie's old school, and now she's down there spreading the love and teaching a class of 9 Autistic kids. Denise is still nearby, and you'll see her appear in some of our videos, and how much Robbie smiles when he sees her.

 

 

 

In today's video, I pulled out a few videos that were on my phone to show you how cute they are together.

 

I hope this one puts a smile on your face for the day today! :-)