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.

8-Perspective

Monday December 23, 2013

   Today I'm going to take you to work with me. I work as a Decorating, Staging and Color Consultant at a store that sells Benjamin Moore Paint. I am The Paint Diva! To many people this is a very stressful thing, picking out paint colors. But to me it's easy. Compared to what I used to do, this is a nice, easy job.
    In my life, after dealing with everything with Robbie, most things are pretty easy. In this episode, I talk about putting things into perspective, and maybe some of the things we think are just awful, a huge problem, or an emergency, are maybe not always as bad as we make them out to be. For me, having to spend time in the hospital because Robbie had a seizure is an "emergency" in my book. Decorating people's houses is fun.

                                                                

 

2- Calling 9-1-1

Episode 2-"911"

   Well, after spending a couple nights at Robbie's new group home, I thought it would be OK to leave him for a night. I thought wrong! I left at 8:00 pm, and at 10:30 pm I got a phone call from the woman working with him. She was frantic. Robbie went into the kitchen and threw the garbage and everything off the table and was very upset.
  She didn't know what to do, so she called the police!
  Here is the story of what happened.

 

 

 

Since a lot of parents ask for my help and advice, here is a message I did for parents of kids and adults with Autism. My message is simple. "Just love them the way they are".

Love them Unconditionally.

 

 

Have a great day, and Robbie says "Hello"! :D

 

 

 

1-Let Us Begin

Welcome to my new blog! Rather than writing, I will be sharing videos, so this will actually be my "vlog".
Who am I?
I am a designer from New Jersey and host of a local cable show call "A Taste for Design",

 

 But being a Mom to my four kids is the most important job of all.

 

     My son Robbie is 24 years old and has Severe Autism. When he was diagnosed, Autism was almost unheard of. Now there is a ton of "awareness" and information out there, and schools and programs for kids on the spectrum. But what about after they turn 21? What happens then? Well, Robbie and I are going to share our journey with you!

 

     I recently placed Robbie into a group home (a nearly impossible feat) and have been transitioning him for a month. Last month I was sharing our trials and triumphs with our friends and family on Facebook and decided it was easier to just take video than to talk about it.


  

   After I began filming, I realized that maybe there is a bigger picture. Maybe we have a message we can share to help other families that live in the world of Autism. So I began this blog to share my life with my son Robbie as a way to reach out to other parents, and spread the word that "The world is not ready for that '1 in 55 kids' with Autism after they turn 21". But hopefully as we put ourselves out there, someone will take notice, and begin to make changes in the "system".


   So welcome everyone to our life's journey!

First, here is my introduction to who I am, and what the vlogs are all about:

Here is our first episode.
Episode 1: Wednesday. "Let Us Begin"