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! :-)

 

14-Moving Target

     This Saturday Robbie wasn't very happy.

     I had to leave work early to pick him up and take him out. He had no snow boots so I took him shopping. He was OK in the beginning, and let me play with him. But after a while, he just had had enough. He attacked me in Target. I kind of wish I had the camera on to show it. He pulled me to the floor as we walked in the door. As I watched this back, I can see that I pushed him over his limit. He was getting annoyed and I should have known when to quit.

                                                            Episode 20-"Moving Target"

 

 

The next day, he was still grouchy. But a ride in the car always cheers him up. So we got in the car and drove..........and drove and drove, all the way to Pennsylvania! My Grandparents lived in Hellertown, PA so we went all the way to their house. It's a typical old restored PA stone house.

 

 

 

They belonged to the Saucon Valley Country Club, which is such a beautiful place. So we drove through the club, and then turned around and came all the way back! We killed a couple hours in the car. After that he was hungry, so we hit the BK in NJ.

 

Episode 21- Sunday Drive

12-Robbie's Story

January 2, 2014

 

               Parents of kids that are younger than Robbie usually want to know how I got him into a group home. So in these videos I share information that was passed onto me. First, I tell WHY he is in the group home. I thought Robbie would live with me forever. I had no problem with that. But I came to realize, he didn't want to live at home anymore.

Robbie's Story: Part 1. WHY he is in a group home.

In the video I describe how much he hated holidays. Funny, as I look back at old photos, every time I tried to get that Christmas Card photo, Robbie never sat still for the picture and always pitched a fit! Here are a few:

 

 

 I can laugh at these now! LOL

 

He is whining and refusing to sit. The girls are holding him down.

 

Patti is holding him, but he is not cooperating

 Denise is holding onto him to try and make him sit

Here' he refuses to sit and is starting to get too big to hold down.

 

It's subtle, but Dad and I are restraining him a bit to keep him from running away.

 (Yep, that's my real hair color! ;-)

He was REALLY having a fit this day. Denise just got the dog that day, and I think Robbie was afraid of it. The dog didn't last long.

 

 

 

It wasn't until he had his first seizure that I started putting two and two together, and realized he always got sick on holidays. Here are some pictures I took in September 2012 when we stayed in the hospital for a couple days for an EEG.

                           

 

 

 

In Part 2- I share HOW I got him into the group home. No one tells you how to do this. I just "happened" to run into the right people who gave me the information I needed. Now I'm happy to pass it on to other parents.

 

Robbie's Story: Part 2 HOW he got into a group home.

 

 

 

10-Happy Birthday

December 27, 2013

 

 

          In all of Robbie's 24 years I never gave him a birthday party, except for ones at home with family. I explain why in this video. Today, I went to his day program to give him a party. Unlike school and his old day program, this place understands people with Autism and how they have a lot of trouble with being off from their daily routine. So they understand how important it is to NOT close for a week for the holidays! So happily Robbie got to go spend the day at his program on his birthday, two days after Christmas. He was such a happy guy that day!

 

After pizza and cake they all went swimming, which they do every Friday. Robbie loves the water. I think he would live in the water if he could! He frolicked and splashed to his heart's delight.

 

His new recliner was delivered that afternoon. At first they wanted to deliver it in the morning, but I told them I specifically requested delivery in the afternoon because no one would be at the house in the morning. I didn't want to say no "staff" would be there, because after the experience at Macy's, I didn't want there to be a problem. At first they were going to change the delivery to next week, but after I told them it was a present for Robbie's birthday, she put me on hold, came back on the phone, and said the chair would be delivered that afternoon. Woo hoo!

 

 

He's not smiling in this picture, but watch the video and you'll see how happy he was with his new recliner! For dinner, his old roommate came to visit along with his old aide from the group home he used to live at.

 

 

They both miss Robbie. I was nervous for him to see them, because it might confuse him, and he may think he is supposed to go home with them. But he was fine, and happy to come home to his new chair. Whew!

 

Here's the video of the day. :-)

 

 

 

If you missed the story about the recliner, here is Episode 4.