You listen for the calm outside, inside, wherever and whenever you can find it. You also listen for every noise, every single one of them. I woke several times last night and each time I tried to determine if it was me or Owen that woke me up. This time it was me. He slept until almost six. I’ll take it. Coffee was on my mind and I had to get up. Before I finished that thought I heard him. He went to the bathroom, got his tablet, and headed toward me. “Friday be with mommy tomorrow,” he said. I told him we should concentrate on today. He told me it was the twentieth and started going through the rest of the days. He understands the days of the week and he is starting to understand the months but it’s hard to explain that all of the months have different amounts of days. He ran off after smelling my head and putting my hair in his mouth. These behaviors are starting to ramp up again. I got up and started my day. Owen wanted no lights on. I could tell it was going to be a high-sensory day even though he was relatively calm. I opened the refrigerator to pour cream into my coffee. Before I could finish he closed the refrigerator. I told him I left the door open so I could see my coffee mug since he kept turning off the lights. He turned on the overhead light and then as soon as I was done he turned it off again. Siri played a big part in our morning. He asked her to translate tons of words into other languages. He loves listening to her. After he repeated the words he would ask for something new. He then moved on to ask her to play music. We got ready to go to his therapy. He was very hyper but his therapists said he did well. When I was talking to his last therapist he was smelling and biting my hair. He was pushing hard into me. I could tell he was still in sensory overload. I should have taken him straight home but I wanted to show him some of the places that he has been talking about that he found on the maps app. He got really upset and had one of the biggest meltdowns he has had in a very long time. He got upset because I didn’t cross the railroad tracks first and go by a church that I didn’t even know was anywhere near it. From there it was downhill. We came home with him in a complete meltdown. We sat in the car before we could even go in. It’s one more reason I want a garage so I can help him through the process on his time. If he can sit with our all the distractions of our neighborhood it helps. To get him out of the car I told him we are going to see our friend tomorrow. He was able to process it and started to move forward. My emotions have to stay calm in those moments so that he stays calmer. My heart breaks that something like turning in the wrong direction upsets him so much. The rest of the night was much calmer for him. He took a long bath and that relaxed him. He fell asleep almost instantly and I pray that he sleeps through the night. I hold on to the growth and working on finding the steps to take him out of his comfort zone without causing the stress for him. He was excited about going to the park with our friend tomorrow and that makes my heart happy. Find what makes your heart sing out in joy and share it with the world. Smiles to all and donut daze!

Sometimes I can’t decide if I wake myself up or I hear the pitter patter of Mickey Mouse feet running on Owen’s tablet. This morning it was the latter. I lay there for a minute, telling my bladder to chill, but I quickly realized that it was Owen’s laughter that woke me, not that I didn’t have to go to the bathroom but his laughter is what got me. Today’s party time was slightly after four. When the pot of coffee is gone by six you know you’ve had a busy morning. The goal was to keep Owen calm or maybe it was to keep me calm. Tuesdays and Wednesdays are hard. Trying to get him to go anywhere on those days is hard. And it’s hard to motivate me to go as well. We are formulating a plan for next week. I go back and forth constantly on this because we are on the go so much that staying home a couple days really doesn’t seem bad but it’s more about the schedule and us staying home on the same days. It goes back to routine and schedule but I also want him to understand we can still do fun things on non-routine days. I think we both ate all day long. He is growing I can tell. He asked for pizza for lunch. I thought I might be able to get him to go get one but he wanted nothing to do with that. He is having so much fun with the maps app I added. He has been asking for a specific gas station but I couldn’t determine which one it was. He was talking about several things but he showed me the gas station. He didn’t start talking about a gas station until he went to summer school that I can remember so I believe he must have passed it in the bus. I am so impressed he has been able to find all the places he wants to show me on the map. I’m fascinated by how he can remember everywhere he has been. He wanted me to play some games with him and I reminded him about volume all day long. He wants to listen to everything loud and then scream over it. He played his harmonica for me and we sang a little. Although he’s not a fan of my singing unless he is. It all depends on the day and his mood. Plus, I’m really not a good singer. More eating and then more eating filled up the night. He was calm and that was what mattered. Bedtime leads to therapy tomorrow and Owen was ecstatic. I’m hoping we can go a few places tomorrow and we might even drive to his favorite gas station. Find the happiness to fill your heart and when it becomes overflowing share it with the world. Smiles to all and donut daze!

I could feel the anticipation from Owen when he walked around the corner. It was still dark but I could sense what was about to happen. He had slept until after five and he was very calm as he approached me. I had gotten up a little earlier and settled back in with my first cup of coffee. “The eighteenth,” he said very calmly. Not “good morning mommy,” not “one hug,” but “the eighteenth” with a question mark dangling there somewhere. He wanted me to say he was going to school or confirming he wasn’t. Those mixed moments of trying to decide if his dream was coming true or if it was still one month away sat waiting for me to answer. I answered him. I explained again that it was July eighteenth and not August eighteenth. He hugged me and slowly walked away. I know it is all so much for him to process. One month and he starts school again. He knows the month and day but still, it’s hard. Tuesdays, the day of the week I want to accomplish all the things but seems to be the heaviest for me. At some point, my mind realized Owen, like all of us, will get emotional when he gets emotional. But the screaming gets me. I can only imagine what it feels like to him when we go to someplace he has never been before. The rollercoaster ride continues. He was calm this morning so I kept him calm. I asked him a couple of times if he wanted to go somewhere and he said no. I didn’t push it. I wanted the day to keep calm. We played a lot of games and he wanted to give me “one hug” a lot throughout the day. He’s asking Siri and Alexa to translate words again. He has dueling tablets going with them both pulling up different languages. I dream about the day he will be able to tell me all the languages he knows. He ate a lot today and asked for even more. I’m hoping I can convince him to go do things tomorrow. We’ve had a lot of storms so that is also hard for me to take him out when I know it’s going to rain since the rain causes huge meltdowns for him. I hope for no storms tomorrow. Slept came quickly for him and I pray for a great night. I’m thankful for the days ahead and only one more until he is back to school. His smile is what I cling to and his heart full of laughter makes our world shine. I wish peace could find us all. Smiles to all and donut daze!

“Where grief dogs lie” runs through my head repeatedly. I don’t know why I started saying that after my brother died but maybe it has something to do with him losing his dog right around the same time. Grief is a beast. Grief hits you when expectations are not what they are supposed to be or what you think they should be. Grief hits me in the summer when I know I’m going to wake up with Owen struggling with the lack of routine. He’s starting to figure out how the months are used but it’s strictly all stored in his mind. He doesn’t want to see it in black and white. I have tried countless ways to show him a calendar and any other type of way to show a schedule but they all still upset him. The only way that doesn’t is him memorizing it but this doesn’t keep him from repeating it constantly. One day I will find the best way for him but for now, he has memorized everything. I wonder how to teach him to say what’s right and continue to have a vivid imagination. He purposely says the opposite of something to get attention and then there are times he struggles with what is the right answer and will also say the wrong answer. I don’t want him to stop showing and expressing his creativity so it is hard to correct this behavior. I asked him if he wanted a cheese tortilla for lunch. He said he didn’t want a cheetah, “no cheetah today.” I haven’t decided if this is him combining words or thinking it’s what I said. His vocabulary is still growing but I know there are words he jokes with as well. We went to his vision therapy and he brought his tablet in the car. It ran out of battery. He said, “it doesn’t have enough juice or cheese.” He laughed like he had been working on that joke for a while. He cracks me up with his words and thought process. He is so funny and brilliant. I don’t even know if he realizes how brilliant he is. He did great at therapy and we came home with a few bumps in the road but he was happy once we got inside. He has it in his mind how the drive should go and that doesn’t always happen. The night flew by and he wanted to continue to talk about when school was happening and the fact that he didn’t want to do anything tomorrow so we shall see. I’m thankful for his big smile and that laughter. I’m praying for a better night's sleep and for him not to wake up at threeish again. Believe in the hope for tomorrow. Smiles to all and donut daze!

I’m hanging to the morning light. The greatest gift came from my son this morning as he gave me a hug after he woke up. His smile was radiant and he didn’t even ask me about his tablet. Owen woke up late compared to our general wake-up time. He slept until way after six. I had already been up for several hours at this point and I heard him go to the bathroom. By then he usually goes to get his tablet but today he came to me. His smile greeted me before our words. He wanted “one hug” and that lead to more. In a couple of minutes, he ran off to play but I was so thankful for those moments. I got my coffee and I started his breakfast. I sat back down and he came to me with his map app open to the pizza restaurant he likes. “It’s like a stop sign,” he said. He went into a great deal about it. His words and connections fascinate me. He thinks the sign as a whole makes up a body. The top sign is the head and then the neck with the pole. The next sign is the belly and then he thinks the bottom pole is the leg. He was telling about the middle sign but he was making up things so I asked him if it was like his robot that his tummy lights up. He ran to get his robot and then he watch the videos about his robot. For some reason, he came back to turn off my bedroom light and I knew we would be in the dark again. Not much longer we got ready for church. He was happy we were going. He was hoping to see one of his friends that has been out of town for quite some time. I told him I wasn’t sure if he was going to be there and he told me but I want to see him. I love his connection with people. He did great at church and when we were getting ready to leave, he wanted to go sit in the auditorium so he could sing. He didn’t want to go ride his bike today and he told me he wanted shrimp for lunch. He asked to go to a few different places to see his favorite things, and then we went home and I fixed his shrimp. The rest of the day went quickly. His microwave and Play-Doh were the talk of the afternoon. He played a lot with both and told me he was going to cook me chicken in it. The Play-Doh and the container went in his tiny little microwave. He ate a huge dinner of real food not from his microwave and he had a pretty good night. Sleep came quickly and I was thankful for an amazing day. The hardest part is the hardest part. No matter what it is you will get through it. Some days feel long and lonely but focus on the joy, on the good stuff. Smiles to all and donut daze!

I think it was that three, four, five o’clock in the morning time again when we woke up. Quiet is what I’m going with. Owen was mostly calm until a video he was watching didn’t pull up so he brought me his tablet but I was thankful he said, “good morning mommy” first, and then he said, “I’m fine” before I said anything. He quickly rushed on, me still not saying anything. He wanted me to find a video and as soon as I found it he was on to the next one. Sometimes he uses a video to get to another one. He will ask for one that he knows how to ask for but wants one that he hasn’t figured out how to find any other way. Sometimes he doesn’t speak his words slowly or clearly enough for the voice-activated option to understand him. There are a few of his letters that he is still working on but he has come so far. He is still loving the map app. He found the local pizza restaurant again and was telling me all about the sign and what it looked like. When he can explain what he sees I’m amazed by it all. The details he is providing are very specific now. He kept telling me we were going to “grandma’s in a little bit.” He doesn’t want me to say anything else besides “little bit” when describing when we would be leaving. We got ready and headed out to the car. I am trying to leave earlier so that he always has more time to be able to do his own seatbelt. It’s hard for him to turn the buckle in the right direction without help so I’m trying to give him more time to process it. When we left he wanted to tell me all the places he wanted to go. I asked him if he wanted to go see the places or his grandma. He answered his grandma so I told him that he couldn’t give me the directions. I tried to distract him but distracting him for the almost twenty-minute car ride is almost as exhausting as having him yell directions at me the entire way there. I told him to make up a song about a dog eating an orange. He sang out “puppy puppy puppy eats tangerine” and I started laughing. Hey, he came up with a song that technically was about a dog and a member of the citrus family. It was wonderful. I’m thankful that he is thinking outside the box like this. He got a little anxious when we left and started talking about all the days ahead, trying to grasp his schedule and emotions. He knows today’s date and he knows the date he starts back to school. This is both helpful and hard for him. He still doesn’t want to look at a schedule or calendar but it’s like he is a human calendar always staying up with the day of the week and can tell me the date. He had a good time with his grandma and he told her to order chicken today. He didn’t eat it at her house but he had it for dinner. He was much calmer when we got home. When it was bedtime he keep sitting on the couch asking for one more hug. “One hug,” he said, “ready set go” stretching out the word “go” like it would never end. He ended up getting tons of hugs and tickles. His laughter is the magic in my soul. When his beautiful blue eyes are filled with his laughter there is nothing better than that moment. God’s gift is the inspiration I need every day to be a better me and I’m so thankful for my gift. Find what makes you laugh and share it with the world. Smiles to all and donut daze!

The heaviness of the day floated over me from the minute I woke up. It is possible to have a calmly chaotic day with a sprinkle of where’s the coffee for support mixed right in. I wait for the screams and I wait for the noise that’s going to cause the screams. Trying activities with Owen and for him doesn’t always equal fun for either one of us. And yet you push through it to find success at some point. People say this gets easier. I say this gets different. Our journey, our story is not always easy to explain but the love sure is. Owen was up I think around four. It might have been three but I tried to not look at the clock. He went to the bathroom, got his tablet, and sat under his blanket on the couch. The key to all of this was he was as quiet as he could be at three o’clock or four o’clock in the morning. I waited until this morning to tell him that he was going to his grandma’s house while I went to an appointment. I knew the questions would come immediately and keep coming until we walked out the door. We got ready and out the door, we went. The car had rain on it. This upsets him greatly. I would love to say having a garage would help this but when we are out and it rains the same thing happens. He couldn’t process opening the wet door and we needed to get going. I’m trying to get him to understand the rain on the door won’t hurt him. I told him it was like bath water and he loves baths. This was the first time he repeated “bath water” when I tried to explain this. He got in the car but he was too focused on the rain on the car to attempt putting on his seatbelt. Every day I tell him he has to put his seatbelt on but he’s not there yet. We got to Grandma’s and he was happy. He was there a few hours and I went to pick him up. His words and connections are amazing but I don’t always understand the connections at first. Today was full of new connections to be made and a connection happened to something I have been trying to figure out. “Lips” and “lizards” are two words he says as we go through an intersection that he used to always say it was raining even when it wasn’t. I know one day I’ll figure it out but today the big connection was made. He keeps telling me he wants me to “turn right at the skeleton.” I leapt for joy when he brought me the newly installed maps app and he showed me the “skeleton.” His brain is beyond brilliant, beyond. The picture he paints of the world around us is more vivid than he can even explain yet. The building he showed me has windows that have spaces between them. I can easily see how he looks at this building and see a skeleton. He showed it to me and said, “turn right at the skeleton.” He went on to tell me that it had a “hat on.” Again I had no doubt how the reference came about because over the window is a symbol that looks similar to what a pirate hat would look like on a skeleton. The tears of joy that are falling down my face make it almost impossible to write. He struggles with words and expressing himself but I know that every word that he does speak means something and I know what it takes for him to express each one of those feelings and words. Exhaustion doesn’t even begin to describe the state I’m constantly in but the faith and belief I have in my son outweighs all of this. Each day his story will continue to write itself and I pray for every step we take. The rest of the night I tried to not upset the apple cart and he was very calm until I suggested it was bedtime but he was out within minutes. Life starts now. The greatest gift you can give yourself is the faith to believe you can accomplish anything you set your mind to. Believe in yourself and the rest will follow. Smiles to all and donut daze!

My exhaustion was exhausted last night and I think I was asleep before my head truly hit the pillow. I prayed Owen and I would both sleep all night and that mostly came true. I woke up a couple of random times but thankfully went right back to sleep and then we both slept until after five. The morning went extremely fast. Owen’s appetite is increasing right along with his height. This has him also more concerned about his pants. He is growing taller but this changes the way his pants fit. Technically none of them are too small for him but they are starting to get shorter and looser to some degree because of the way they are fitting now. He always says “help with the pants” and then pulls his shirt all the way up to get me to change the tightness. I’m always thankful his pants have the option to tighten and loosen them. Wish mine came with that option. He played with the maps app as the morning wore on. I love that he can find so many of the places he loves on his own. He has names he calls things for many of the places but I still don’t know where all of them are or what the names mean. There are several that the terms are general but I know them because of where we have gone. I’m excited about how much he likes it and that he can understand it. We were meeting our friends at our church to go to the park and let the kids ride their bikes before Owen went to therapy. As soon as he saw his friend’s bike he wanted to ride it. He said, “Owen have a turn” before we even started walking towards the playground. Every time he sees a bike anywhere he always says he wants to ride it. Between that and random motorcycles, I am always on my toes. I had picked up chicken nuggets for us but I knew it would be hard for Owen to eat them because that was play time and not picnic time. We had a wonderful time. We only wish it wasn’t quite so hot but it was great to see the kids play together. I love the interaction and encouragement Owen gets from the other child. The gift of friendship I am thankful for and I am grateful we have many that we call friends. We left to go to our appointment and he did pretty well. He was a little hyper, especially for his first appointment but I let him go alone to his next one and he was much calmer his therapist said after the first few minutes of asking where I was. I like him to experience it with me there but also have time on his own. When we came home he was very specific about which way he wanted to go and what he wanted to see. I tried to get him to calm down but he was in overdrive at this point and he didn’t want to breathe through the moments. When we got home he ate numerous snacks and asked for chicken for dinner. He hadn’t eaten very many of the nuggets at lunch so I had a feeling he would eat a lot for dinner. He was very calm after that and started asking about Saturday. He doesn’t know yet that he will be going to see his grandma in the morning while I go to an appointment. I almost told him and then decided I wanted to try to get some sleep for both of us tonight. His laughter and smile are what make my heart sing. Be inspired to change the world with your smile. Smiles to all and donut daze!

Traveling through my emotions while Owen traveled through the streets of our city on the new map app I downloaded for him seemed to be how the day went. I had grand plans of us going somewhere today but I also realized we would be doing something every day for almost the next week. It’s a lot for him to process and it’s a lot for me to watch him process. Plus, sitting felt like what I needed to do today. It’s never technically sitting but it is what tends to happen. I slept better than I had in a while but I didn’t fall asleep until after midnight. I thought I heard Donald Duck talking to me in my dreams but I quickly realized that it was Owen on his tablet. He had slept until a little after five and so the day began. He was in a good mood for most of the day except when I suggested we go somewhere so instead we spent our day eating, sitting, laughing, and technically driving all over the world from the comfort of our own home. It was mostly the windows, blue river, brown underpass, green underpass, and the “building with the boy.” His little southern accent gets me every time he asks for me to help him when he would get too far off the area. I’m amazed at how much he found and that he figured out how to download the app on his backup tablet. He has been watching videos that people take while they are driving. He was watching the video and then would go to the app and find the streets that were in the video. I truly don’t know how he finds it and why it even surprises me that he does. You would think I would be used to it by now but he still amazes me all the time. We played lots of games together and he asked dozens of times when he was going back to school. He knows but he still wanted me to confirm it. He is ready for his big Thursday. We are meeting our friends at our church so the kids can ride bikes and play and then Owen will go to therapy. I’m thankful for a good day. Sometimes we need a little downtime to reset our days. He played his ukulele for me before he went to bed and I’m so proud of how far he has come. He’s starting to put his fingers on the notes and that is huge. I know it will all come together for him and he will be playing beautiful music he writes in no time. Find the music that soothes your soul and warms your heart. Smiles to all and donut daze!