Survival mode (part 1)
From November 2017 until about August 2018 I was in total survival mode. Adding more and more to my plate, the time allotted for work, personal life, family time and sleep were diminishing. My life started to be broken down to not just a daily routine, but literally, hourly. The token board was the first of the ABA therapy tools to be used, which breaks tasks and behaviors into 5-min increments and then repeats. Imagine how crushed my routine-hating spirit was as this became my reality every. single. day. That was at home. In church, the token board was broken down into SINGLE MINUTES. Example: Jude sits reasonably quiet for…
Left out
Happy World Autism Day! Take today and be an encouragement to someone you know and support these exceptional kids! Jude spontaneously stopped sleeping through the night (in his bed) a year ago. He started getting up two, three, five times per night. His obsessions with certain things started to surface at this time: among other things…Cars. ALL the cars. He started watching a YouTube channel of a man un-boxing hot wheels cars and giving the make & model. He has hundreds of cars memorized. “1960 Corvette” “1983 Honda Civic” “1950 Chevy 5-window”. It’s honestly astounding and if he asks you what the make/model is and you don’t know, he gets…
Go to the mattresses
If you’re not a “You’ve Got Mail” fan (I’m sorry and you should be!), then you’re likely confused with the title. Take a second and watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHTj2tecNbU First, I want to be clear on something: NoThis was not created to debate ANY topics (this includes ABA, autism caused by vaccines, special diets, “cures” for autism, CBD use, etc). This is simply our story and what work(s) for Jude. If you have questions as to why this is, please refer to my 1st post where I laid out my 3 goals for the blog. I am happy to respond to comments privately for those seeking more information (which many have,…
The World’s Worst Welcome Packet
The summer of 2017 was tumultuous at best. I started schlepping Jude to Occupational Therapy (OT) twice a week and filling out paperwork for Childfind. The “incident reports” for the preschool started to come more frequently and with that, the patience of the director was (understandably) waning. The sensory based issues were starting to become more and more noticeable as well. I would often pick him up from school to find him rolling in the dirt (not just normal little guy behavior). He starting gagging on everything we fed him. He would fight clothing with elastic and tags. We discovered his burning hatred for: hats, masks, goggles, sunscreen, toothbrushes, balloons,…
$490 for Nothing
*disclaimer: as we get further into Jude’s story, all of the specific names of people, neighbors, schools, doctors, etc will be changed for confidentiality* The days following the meeting with the Montessori preschool were filled with conversation between Joey and I, discussing our next steps. Joey was 100% in disagreement with their assessment and was not in favor of any testing or screening. I plan to, in the future, dedicate an entire post to how men vs. women process a diagnosis in their child, but that’s not important at this juncture. Joey felt that the Montessori style, with so much freedom and self-regulated learning, was setting Jude up for failure.…
Pre-Autism (Final Part)
January 2, 2017. I was at Chick-fil-A with my older sister, Jill. I still remember the booth in which we sat, mindlessly chatting while the kids played in the play-place to our left. At some point, the conversation turned a bit quiet and serious. I am positive that there was an earlier conversation between her and my younger sister, Emily that ended with some sort of resolution pact like “ok, so it’s decided that YOU’RE going to talk to Mer about Jude after we all leave”… Jill is always the one that’s chosen, between the three of us, to deliver bad news. She has the perfect mix of kindness, tact…
Pre-Autism (Part 3)
I’m sorry, Ms. Vazquez, I only see one baby A wave of mixed feelings rushed over me. I felt both relieved and guilty at the same time. Had I caused this by not taking care of myself (or them), or was this some sort of punishment for not wanting to be pregnant at all? I quickly thought of many women in life who were currently dealing with infertility, who would have LOVED to be pregnant with one baby, let alone twins. Yep, there’s the guilt–I carried it deeply for quite some time. I had experienced “vanishing twin syndrome”, where Baby B, literally miscarried and absorbed, while I had no symptoms…
Pre-Autism (Part 2)
December 5, 2013 I stayed up all night drinking my delightful MoviPrep (this was apparently before the GI industry discovered the “drink your favorite Gatorade flavor + 1 full bottle of Miralax” option). It was like drinking clear, berry flavored motor oil. TO THIS DAY I can recall the taste and it immediately triggers a gag reflex. I sat on the couch, clicking away on my laptop and watching the Barefoot Contessa, dreaming about eating. I was planning a super-awesome customer retreat that I was hosting the following weekend–I remember thinking it was so annoying to have this colonoscopy right in the middle of both the retreat planning and my…
Pre-Autism (Part 1)
I think one of the hardest parts of Autism (and any special needs child) is the changes your life requires immediately. There’s a reason you get 9 months to prepare for having a baby-its because huge changes are coming and you need time to prepare. When you receive your child’s diagnosis or they are born with a handicap, your life changes INSTANTLY. You have no choice but to accept the changes and start the uphill fight–there really is no time to “mourn” your old life–its go-time. To really understand our journey with Jude, its important to know what our life was like before November 2017… 2007-2010 I graduated college and…
Welcome to NoThis.org!
You’re probably wondering what’s behind the name “No This”… Our son Jude has Autism (ASD) and Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD). When Jude started communicating, his vocabulary was pretty limited and was definitely a language that only he understood—except a few phrases. “No This” is his go-to, to let us know he doesn’t want, like, or approve of something. “No this” could be aimed at the food he’s being served, the person talking to him, a video he doesn’t like, balloons, socks, walking too close to him going upstairs, and about a thousand other things that randomly rotate with no warning or pattern. On the flip side “just this” is…
