Arkansas Walk Now For Autism Speaks

As many of you know my son is Autistic. The diagnosis became "real" June 19th 2013 when he was 2 years old. Before this he did have a preliminary diagnoses. So we have known very early on that he had autism. 
We have tried to do fundraising and raise money to donate to local organizations that contribute to autism. Unfortunately where I live there are not many local anythings. And we could not get much money raised at all, so we dropped it. 
Now we are focusing on Autism Speaks and I have been reading a lot of things where people are against this organization. Everything I am reading just makes no sense. I mean why do people want to nit pick everything and cause drama over the smallest things. I even received a message from someone warning me against Autism Speaks on my facebook page, Natural Beautisms and Flappings in Life, but yet I was unable to respond. 

So I will address some of the concerns people have against Autism Speaks
1) No one on the committee is autistic- Frankly this does not bother me one bit! Why would it bother anyone else? Are people who work in schools and the therapists that help our children autistic? Probably not. I am sure the people on the committee who are NOT autistic do have experience with autistic individuals, isn't that what matters?

2) Autism Speaks pulls money away from local communities- Well there are hardly any local anything where I live. We have a few things such as Community Connections, Arkansas Autism Resource and Outreach Center. When these local communities hold an event for fundraising we will do the same for them as we do Autism Speaks. Its not Autism Speaks fault that some people focus on raising funds for them than other organizations. 

3) Only 4% of money raised goes to blah blah blah--Honestly how can we tell? And if this was the case wouldnt this be fraud of some sort? I have not done a lot of research on this but I will eventually.  I know a lot of goes towards research and I am grateful for that! 

There are other accusations that I do not agree with. Autism Speaks’ advertising depends on offensive and outdated rhetoric of fear and pity, presenting the lives of autistic people as tragic burdens on our families and society. In its advertising, Autism Speaks has compared being autistic to being kidnapped, dying of a natural disaster, having a fatal disease, and countless other inappropriate analogies.

I mean come on! I have never had these thoughts cross my mind when I watch any video on autism speaks. They show the reality of autism, how it effects lives. And no this is not held true to all autistic children. None of the people are the same. What is wrong with showing the ugly side of autism? Nothing, hence the purpose of fundraising to raise awareness and donate money for research. So far I have NOTHING against autism speaks. It has been full of information that has helped me and my family learn and cope with my sons diagnoses and help us learn ways to teach him. 

So with this being said there is an event coming up October 18th that we have signed up for. Arkansas Walk Now for Autism Speaks. We have never done a walk before so this is the first and we have never tried to raise money for Autism Speaks so this is the first time for that. I am asking for donations to support us in our walk for Autism. Even Logan will be walking!! Please find it in your hearts to overlook all this controversy about Autism Speaks and donate. Our goal is to raise $500 by October 18th. If you get right down to it, every organization has controversy. 
Here is the link to our donation team, Logans Sidekicks! Please share this and donate!! I am thinking to everyone who donates I will send them a complimentary autism awareness para-cord bracelet. 

I WALK FOR LOGAN

A Day In My Life

A day in my life is not glamorous by any means. It is boring for the most part and a lot of people probably do not want to be in my shoes. We have everyday struggles with living pay check to pay check. I am a worry wart so I worry about everything even if it is two months ahead of time. I think I put a bunch of unnecessary stress on myself. (To much time to think about it, perhaps?)
2 boys who attend school (public) and one that attends a preschool. I guess you can say that. I am not sure what they call them. Developmental preschool. He has autism which I have mentioned several times. 

My morning starts off at 6:30 a.m. by waking up little man (Logan) and getting him ready for his day. Some mornings are good and others are not so good. Depends on how he slept that night. 

I get him off on the bus, then the two boys off on theirs and I usually try to back to sleep. I am an insomniac so sleeping in the night is something that I do not usually do. 

I wake up from my nap and take my dogs out and start on my "chores" you know those awful things grown ups have to do? Laundry which is a never ending battle, picking up all the crap left from the night before. Our coffee table ends up being completely covered by the end of the night. Did I mention I live with 4 boys? I dust everyday. Once a week I move everything and dust under it. I vacuum everyday. I have a Siberian Husky, this must not be skipped or I will have a new dog in the house. After my chores are done I sit down in front of my computer, in "my spot" and start working on my blog or scrolling through facebook. Have I ever mentioned that I do not have a social life? My social life is behind a computer screen. 

By the time I have had maybe an hour or two for all my blogging and things Mr. Sexy gets home from work with my little man. He has a total of maybe 20 or 30 minutes to calm down from school, get something to drink and a snack before our wonderful ABA therapist arrives to start another 4 hours of therapy with little man. 

So while therapy is going on I try to participate as much as I can, Mr. Sexy will most of the times take care of dinner. I am running back and forth with therapy and taking care of the older two boys, which they have to be reminded to do their chores, take a shower and do homework. I try to call my mom everyday and do this almost towards the end of therapy during the time Logan is having books read to him. The therapist leaves around 7 p.m. then its time to get Logan settled down, eat his dinner(since he does not eat with us because he is super picky) get cleaned up, lotioned down because he has eczema so he needs his daily steroid cream rubbed on the rough spots then the lotion on after that on his entire body. He hates this so its whining the entire time and my hair getting yanked on and even sometimes being kicked. The joys of autism right? He just does not like the feel of that slimmy stuff on him. Then he gets his nightly dose of melatonin and benadryl. If no benadryl he will scratch himself until he bleeds. Then if he is allowed he will get to play his game for a bit before bedtime and of course all we do is sit and watch t.v.

So the little one goes to bed and we are soon to follow. Eric goes right to sleep of course. Men seem to be able to do that well. I sit there on my phone on instagram, pinterest, farm heroes saga, and fb for several hours before I drift off. Then wake up and start over. Not so glamorous right? Every now and then I can go to wal-mart after begging my Mr. Sexy if we can go after therapy. Who thought being in the house so much can make you go insane?

What about you? Is a day in your life glamorous or boring or just peachy?

Our New Tradition

I hope everyone is doing great! I have been out for several days. A week to be exact I believe. 
Here is my explanation. Firstly I try not to blog when my Mr. Sexy is home. He feels like I am ignoring him :-) Second, I ended up sick. Yes the illness came upon this house. My daughter had came to visit for her weekend time and she passed it on to us. Thank you Gabby! Eric (Mr. Sexy) ended up sick first. He took off work and slept for awhile and I will admit, I have a lack of empathy sometimes and I did not want to get sick so I tried to keep my distance from him. That did not work and I ended up with it, 2x's worse. Imagine that. Seems the further down the line an illness goes it gets worse. My step son ended up at the doctor yesterday with a minor ear infection. He is no antibiotics for a bit. 

This morning you could tell it was Friday. Waking the 2 kids out of 3 up to get ready for school was a bit more hard. Cory overslept and would not wake up when his older brother tried to get him up. 30 minutes later he gets up when I tell him. Shower was skipped. Logan had his covers up over his head and was not awake at all and he just wanted to stay in bed. Thank goodness its Friday so the little bits can wake up on their own tomorrow. The one thing I love about Saturday.

During the down time of trying to recover I missed out on several prompts from the Blog-Tember Challenge. That is okay I will do my best to try to make them up. If not at least get back on track again. 

Day 12- Tell us about a favorite tradition, it can be any tradition and tell us what makes it so special. 

It is very hard to have traditions when you have a blended family especially around the holidays. Everyone is trying to figure out when kids will be with us or be with the other side or when we can celebrate with our families and then try to have our own. Mr. Sexy (Eric) and I have been together 2 years this month. Our relationship is new still yet so there are not many traditions set in stone. Like I said it is so hard to do the traditional traditions. 

While trying to type up this post and racking my brain on a tradition we have or could have, I found one.

We make a yearly trip to the Little Rock Zoo every year. This started in 2013 when we heard thatArkansas Autism Resource and Outreach Center hosts one day out of the year where admission is free for families who have been affected by Autism. We have attended both years so far and hope to continue this. Unfortunately, getting everyone to go and together is impossible. 

2013 All the Kids together

This Year and As you can see, 2 kids are missing. One wanted to stay with a friend and the other is having issues talking to his father. Long Story

I have come to realize when you have a blended family, traditions have to be tweaked a bit. You can not always have everyone together at once to do the special thing your family does. Keep the tradition and if everyone can attend that is great if not that is fine too. We will continue to attend Zoo Day that Arkansas Autism Resource and Outreach Center hosts every year! 

What favorite traditions do you have? We want to hear and you can link up At Brave Love