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Congratulations to the Facebook Contest Winner of 2 VIP tickets to @RescueOurAngels !! http://t.co/sIhipeY4 21 May 2012 via @GenRescue
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Viewing entries tagged with 'maryann della rocco'
What Makes a Warrior Mom?
May
11
As I was contemplating Mother's Day and what it means to those of us who are proud to be called Warrior Moms, I began to think about what it really means to be a Warrior Mom, someone that fights every day to help our children reach their greatest potential. ...
My husband and I are coming up on our eleventh anniversary this June. Like many brides, I thought that on my wedding, I knew well the man I was committing my life to. What I’ve learned since that day is that every wedding is a leap of faith and that as much as I thought that I knew my husband well through our years of dating and engagement, it is the joys and challenges that life brings that really reveals the true nature of your partner.Like other families whose child has been diagnosed with autism, my husband and I shoulder big responsibilities: finding the best therapies for our child, navigating the school system, planning for his future....
Does your child have any item they truly love playing with? Something that isn't electronic? Something that they play with appropriately? What about pretend play? That has been a hard one for us. "Play," such a small word, but one that holds so much impact in development. We are all told how important pretend play is, but until your child doesn't do it, you really don't understand just how important it really is.This weekend we had the most wonderful experience, one we really have been hoping for but hadn't happened as of yet. Matthew engaged in a long, uninterrupted, non-directed session of pretend play! He grabbed some small Legos StarWars figures and started to mess around with them....
Acceptance and Hope
Mar
26
It has been six years since my son, George, was diagnosed with autism. Like so many parents receiving this diagnosis for my child, my initial reaction was one of deep despair, matched with a sense of total overwhelm. It took me several months to sort through the myriad of therapy options to treat children with autism and to ultimately choose the healing path of diet, supplements and RDI (Relationship Development Intervention) that started to give my family a sense of hope. But what has taken me a longer amount of time to discover has been something less tangible and something that I have only been able to find by looking within; it is a deep truth about my son--that though......
Holding onto your Spoons
Mar
05
If you’re lucky, you have a few people in your life that can offer true guidance. I just lost one of the wisest women I’ve ever known – my darling mom. For the remainder of my life, I now have to ask myself, “What would mom say?” There is an old African proverb that relates the death of an elderly person to the loss of a library. I’ve read most of her books and perused her card catalogs of advice, but I know nothing will replace the sheer comfort and joy of hearing my mom’s words from her own lips.With the physical loss of someone so dear, so valuable and wise, I find I look for wisdom in other places now....
People often ask why I still read up on biomedical treatments, research alternative therapies and attend autism conferences. Why do I still implement dietary intervention, biomedical supplements and homeopathy?...
Cleansing Toxic People
Feb
10
Like many of you who are committed to keeping the level of toxins in your home as low as possible, I am conscious of only using green cleaners and buying organic produce and grassfed meat. Knowing that it is harder for my son who has autism to detox from the toxins that are so prevalent in our environment, taking this step helps to keep the toxic level in our home as low as possible.But in the last few years of our healing journey, I have become aware of another area in which I need to consciously keep our toxic level low: toxic people. It might sound harsh, but you know like I do—supporting our children as we remediate their autism......
Proud Warrior
Jan
25
The other day I came across a blog by a mom who has no desire to be called a "Warrior Mom." She feels as if the term "Warrior" makes it seem as if she were at war with who her child is. She does not feel she needs to medically treat (as in biomedical interventions) her daughter's autism, instead she looks upon her daughter's disorder as simply who her child is and she wants to work with therapists to optimize her child's potential with out changing or "fixing" her child.It is a lovely idea, but not one I can personally put into practice. I wonder if there is something less enlightened about me because I can't see the beauty in autism....
2012 is the Year of the Dragon in the lunar calendar. A divine creature, the Dragon is a symbol of good fortune, power and superiority in Chinese astrology. The Oriental Dragon is a revered, mystical creature, unlike the beastly, menacing Western Dragon. So expect grand success and good luck this auspicious year.Like all parents with children on the autism spectrum, good health and recovery for my children is predominant in my New Year's resolutions. This year, I also include taking better care of myself physically, emotionally and spiritually. Throughout the years in my children's recovery journey, I poured every fibre of my being into recovering Mei and Min Min. Until there was nothing left of me. I was drained, exhausted, TKO'ed....
Beautiful Speaker
Jan
09
Recently, Mei’s school presented awards to exceptional students in each grade for various scholastic excellence. Out of the 60 first graders, Mei received the award for Excellence in Reading and Speaking Expressively. This coming from a girl who was barely verbal 3 years ago. A girl whom everyone said had no hope, no future, no chance of a normal life. She proved them wrong....
As the author of “The Kitchen Classroom: 32 Visual GF/CF Recipes to Boost Developmental Skills,” I frequently write about cooking with your children as a wonderful way to connect and communicate and build social experiences for our children who are struggling to create relationships. When I started cooking with my son George, 9, when he was four years old and we had just started the gf/cf diet, my daughter June was 18 months old and she wanted to be part of the cooking process with us. Many afternoons, George would stand on a step stool mixing batter with me and June would sit right on the countertop, taking turns dumping in ingredients and stirring with her brother....
I have never had strangers throw me dirty looks, accusing me of being a bad parent and my son of bad behavior, but I have heard of many autism parents having to deal with those reactions. Especially when they are out in public and their child starts screaming because they turned the wrong way in the mall or the restaurant was out of their favorite food. Matthew has always been pretty easy out and about, he did get upset if we drove home the wrong way but no one else was around so I never felt judged.But recently I did feel judged. Let's just say I was made to feel as if I don't know how to parent my child,......
The 80s Brit Pop and New Wave music era were a major influence in my teens. Though American Top 40 music is equally popular in Malaysia, the British music scene fueled my teenage fantasies. I saved my allowance to afford subscriptions to British pop magazines. I re-winded tape cassettes to listen to my favorite songs again and again. Posters of pop stars smoldered on my bedroom walls, their music were the anthems to my youth. I wanted to be a Bananarama and I wanted to marry a Duran Duran.20 years later..... MTV stars no longer inspire me, instead they’re replaced by the rockstars of the autism world. Renowned doctors, scientists, researchers, superstar moms and iconic dads....
Working Through The Pain
Nov
18
“Your two girls are the equivalent of four boys!” A good friend said this to me a few years back. I agree because it validated my feelings at that time. Mei and Min Min were not the passive, silent version of autism. They were the angry, hyper, out of control version of autism. Their tantrums were legendary, life was filled with many berserker moments. To say they were a handful is a major understatement, they were the equivalent of four angry, hyper boys. We’ve had our share of manic trips to the hospital emergency ward for injuries, pneumonia, severe gastrointestinal pain and viral infections. But this is the first time we needed stitches....
Birthday Party Funk
Nov
09
Birthday parties used to be sensory hell for Mei, she couldn’t tolerate the overwhelming attack on her senses. The crowds, loud music, clowns, magicians, bouncy castles, even lighted candles were a sensorial attack. The few parties we attended were miserable failures. After turning down several party invites, the invitations dwindled down to nothing. Even the girls’ own birthdays were a disaster. There are no GFCF bakeries in Malaysia, so I baked and decorated GFCF cakes which usually tasted as bad as they looked. We invited the girls’ one remaining friend and sang Happy Birthday in our quietest voice to the accompaniment of Mei’s shrieks and Min Min’s sobs....
Halloween Without The Horror
Oct
24
Let me just warn you...I love Halloween. Not the gory Freddie Kruger stuff with gross out bloody masks with all manner of hardware and veins popping out, but the whimsical Halloween with witches, ghosts and caramel dipped apples. My kids were early converts to my love of All Hallow’s Eve, but my husband is a hold-out because of all the aforementioned gore. Each year, he turns into the Halloween version of the Christmas Grinch. So each year, to seduce him over to the (highly decaffeinated) dark side, and to thrill my kids, we throw an old fashioned Halloween party.Complete with a bean bag toss, eyeball-in-a-spoon relay race and a tootsie roll toss, we decorate brown lunch bags with washable markers,......
Homework with Autism
Oct
05
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I am officially obsessed with my hair right now. I have naturally curly/wavy hair and for all of my adult life I've worked to smooth those curls out and have nearly straight locks. Well recently I found out about the curly girl method and have actually been trying to nourish my hair into beautiful curls. There is this whole science associated with successfully treating curly hair involving removal of bad ingredients, adding nourishing products, using said products in the correct combination, determining whether your hair likes protein or not and conditioning appropriately, applying coconut and other healthy oils, even the meteorological dew point! Sounds a little like biomedical treatment, doesn't it? (And don't baulk about the meteorological connection to biomedical,......
Life never takes a break. Sometimes I imagine that since we have autism in our lives, then the rest of life should take it easy on us. But that is never, ever the case, is it? Life always seems to have something up its sleeve....
Be Here Now
Jul
07
Our nightly ritual involves ordinary magic. Our family gathers at the dinner table to share stories about the day. We clear dishes, brush teeth, read bedtime stories, sing “Edelweiss” and “Memories” and my husband and I kiss our two boys good night. Tonight, however, my older son Ian is a little restless and lingers in the living room. To sooth himself he hums and rubs his hands rhythmically against the wall and carpet. He eventually settles down on the couch, flopping side-to-side, and after an hour falls asleep. Thirty minutes later, I help him walk sleepily up the stairs to his room and onto his bed, but he won’t lie down. Normally, he’d plop right down and settle in for......
Our Story of Recovery
Jun
11
Matthew was our first child. The day he was born it snowed, a big East Coast snow, but I didn’t care I was getting my baby boy. When he was born he was purple. When he was born he was silent. When he was born he wasn’t breathing. I thought he was going to die. Within hours of this traumatic birth he was given the Hepatitis B vaccine. He could not breast feed, he would rarely wake up, he was jaundice and something just wasn’t right. We took him to myriad of doctors and specialists trying to figure out why he couldn’t breastfeed, why he couldn’t pass stool, why he couldn’t hold his head up, why he startled at every......
The word “exciting” would be a definite understatement for expressing the course of events at where I work. After nearly six months of employment for the Center for Autism and Related Disorders, I got the chance to share my knowledge of the disorder during an open house event attended by parents, practitioners and the press. When I wrapped up the presentation, I could hardly believe the vast number of attendees that stayed for an extra hour to have a word with me. I found myself spending the rest of the evening sharing ideas and advice with parents and professionals from a deep pool of backgrounds in the field of autism (something I truly enjoy doing)....
I'm NO Supermom
May
05
I’ve never done anything really BIG in my life. I don’t think my name will be recalled in great debates long after I’m gone and I’m pretty sure you won’t find any of my writings being discussed on college campuses. But I dream BIG. Before autism entered our lives I dreamed of being a supermom. You know them, right? They always look put together with perfect hair, great figures and always the right shoes. They say the perfect things, their kids are star athletes, and for some reason they are always taller than me. What is up with that?...
Got Summer Plans
Apr
29
If your community is like ours, you probably have been inundated with flyers for camps, classes and activities all geared towards summer fun for your children! I am torn when it comes to summer plans for our autistic son. On the one side I don’t want to hold him back by not putting him in a general camp for normally developing children, but I also don’t want to put him a group where the instructor doesn’t understand his needs and therefore he doesn’t get much from the experience. But on the other side I question his need for a special needs camp? He is extremely high functioning and interacts with other children very well, so special needs camps seem like......
An Ordinary Family
Mar
31
Tanner spoke, chewed, played, dreamed, shot the basketball and road a bike. That all went away that day. His regression took him backwards to the abilities of a toddler. It changed our lives forever. I hope I can relate our mission to help Tanner, others, educate and search for answers through this blog with Generation Rescue. One more time for those who do not know our story, I will tell it again. I am not sure why this has been one of the hardest blogs to write. I have penned more than 500 blogs and posts. I have been a little over the top with more than 40,000 posts to twitter....
Making friends
Mar
30
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