Hello and welcome to the blog :)  My name is Sarah, and I am the mother of two boys, one of whom is severely autistic. For a long time now I have been thinking of writing about this. I initially had something more substantial in mind, but my very intelligent big sister suggested I start with a blog and I decided that was a great idea.

     Autism has certainly garnered a great deal of attention over the last 10 years and rightly so. However, I find that most of that attention is focused on one of two things. We see the "success" stories or we see the arguments over what may or may not have caused it. Don't get me wrong, I think it's wonderful to draw attention to the positives or when people have been able to do things that have helped their children in significant ways. I also do not have a problem with people expressing their opinions or fighting for their beliefs. However, I do feel like what has been missing is the reality of this for many of us. As a parent, I would often feel guilty when I would see news stories or read books about people who "cured" their children of autism, or recovered them significantly - because that hasn't happened with Josh. We tried many, many things and he has been receiving interventions or therapy of varying intensity and focus since he was 19 months old. I believe that for many of us, the big success stories aren't the norm and we shouldn't feel alone or guilty because of that. So part of this is to share with you my family's reality of life with an autistic child. I'm hoping that this will be of interest to many people, not just those in my situation. Chances are if you haven't yet, you likely will someday, run into someone whose life has been affected by autism in some way.

     What this is: with as much humor as possible (hey, laughter is GOOD!) it's a look at the day to day strangeness that is Planet Josh. What this is not: a place for political debate or to argue over things like cause or treatment modalities. We all have our own opinions and our children are all different and there are places where you can argue to your heart's content about those things if it's important to you. This is not one of those places :)  Here is where you can come to learn, laugh, maybe cry, relate, share, or spend a few minutes because you couldn't find anything better to read. Whether you are a parent, relative, teacher, health care professional, friend or just interested in how my life might be different from yours, please, read on.

     For a while, the posts will be focused on getting to know Josh. You can't really understand this planet of his until that happens. Since this is my first foray into the Blog-o-sphere, I imagine the site will evolve over time. So be patient, stick with me if you can, and I will do my best to make it work.


ps. the "counters" on the sidebar will make more sense after you read my first couple of entries.