It was the Thursday after St. Patrick’s Day and the first week of homeschooling since we’d been put on quarantine lockdown in our homes due to the coronavirus. The missionaries from our church had reached out to ask if they could share a brief spiritual message with us via FaceTime that evening and we resignedly accepted. And it went exactly as Blake and I expected. Well, at first anyway. As we sat on the couch and huddled around the iPad, Jackson became restless and overwhelmed and therefore resorted to hitting me and Blake and jumping off the back of the couch ...

I knew it probably wasn’t a great idea, but Emily needed a break. It was a chance to get all four kids out of the house on a Saturday afternoon so Emily could rest. They’ve all been to BYU basketball games before, and usually we manage to last at least until halftime before any one of them gets bored or overwhelmed to the point where we have to leave. We were offered some tickets and I knew Grandpa would be there to help out. It was a non-marquee opponent early on in the season, so the crowd wouldn’t be as big ...

“I just want to die.” It was 8am and we’d heard Taylor say those words nearly on repeat since 5am, when I’d jumped out of bed with my eyes still closed and stumbled down the hallway and into the kids bathroom to relieve my 8 year-old Makenzie, who was trying to pull a screaming, thrashing Taylor down from the small, open window she was attempting to fit through. It is the only upstairs window we have not hammered nails in to keep from opening more than a couple inches so that Taylor won’t be able to jump out. Now I’m realizing ...

As I was tucking Taylor into bed the other night, I turned to leave the room and said, “Goodnight, Taylor. I love you!” Her response? “I read that pitbulls are only aggressive if they feel threatened or if their owners teach them to be aggressive.” Yup, just living that autism parenting life, lol. In all seriousness though, many parents of autistic children rarely hear their children reciprocate feelings. It wasn’t until Taylor was 9 years old — when I had literally told her thousands of times that I love her — that Taylor responded one random night with, “I love you too, mommy.” I left ...

I want to share more about Taylor but instead of rewriting Taylor’s story, I am posting the text from a GoFundMe campaign we recently did to raise money for PrTMS treatment for Taylor. — Our oldest daughter Taylor is a bright and witty 10-year-old who was officially diagnosed with autism, severe anxiety, severe depression, disruptive mood dysregulation disorder (DMDD) and ADHD two years ago. We are raising money for a treatment for her called PrTMS (Personalized repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation) to help relieve some of her suffering and help her regain her childhood. The reason we’ve decided to move forward with this GoFundMe ...