This morning we woke up to this sweet note. Taylor had the idea that she and Makenzie would make us breakfast. They made me a peanut butter and honey toast and prepared Emily a bowl of Raisin Bran cereal. This doesn’t seem like anything significant, but Taylor has never really done anything like this so for us it was pretty huge. According to Makenzie, this was all Taylor’s idea. This morning Taylor pulled out some little cards she got when we were doing ABA therapy last summer that each have a suggested activity to help her figure out what to do ...

Taylor has now completed 35 sessions of PrTMS and its time for an overdue update. We have seen improvements in her sleep (falls asleep faster, wakes up fewer times during the night), improved behaviors at school (fewer elopements, less frequent suicidal ideation), and an overall improvement with her impulse control and behavior at home. We first started tracking Taylor’s suicidal ideations and elopements from home in the middle of December (I wish we would have started tracking this sooner!) and overall we have seen a decline in both of these since then. See chart below: Each column shows a full week of ...

We’re finally here. This is the first post of a project that Emily and I began thinking of 18 months ago. A lot has changed since then, but also a lot has stayed the same. We are the parents of four great kids, each with their own unique strengths and challenges and we wouldn’t have it any other way. Our oldest child, Taylor, was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in November of 2017, and our son, Jackson, was officially diagnosed with ASD in April 2019 (though we and his pediatrician suspected ASD for over a year). Makenzie is our sweet peacemaker in ...