During the month of April in honor of Autism Awareness/Acceptance Month I am going to post a picture showing our autism. Autism is a spectrum. When you know one child with autism you know one child with autism. This is our autism.

Play dates….This is what play dates look like. Even play dates with cousins. Alyssa is off playing with the other kids and Courtney chooses to be by herself. It’s important to note Courtney is choosing this. The others are not leaving her out. She finds a toy or object that calms her and she stays away from others. It often breaks my heart to watch her isolate herself but if that’s what keeps her happy in settings that are uncomfortable for her, then so be it. This is our autism.

During the month of April in honor of Autism Awareness/Acceptance Month I am going to post a picture showing our autism. Autism is a spectrum. When you know one child with autism you know one child with autism. This is our autism.

Alyssa’s headphones…there are many times you will also find Alyssa in headphones. Courtney can be very loud. She makes a loud licking noise when licking toys and she makes a lot of random and loud noises when she’s really happy. Alyssa can not tolerate these noises at all! We’ve had to work hard with Alyssa on this because stopping Courtney from making these noises is an impossible task. So, sometimes she also wears headphones. If you were to ask Alyssa what the hardest part of being an autism sibling she will say her sister’s noises. This is our autism.

During the month of April in honor of Autism Awareness/Acceptance Month I am going to post a picture showing our autism. Autism is a spectrum. When you know one child with autism you know one child with autism. This is our autism.

Sleep…sleep has been a struggle for Courtney since day 1. It took me forever to get her to sleep through the night. She still won’t fall asleep without me (or a trusted adult) next to her. We’ve gone through so many phases with her sleep. It use to take me several hours to get her to fall asleep in her room. Then the only place I could get her to fall asleep is in my room and then I’d carry her to her room. There were phases where car rides were needed to put her to sleep. She’s always been one where if she wakes up in the middle of the night she’s awake for hours.

Sleep currently is the best it’s ever been in some ways. Thanks to melatonin it only takes 45 minutes to get her to fall asleep and most nights she will sleep 9 hours. But sleep is only next to me all night long now. Anything to get our family sleep. This is our autism.

During the month of April in honor of Autism Awareness/Acceptance Month I am going to post a picture showing our autism. Autism is a spectrum. When you know one child with autism you know one child with autism. This is our autism.

Daily sheet…By first grade most children will come home and if parents ask enough of the right questions they may actually find out what their child did at school and how their day went. No matter what questions i ask, Courtney will not tell me. She does not have the ability to. So I rely on this sheet filled out by her teacher. It tells me what she did and how her day went. And because of autism, it’s not always a happy report. This has been a tougher week. This is our autism.

During the month of April in honor of Autism Awareness/Acceptance Month I am going to post a picture showing our autism. Autism is a spectrum. When you know one child with autism you know one child with autism. This is our autism.

Anxiety…Courtney struggles with anxiety. Her anxiety gets in the way of her ability to bathe, use the bathroom, go to new places and so much more, currently her anxiety is even getting in the way of one of her therapies. Her anxiety can be so hard to watch as her mom. In the picture posted Courtney is looking at cardboard cut outs of her favorite zoo animal while her sister is inside the penguin house. Her anxiety kept her from seeing a real penguin. This broke my heart. This is our autism.

During the month of April in honor of Autism Awareness/Acceptance Month I am going to post a picture showing our autism. Autism is a spectrum. When you know one child with autism you know one child with autism. This is our autism.

Letters…Courtney loves the alphabet. One of her favorite things to do is sit with an alphabet puzzle and pick up each letter and say the name and sound and then lick the letter. She also loves to watch YouTube videos about the alphabet. I’m pretty sure she learned all her letters from YouTube. This is our autism.

During the month of April in honor of Autism Awareness/Acceptance Month I am going to post a picture showing our autism. Autism is a spectrum. When you know one child with autism you know one child with autism. This is our autism.

Climbing again…I know one of the days already touched on climbing but when you spend all day every day getting her down from different heights it earns the right to be focused on twice. Yep, this is our autism!

During the month of April in honor of Autism Awareness/Acceptance Month I am going to post a picture showing our autism. Autism is a spectrum. When you know one child with autism you know one child with autism. This is our autism.

Peer play…Courtney prefers to play on her own. Her therapists often have Alyssa join therapy sessions so they can work on Courtney playing with a peer. It’s still very hard for her but with a lot of assistance she will play a short and very easy game. This is our autism.

During the month of April in honor of Autism Awareness/Acceptance Month I am going to post a picture showing our autism. Autism is a spectrum. When you know one child with autism you know one child with autism. This is our autism.

Self injurious behaviors (SIBs)…When Courtney is frustrated or experiencing discomfort she will often go to bite herself on her arms or knees LLP. This is considered self injurious behaviors. If she’s in a really rough spot, it happens repetitively and leaves horrible bruises. This is a picture of Courtney’s arm at the beginning of the pandemic. She did this to herself. This is autism at its hardest. This is our autism.

During the month of April in honor of Autism Awareness/Acceptance Month I am going to post a picture showing our autism. Autism is a spectrum. When you know one child with autism you know one child with autism. This is our autism.

Tracker…Courtney wears a tracker on her ankle. Just over a year ago she got out of the house and ran a couple houses down. The police had to be called but she was located quickly after the call was made. After that event we got her set up in a program that our neighborhood police department has. They put a tracking device on her so if she does run off, the police can locate her with special equipment. It was a very scary day! A day we hope we never have to repeat. This is our autism!