My first child started reading at age three.  Homeschooling was going to be easy! Right?  My second child, Anna, was born dancing, drawing, and dreaming, but at age nine she was still reversing letters and forgetting how to sound out three letter words!  I had started both children with the same reading program, but Anna wasn't learning to read. 

I tried several learning programs. Nothing helped.  Nothing interested her. Reading was exhausting and confusing.  I really began to feel like there was something wrong with my second child, and because we were homeschooling I blamed myself.  I was afraid to talk to anyone about Anna's problem with reading.  I never suspected dyslexia.  I thought I was a bad teacher, until my third child taught herself to read and write at age...

Stop for a moment and look up from your computer.  All around you are things that were designed by someone.  Even the webpage in front of you was designed.  Your computer was designed.  The room you are sitting in, the clothing you are wearing?  Everything was designed, and chances are they were designed by a person with the gift of being able to think visually.

Some people are able to imagine something in their minds that has not yet been created.  They are able to  envision a better way of doing things.  They are able to envision an object and change the size, shape and color using the power of the 3D workstation called the imagination.  The people who designed the objects all around you were often called bad students, day-dreamers and doodlers.  They are the visual thinkers.  What if your child is a...

 Many people have trouble with their babies and toddlers when it's time for bed.  My first two children had trouble going to sleep, they just didn't want to stop playing and settle down.  So when Estera came along I came up with a little bedtime routine, and I have used this method will all of the other little ones with perfect success. Bedtime for babies is a happy  time at our house.  

But for many families bedtime is a battle of the wills, and these battles make parents think that they do not want anymore children, by the time the child is asleep the parents are worn out from the experience.  I choose my battles, and I don't want bedtime to be one of them.  So I have trained myself to understand how babies fall sleep peacefully.

We were both in line at the grocery store on a Saturday afternoon when I caught you counting the children hanging all over my two shopping carts.  “One, two, three, four, five…”  Your eyes grew wide, and I finished your sentence “Eight and one on the way.”   Anyone with three or more small children has heard the question over and over again, from complete strangers: “Are they all yours?”  And the next question goes something like this:  “I can’t handle my TWO!  How are you still smiling?” 

You were at the park chasing your preschooler.  You had a baby in a cloth sling.  You were putting a lid back on a Sippy cup as a whining toddler pulled on your shirt saying “Potty Mommy!”  And that’s when you asked me:  “Nine Kids? How are you so calm?” 

 I looked across the playground to see my teens pushing my preschoolers in the swings, my eight and ten year old racing to the slide with pockets full of rocks.  My six year old and eleven year old were catching lizards.  The baby was asleep in my arms as I dug through my purse searching for the last granola bar.  My answer, "Oh, it was much harder when I only had two or three!  In fact there was a time when I had three kids under three years old, I don’t know how I survived!  But after getting through that stage everything else in life seemed so much easier.  Even nine children ages 0 – 14 is easier than 3 preschoolers! ”  For a moment you laughed and said “I guess that what doesn't kill you makes...

Sometimes I don't know if I want to tell the world that I have a mild form of Autism.  I think it scares people.  I am afraid that people will make assumptions, judge me, and stay away from me because they don't know what to expect from me.  

After 37 years of coping with Asperger's Syndrome, I feel like I've mastered the art of "pretending to be normal" so I can fit in, be accepted and not scare people.  Most people are suprised to hear that I have Asperger's Syndrome, because I really have learned to adjust to the challenges and demands of the world around me.  

I've come to see my autism as a gift, and the best thing about having a different kind of mind is... 

 I was fifteen when I fell in love his smile.  I found myself falling in love with that same smile just today, as he tickled our giggly baby girl.  I fell in love with the warmth in his eyes that first summer we met, as we stood under a blue umbrella in the pouring rain.  We still love watching the rain together. 

I remember staying up late by the campfire, and taking walks in the moonlight.  Yet washing dishes together last night was somehow just as sweet.  I'm so glad that I've never held another lover’s hand.  He gave me my first kiss when I was nineteen, and he asked me to wear his ring, to be his bride, to share his days to share his life.  It all seemed so right, and it still does...