This is our Blog.

What a bizarre title for a blog. I simply could not come up with anything else that accurately described our life, which is not really bizarre, just unusual. Occasionally stressful (well, more than occasionally), sometimes funny, but always filled with love.

This is the story of a family. A typical New York family-of-four, with a civil servant dad, a social worker mom, a boy and a girl. Two cars, a mortgage, grandparents, tuition payments and friends (but no dog). The thing that makes us unusual (although, sadly, it is not so unusual anymore) is that our son has autism. No pity, please. We are among hundreds of families here in our little borough (most of which we know at this point) and hundreds of thousands nationwide. I don't know that a single one of these families look for pity. What they, and we, want more than anything is understanding and acceptance. When we don't get this from the general public, we find it amongst ourselves.

So enough with the speech. The sub-heading in the title is "redefining normal". This is what we have been working towards these past six years since Chris was diagnosed. You may have heard the term. It is offered as advice by friends, family, therapists (I have given it often enough in my work) to anyone who has gone through a major life change. Your "normal" life is not that any longer; you must adjust your thinking as to what normal is. The birth of a baby, marriage, new job, the loss of a spouse or parent. In our journey towards doing this, we have made a conscious effort to continue enjoying the things we have always loved (such as following the Mets) and find new things to love (such as all things Disney). We have refused to stop living; we are changing the way we live. It's that simple (but it's really not!)

So here's hoping that we can find new and interesting ways to live with autism joyfully, by sharing our story with others. And here's hoping that someone will find some hope themselves by seeing that it is possible to live a full, happy life while living with autism. I will not dwell on autism much here, I will occasionally rant about our perennial heartbreakers (the Mets), I will share funny stories about us, our world and all that's in it, and I will discuss our constant longing to be in Disneyworld when we're not.

So please enjoy. Feel free to comment with arguments, agreements and general observations.

See you soon!

Jo