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Forever Boy: A Mother's Memoir of Autism and Finding Joy

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It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson Friendship must be built on a solid foundation of alcohol, sarcasm, inappropriateness, and shenanigans.” —Unknown So they left to the mall and went directly to the prom store. Every dress Susie saw she said it was the one. At long last, she finally had her heart on this yellow dress. Kevin was so relieved from waiting for 2 hours and a half to finally go home, but still criticised Susie's choice, saying it was ugly, that it looked like a garbage can and seemed stupid on her. However, his mother did not punish him, and still bought him the game. Once home, Kevin darted to his room to play it in peace. If you have a best friend that you can talk to about anything and they won’t judge you, never let them go.” —Unknown It’s still lonely, five years in. Your best friends may not know what to say and say nothing/ghost you. You feel ashamed or in my case ready to put anyone who says anything shitty about your kid on blast.

Forever Boy, A New Autism Memoir with Kate Swenson Forever Boy, A New Autism Memoir with Kate Swenson

If you live to be a hundred, I hope I live to be a hundred minus one day, so I never have to live without you.” —A. A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh When a premarital counselor asked Swenson and her boyfriend at the time, Jamie, how they would cope with the challenges of caring for a child on the autism spectrum, they balked. “ What a silly question,” she writes. “That would not happen to us. He went on to briefly talk about the stress of hav­ing children, and how a child with special needs intensifies it. I remember not being jarred by the question, not in the slightest. I mean, we were healthy and invincible.” After suffering a miscarriage, the couple’s second pregnancy resulted in Cooper, who could not be comforted by touch. Cooper mystified the author and made her an outsider to the “exclusive club” of mothers with so-called “normal” children. As she struggled to make sense of her situation and the attendant personal and financial challenges, Jamie distanced himself. Though they divorced, they became more committed to giving their children—especially Cooper, who had been diagnosed with severe, language-impeding autism—“their best life.” Finally able to work as a team, she and Jamie fought doctors and schools to give Cooper what he needed, and they remarried each other. Despite their loving care, Cooper was subject to fits of rage so violent that they feared for the safety of their other children. The author, creator of the blog Finding Cooper’s Voice, finally decided to medicate Cooper to ameliorate the anxiety that stalked him, despite her fear that drugs would turn him into a “zombie.” The result was miraculous. Much calmer in general, Cooper began to build a small vocabulary that helped him emerge from the lonely world in which he had been trapped. This wise, inspiring book will appeal to not only parents of children with autism, but anyone interested in stories about the selflessness and endurance of maternal love. Kate: And here's what's so funny is I feel like I'm kind of a new parent in a way because, you know, Cooper was so different than the baby books predicted. And then Sawyer just kind of skated through because he was so in a sense, you can just say easy to parent. There were no struggles with him in the beginning. So now I'm like, Oh my gosh, terrible threes are a real thing. This is hard, it's like I'm starting over. Don’t make friends who are comfortable to be with. Make friends who will force you to lever yourself up.” —Thomas J. Watson Kate: Yep, Winnie is now. She is almost 10 months old. Yeah. And she's our fourth and our only girl and such a blessing to our family. She's just a joy.

Do you agree with this statement? “I want to be more interesting to talk to”

Mary: Yeah, right. And that comes with a double edged sword because the more followers you have, the more people with, you know, that aren't going to like you, the more hate you can get, the more famous you can get. And I think you did outline that a little bit in your book how you did have a viral video. Mm-Hmm. I think we talked about it last time and it went viral, right? And that's... Best friend: someone you can only stay mad at for so long because you have important things to talk about.” —Unknown Real friends don’t get offended when you insult them. They smile and call you something even more offensive.” —Unknown That’s when I realized what a true friend was. Someone who would always love you—the imperfect you, the confused you, the wrong you—because that is what people are supposed to do.” —R.J.L.

Super Meat Boy Wiki | Fandom Super Meat Boy Wiki | Fandom

Growing apart doesn’t change the fact that for a long time, we grew side by side; our roots will always be tangled. I’m glad for that.” —Ally Condie Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.” —Oprah WinfreyKate: OK, so I'm really bad at that. I have none. I mean, fully honest is I literally have the fourth baby changed everything. I would say if I was to have one, I would want to get out to dinner with my husband once a week, except I would need to find help and I don't have that. So I could spend more time with my husband alone without kids. And then I would love to go for a walk every day. Oh my gosh, I would love that. But I'll be honest, I don't have any right now, and it's starting to show and it's wearing on me. What did you know?

Forever Boy: Original – HarperCollins

Kate: It's the memoir style story of us, so it starts out with me as a little girl, which is the opening and how I just dreamed of being a mother and I always played house and babies. I think I was like 12 years old and went right to babysitting and nannying. And I start by talking about what if someone would have told me that my first child would be disabled? Would it have changed my way of thinking? And there are no crystal balls, so we don't we don't know that, and I never thought I would have a child with a disability. I'm always the first to say that because it's just I had no idea that that could happen. And then it goes into my husband. I had a miscarriage first, and then we had Cooper. And really, it is just the ups and downs and turns and twists of his diagnosis, which you think it's going to be so easy. You know, my child has this going on. This is the answer, but it's not. There is no blood test. There is no marker. There is. And we really had to fight for that diagnosis. And then, you know, over the years of trying to get him help and services, nothing fell into our lap. It was just a constant pull and, you know, push and pull for everything. And then, you know, the climax of the book is really I realized I was missing a lot of his life, grieving the things that he would never do. And I had to change. I just had to change who I was. Me, not him. He was fine. He was exactly who he was supposed to be. I was the problem and changed my way of thinking, and I adopted this tagline Find the Joy, which is cheesy to some people, but I had to live in this happy place because it was eating me alive.I love the friends that you don’t see for days, weeks, even months and the bond is still strong as ever.” —Unknown

263 Best Friends Quotes (To Share in Any Situation) - SocialSelf

When Kate Swenson’s son Cooper was diagnosed with severe, nonverbal autism, her world stopped. She had always dreamed of having the perfect family life. She hadn’t signed up for life as a mother raising a child with a disability. Her memoir describes her emotions and feelings on the diagnosis process to the disappointment and huge levity that was placed on her discovering her child would have special needs. I was a smart, strong, devoted, capable person and I could make this better. I had the power to make this better. And now that we had a diagnosis, it should be easy. Someone, I wasn’t sure who exactly, will tell me what to do. Like a prescription of sorts. Cooper wasn’t the first autistic kid diagnosed, nor would he be the last. I would just help him. Simple as that. By my calculations, he could be fine by kindergarten. That was the goal I set for myself. Friendship isn’t about who you’ve known the longest. It’s about who walked into your life, said, “I’m here for you,” and proved it.” —Unknown If I were to describe Cooper’s toddler years with one word, it would be lonely, a word that I didn’t know before having a baby could be associated with motherhood.I hate how we’ve drifted apart, but then again, if you won’t make an effort to keep me in your life, why should I?” —Unknown

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