Happy Birthday Lil D

August 3, 2012 By 2 Comments
Dilshad and Daanish FB

What do you get for the boy who wants nothing? Lil D is turning 12 this weekend. With this joyous occasion, we yet again face the dilemma that comes up every year – how do you make the day special for a boy who doesn’t realize it’s his birthday, who doesn’t have any particular thing that he likes, who will probably get upset if any sort of celebration pushes him out of his realm of comfort? In the grand scheme of things, this is not the worst problem in the world. But every year, … [Read more...]

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Iftaar Interlude – Reviving an Old Tradition to Work Around Autism

July 30, 2012 By 1 Comment
ramadan_iftar_02

Home-based iftaar (fast-breaking) parties are pretty much out where we live, in lieu of large community-based potluck iftaars. But last year my husband and I decided to revive the tradition, because we wanted to bring our friends and family to our home to break their fast, and because we wanted to bring that feeling of  Ummah (Muslim community) home to Lil D, since he has been unable to attend the community iftaar events the past few years. (Too, big, too noisy, too chaotic, too much … [Read more...]

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Answering the Prayer of A Mother, A Traveler, and One Who is Fasting

July 23, 2012 By 1 Comment
Mideast Saudi Hajj

Big day tomorrow. We’re off to the Washington, D.C. metro area for a follow up appointment with a specialist for Lil D. As we have traversed this panic-fueled, emotionally-laden path since last January to try and figure out why so many things had taken a turn for the worse with our 11-year-old son, why self-injurious behaviors and some OCD behaviors had taken over his life, why school and home life became so awful for him, our investigations led us from an in-hospital stay for  multiple … [Read more...]

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Lean On Me

July 21, 2012 By 1 Comment
Family back shot

My mother always told me that one of our biggest fallacies is that when ten good things and one bad thing happens, we will fixate on the bad, worry about the bad, lose faith over the bad, get depressed over the bad, despair over the bad – and not remember the good. She is a smart woman. We’ve had a nice week or so with Lil D, sandwiched between two very, very awful incidences. And though I’m inviting trouble by writing this (telling you about the good days – because that always seems … [Read more...]

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More Thoughts on Balancing Appreciation of Good Days with Wanting Better Good Days

July 9, 2012 By Leave a Comment
good day

I’ve been thinking a lot about gratitude and good days since my last post, in which I reflected on Hamza’s Bismillah and the week afterwards with our family and Lil D, about being grateful for all that went well while still feeling unhappy about all Lil D missed. I am wondering that by the constant pursuit of “better good days,” am I hindering myself from appreciating what is good and peaceful about the moments at hand? Is there a danger in comparing good experiences with better ones … [Read more...]

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In Autism Land, What is a Good Day?

July 6, 2012 By 10 Comments
hamza's bismillah

The house was too quiet last night, as my husband and I sat on our couch after all kids were in bed, half asleep and tired from the past two weeks of activity. It was a good tired, as my husband remarked to me, “That went well. That was a lot of fun.” He was referring to the lead-up to our youngest son’s Bismillah ceremony, the Bismillah itself, and the week afterwards when his sister and her family stayed with us. The weekend of the Bismillah (a culturally-based religious ceremony … [Read more...]

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The Bismillah – Preserving Dignity in an Autism Life

June 29, 2012 By Leave a Comment
quran

Family and guests are arriving, the food is cooked to feed everyone at the house, the batwas (party favors) have been filled and labels added, the laddus (classic Indo-Pakistani dessert) are made, the decorations for the hall are ready, and the food for the party is coming together. It’s Bismillah time at our house. A Bismillah is a cultural/religious occasion (it’s not mandated in Islam), a ceremony that marks when a child is ready to learn how to read the Quran. Typically, it happens … [Read more...]

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Reflections on Fatherhood Beyond Special Needs

June 18, 2012 By 5 Comments
Daanish and Taruj

Instead of writing a "Father's Day" post myself, I asked my husband to write - reflect on what it has been like for him to father our three children, to father a special needs child. Though he was on call at the hospital the whole weekend, he took time to write this piece. His experiences and thoughts are similar and different than mine, but as real as mine as well. Yesterday was Father’s Day, and as I was sitting with my eldest son in the afternoon in his room, we had one of those … [Read more...]

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My Fractured Family and Autism – Lessons Learned

June 7, 2012 By 6 Comments
help

This is part two of two posts on making tough choices, the blessing of having a supportive family, and the fractured family syndrome. Read part one here. It’s taken me a while to write this part two of my “Fractured Family Syndrome” posts. As time passes from our Memorial Day weekend trip to Toronto -- the stress of leaving Lil D at home during a difficult time, of stifling every fiber of maternal instinct that screamed “Stay!”, of realizing that it was as important to let my family … [Read more...]

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Channeling ‘The Perfect Storm’

June 3, 2012 By 1 Comment

Friday night, after the kids went to bed, husband and I collapsed on the couch to do our usual – a little TV watching, some conversation, and decompression. I made it to the couch first, and husband came later, as he was putting our younger two to bed. When he joined me, I was watching the last hour of “The Perfect Storm” – a movie I’ve seen many times and one my husband has little patience for. "Come on,” he said to me. “Change the channel. How many times have you seen this? … [Read more...]

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