My Life with Tom, Living with Autism. the Blogs, Volume One

I am a mother to a five year old little boy who has Autistic Spectrum Disorder. This book is a collection of the first six months of my blog about him, my family, thoughts and feelings. Why did I decide to publish my blogs as a book? I suppose there are two reasons why I decided to do so. The first reason was because I received so many wonderful and supportive comments about how enjoyable they were to read and that they gave an insight into what life was like in living with a child on...
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I am a mother to a five year old little boy who has Autistic Spectrum Disorder. This book is a collection of the first six months of my blog about him, my family, thoughts and feelings. Why did I decide to publish my blogs as a book? I suppose there are two reasons why I decided to do so. The first reason was because I received so many wonderful and supportive comments about how enjoyable they were to read and that they gave an insight into what life was like in living with a child on the autistic spectrum. This is something that I very much forget as living with Tom, for us, is our normality, there is nothing extraordinary from our point of view, but I suppose if you have never encountered 'autism' in your life then the blogs that I write would give you a glimpse into that world. I received comments from people who had no knowledge about autism and for whom this was their first introduction into 'autistic life' so to speak as well as receiving comments from parents of autistic children who gave me support and shared with me how much they enjoyed reading about my family. The general consensus from these parents and carers was that they did not feel so alone. There was someone out there who was going through pretty much the same daily ups and downs as they were. So for this reason I thought it would be lovely to have all the blogs together, under one umbrella, as a book.The second reason for wanting to publish my book is purely a personal one. I wanted a book that I could hold and which I could place on my bookshelf and show my boys when they are older. To tell them that this is what life was like but that we had fun and that I loved them very much.I started to write my blogs in October 2012. I had just finished writing my early years journey about Tom entitled, 'Life on the Spectrum. The Preschool Years. Getting the Help and Support You Need', which documented all of the help, support and information that we received from various professionals, agencies and parents. This was published in the September. After I had finished writing it I rather felt lost as I had been writing every day and I still wanted to continue writing about Tom and our daily highs and lows and luckily at this particular moment in my life just happened to coincide with being invited by Glipho, a blogging social network, to blog with them, and so I did. I find writing about our family life very cathartic and it is most certainly cheaper than therapy. I simply have to write every day and keeping a blog helps me to accomplish this.The blogs in this book start in October 2012 and finish at the end of March 2013, so a full six months. When I started to write the blogs Tom had just started in a mainstream primary school, where Stephen attends, but was only able to manage two hours there with one to one support. This was a particularly difficult time for our family. When the book ends in March you will find that myself, Tom, Andrew and Stephen are in a more settled and happy place in our lives because of Tom's placement in a specialist ASD school. The blogs have been published in chronological order and have only been slightly edited as I wanted them to be read as I had originally intended. They are simply my thoughts and feelings about everyday life, with my husband and two lovely boys, one of whom just happens to be autistic. I hope that you enjoy reading them