Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Jake Plummer is a nimrod and Jesus is for winners.


 In other news, ex-Broncos quarterback, Jake Plummer, is sick of seeing Tim Tebow display his love for Jesus Christ. I have two words for Plummer – Shove and It. Okay?

You know what I'm sick of? Teen moms plastered across covers of magazines geared towards young girls. I'm super-stoked that this is what my daughters see at eye-level when I am checking out at Walmart, subliminally affecting their ability to discern between what is and isn't appropriate.

I'm sick of Jersey Shore – I'm Italian and all the real Italians I know aren't spray-tanned, don't refer to themselves as guido's or juice-heads, and they speak the language. Their collars aren't popped and they aren't disrespecting women.  Italian culture is about family and loyalty – not demeaning your heritage to make a buck.

I'm sick of people “occupying” places instead of “doing” great things. Stop camping out in public parks, blaming people for your problems, sexually assaulting women and children, and pushing drugs - be part of the solution. Find your happy place and occupy that, okay? Oh, and just because dogs can defecate outside doesn't mean it is okay or acceptable for a human.

I'm sick of perfectly healthy people riding Larks in grocery stores because they are lazy. I went to Target today and there were more motorized shopping vehicles than there were kid-friendly carts.  If anything, they should be making mini-electric short buses for us parents who have kids.

I'm sick of seeing Bratz dolls and pageant kids and five-year old girls dressed as hookers. Whatever happened to preserving youth and innocence? A Peter Pan collar is a good thing and a lot less tempting than a crop-top to a sexual predator – who, consequently, are everywhere.

I'm sick of people getting all offended because people pray. Newsflash: Tim Tebow isn't peddling an evil message or one that is exploiting children, promoting promiscuity or entertaining vulgarity. He isn't abusive or inflammatory.  He is giving THANKS. He is showing love for the Father that gave him life and blessed him with his numerous gifts. Why is that so offensive?

Maybe if Tim Tebow raped a minor or was arrested for possession of a weapon or selling drugs, and upon making a touch down flicked everybody in the stands the bird, we wouldn't be so offended by him. Because that makes total sense, right?

I'm going to take the prayer thing. Just sayin...







Friday, November 4, 2011

The multi-faceted hair of Maddie Reese

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Seems to be a prominent theme in my life. What's a girl to do? Don't know. Today, I really don't care. It is too beautiful of a day for controversy.

Today I have been thinking a lot about time, and how much I lost occupying my thoughts with it's very nature. Whoa. Deep.

Actually, I was thinking about how all of a sudden I have three kids - Roman is just about 9 months old, Maddie is almost 3 and Bella is 7. It seemed like just yesterday I was stuffing myself full of Twinkies, fat and pregnant with my first baby.

Then Maddie interrupted my thought by asking me (again) if the dishwasher was clean. Hmmmm. Aren't you supposed to be two, kid? What is your fascination with the darn dishes? And, then I got to thinking how she was just a baby this time last year - her "big perm" just emerging. Then I got to looking at pictures and I came across these awesome shots. This will make you smile on your Friday!

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Justin likes beavers and autism is cool!

Like, OMG! Justin Bieber might be a father! And, Kim Kardashian is getting divorced - again! Did you hear LiLo is going back to jail for doing more drugs? And, a two-pound monkey is getting a root-canal! Oh, and autism can be an advantage! Yay!

(Disclaimer: I am about to get real hot in here, so if you can't handle passion, you might want to close your window right about now).

What the FUCK! That's right, I said it. This situation totally warrants the F-bomb. The first few lines you read above are all HEADLINES on mainstream media websites. Who the hell cares and when did a developmental disability become a bonus? Who is writing this crap?

It's Vaccine Safety Awareness Week. Not many people know or even care. Our children are being injured, given lifelong disability, and dying because government is attempting to force you to inject your children with poison and DNA from other species to protect from childhood illness like chicken pox and the stomach bug. Nope- not newsworthy. No mention on Fox, CNN, WSJ – nowhere. Maybe if it had a ribbon and a color and was plastered across cereal boxes and fast food buckets of chicken, people might pay attention. But, there is no money to be made from healthy people.

Nowhere on any of these sites is their any mention that the CDC may be involved in the biggest scientific fraud in history. Oh, no. No discussion that scientists and government agencies that are supposed to be “protecting” the health of Americans – our children – have deliberately been hiding that the multi-billion dollar vaccine industry is fully aware their poison is, in fact, causing autism!

Instead, scientists are releasing “new information” that autism is an advantage. The scientists in bed with Big Pharma are obviously attune that the shit is about to hit the fan and are trying to prepare the zombies that even though vaccines are causing autism – it's okay! Because autism is fun! You might have a good memory or be really good at patterns! You may not ever be able to speak, but talking is over-rated, anyway.

In a society where most people will read a headline on MSNBC and take it as gospel without doing any investigation of themselves, this is reckless, misleading and out-of-control.

Let me make something perfectly clear – autism is not a blessing! Okay? Children are blessings; their disability is not. And, if you think having to spend more of your childhood hours in therapy while sacrificing the ability to play soccer or dance is an advantage, you are sadly mistaken. If you think that a stellar memory and being able to see things visually better than the next 7-year old is cool, then you haven't seen one struggle with fitting in with cruel “typical” children because she is weird and doesn't understand social cues. Not being able to hear your son or daughter say I love you is heart-wrenching, not just a weakness. Watching your child writhe in pain and stim with anxiety is not a consolation because they excel at putting together puzzles.

Giving this “scientist” the benefit of the doubt, I will agree that you have to identify the strength of a child or adult with autism, change their environment to allow for these strengths to be capitalized. But, newsflash, we don't live in a bubble. Classrooms don't accommodate language delays and speaking devices – you have to go to “special” schools. Are you going to pay the 25,000 dollar tuition to make that happen, Dr. whats-your-face? Are you going to ask Corporate America to not call an adult with autism “retarded?” Are you trying to tell me that people will be more inclined to hire an autistic man because he can score better in non-verbal IQ tests? Pfst. You lost me when you said you no longer believe intellectual disability is intrinsic to autism. No DUH! And you call yourself a doctor? You scare me.

People with autism are not dumb, they aren't less - they are people. They have hearts, they have brains, they have life, they have feelings, they have wants, they have desires – but because of their DISABILITY they are challenged with how to convey, understand and act out on those INSTRINSIC behaviors. People with autism spend their lifetimes learning how to behave to fit within society. Dr. Ignorance - you are naïve and stupid if you think that society will – in this lifetime – ever learn to behave like autism.

Wake up, people! News is not about celebrities making poor life choices. It is not about random primates getting dental work, it is not about crooked politicians, it is not about saying that disability from injury is a gift.

It is about finding cures, it is about the truth, it is about discovering the sustainable health of our children, of the human race.


http://www.naturalnews.com/034038_vaccines_autism.html
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/11/03/autism-can-be-advantage-researcher-says/?test=latestnews

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Things in front of you are larger than they appear.

You want to know what makes my butt twitch? Well, I'm going to tell you anyway. When people look at me and say (referring to Isabella), “She doesn't look like she has autism.” I have tried to give people the benefit of the doubt – they aren't educated, so they don't know that disability doesn't have a “look.” I want to be diplomatic, but sometimes I just want to say, “You don't LOOK stupid, either!”

Here's the thing – chronic illness and disability don't have a type. That's often why it makes it so difficult for people to empathize with our situation. I have had people very close to me tell me that I play a victim in regards to Isabella's autism, implying that I feel sorry for myself (I guess). Besides being one of the most hurtful things you can say to a person who is raising a child with a a disability, it just isn't true.

Almost two years ago to the day, Isabella was diagnosed with mild, classic Autism and Sensory Processing Disorder. She is high-functioning, which means she has an average or better IQ and not mentally disabled, nor does she have a learning disability. Her diagnosis was no surprise – I had known it myself for about 3 months prior, we were just waiting for the official code – 299.0

I remember as if it were yesterday. It was just me and Isabella in the doctor's office – at that point she said very little and didn't respond to much, stared off into thin air. Her neurologist and I talked about her as if she were a cardboard cut-out; she did not engage in any conversation. It felt so casual on the outside, you know? He diagnoses kids frequently – heck, maybe even daily. On the inside, however, I was crumbling. I was fighting so hard to not sob in his office in front of her, not even fully understanding the breadth or extent of how drastically different life would be from that day forward. Isabella, me, and Nick - our whole family – we all became victims that day, not by choice, but random selection.

On that day, and certainly many to follow, I grieved the loss of the dreams I had for my first-born daughter. But, also on that day, I vowed to kick the shit out of autism and made a promise to Isabella that I would never let her down, that she wouldn't fall prey to this disorder. I never once laid down or gave up. I quit my job to home-school her, I put her in aggressive occupational, speech and language therapy, I changed hers and mine entire food diet, I put her on a sensory diet, I researched till the wee hours of the morning, I read tons of books, I changed her schedule, I rocked her, I held her, I gave my life to her – I did everything she did to feel the effects she felt, to understand her body better. She spent a year in a charter school to learn social and self-help skills. I have lost hundreds of hours of sleep, I have grown thousands of gray hairs and gained many stress wrinkles, but I have NEVER once played a victim.

Nick was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes just a few short months before Isabella was diagnosed. He doesn't look like a guy who has to give himself insulin shots four times a day. When he first was diagnosed, he was dangerously close to a diabetic coma. It took months to get his blood sugar under control and it takes careful monitoring and proper administration of insulin, impeccable control of diet, low stress levels, and regular exercise to keep it stable. If he strays from it just a bit, it will take days for him to recuperate. But, if you look at him, you wouldn't say he is fighting a chronic disease. You can't tell that he has scar tissue on his body from constantly having to inject himself, you can't see that he has lost feeling in his fingertips from checking his blood sugar. But, he DOES.

Just like Nick, Isabella is in treatment. With her treatment, she has improved – immensely. She doesn't look like she has autism. But, that is the point! We want her to get well. I don't want my child, nor does any other parent of a child with autism, rocking in a corner, flapping her arms for the sake of people being able to identify with you. And, don't think for a second that she hasn't, or will go back to stimming if her treatment isn't under control. With our experience and with our own education and dedication to her, we all have learned to cope. But, everyday we are challenged; every day she struggles.

So, when you say, “Golly, gee, Bethany. She doesn't look like she has autism. She's gonna be just fine,” its you implying that you don't believe me. And three years of challenge flashes before my eyes, and I just sit there, lip shaking, thinking “but, but...but, but....ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION!!!”

Instead, I smile and nod, and pray silently that you'll be right.

*Note: Since her diagnosis, Isabella has not taken a single dose of synthetic medication. Not one prescription, no over the counter drugs. She is detoxing all the pharmaceuticals and vaccine effects; she is recovering through dietary restrictions, high-dose vitamin supplementation, amino-acids, minerals, therapy and conditioning. The only thing she sees a doctor for is blood draws to monitor her metabolic panels, blood counts and electrolytes. I have prescribed every single thing she has done through education and research, and she has never been healthier. So go ahead and tell me I'm playing a victim. You obviously need a new dictionary.

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Interrupting your mindset...

I took a long hiatus from watching the news. I mean, I take a peak at the local stuff – the weather, the traffic – but I have been trying to stay away from all the horror in the world. I can't stomach listening to stories about babies being beaten by their parents or children being sexually assaulted and it seems like that is all you hear about – that or celebrity divorces. So, I tried out the theory “ignorance is bliss” and I kept my TV on Disney channel and Nick Jr. for the past two months. Okay, so maybe I sneaked in some Bravo from time to time – but what episode of the Real Housewives won't make you feel better about yourself? Somehow, however, I got sucked back in and now I find myself internally enraged by the world that surrounds me.

Take Tattoo Barbie. The newest “doll” to hit the markets and currently the scapegoat for thousands of unaccountable parents, carrying the blame for their daughters growing up too fast. Really? I just can't get over this one. Let's break this down. Barbie is what, like 35? She has had a breast reduction, been in a 50-year uncommitted relationship with some dude named Ken and she drives a Corvette with no real job to speak of. I'm pretty sure the tattoo that she gets is not the decision that will cause the demise of girls' self-esteem across the globe. If you let your daughter play with a plastic middle-aged woman on a daily basis, you should consider yourself lucky that Barbie gets a tattoo – it might infuse some culture into them.

I'm pretty sure that these parents so upset by Mattel's latest release are probably the same ones who aren't even phased by real problems that might cause little girls to be disturbed, like having to choose between bikini, hipsters, boy shorts, or low-riding underwear for our newly potty-trained toddlers. Yes, that's right. You can not walk into Target, JC Penney, Gap – wherever – and just buy 2T plain white panties for your two-year old girl. Nope. It is like shopping at a mini Victoria's Secret – every undergarment marketed for lingerie models-in-training. Second-graders wear bras now and I wouldn't be surprised if they have matching thongs. This is ridiculous; this is sexualizing our youth.

Infant girls are wearing bikini's and tutu's and necklaces. Why don't you just hand them a Cosmo, too? 8-year old girls are touting Coach purses and 12-year old tweens are jamming out to Lady Gaga on their iPhones. Does this not carry any weight to why our girls have image issues or problems connecting with their parents? Do you think I am conservative? Do you think that I am too close-minded? Guess what? I have more than one tattoo.

Our society is so backwards. Breastfeeding is offensive, so let's all go eat at Hooters! Celebrate Gay Pride at a children's theme park, but don't you dare say a prayer before school. Limit your son's sugar intake, but inject your children with aluminum through vaccines. Occupy Wallstreet, but don't settle for a job at McDonald's. I just don't get it. Our world is one giant oxymoron.

NEWSFLASH PEOPLE – you are accountable for yourself. You are responsible for your children. Stop shifting the blame and start doing your part.

You may now resume your regular programming.