Seriously, I'm in love with Jillian Michaels. Don't HATE me!!

Seriously, I'm in love with Jillian Michaels.

And before you send me hate mail and tell me she posted an anti Andy Wakefield link on her Facebook page, let me tell you unfortunately I know! And unfortunately I had already purchased the video and was over a week in to her "30 Day Shred" before I was told of her possibly being pro vaccine.

Being a poor autism mom, I had already spent the $ and was feeling the burn from the DVD. Considering the norm in my world is that there is no extra money and generally no physical burn from exercise out side of chasing the kid with autism, I decided I would continue with the 30 Days since I already had opened the DVD and could not return it.

For the any of you who do not want to give her any money I recommend seeing if you can rent it from the library or Netflix. It is less than $10 on amazon.com so she can't be making that much off it anyways!All that aside as a parent of a child with autism I know most of us are on limited time, especially if you are the parent of a child under the age of 5. You are also low on funds, because if you're on my friends with me your probably spending all your money on supplements, gfcf everything free, organic, therapy and more things than I can name. So this video is made for you! For under $14 which just is the cost of the video and two 3 pound hand weights ($34 if you buy an exercise mat) and just 20 minutes of time in 30 Days you can also be in much better shape and much healthier! I know you are also like me and know we have to live forever for our child with autism so being in the best health you can be is the most selfless thing you can do! Beyond the physical health, exercise is also an amazing mental health remedy and when you are done with the 1st 30 days and you apply yourself, I can guarantee your self esteem will be higher also.

How can I guarantee that?

After just doing Level 1 of 3, I went from:

31.2% body fat to 27.2% body fat

I lost a total of 12.6 inches, 4 in the waist and 2.5 in the hips.

I gained one pound, which is all muscle!

AND I still ate out, had ice cream and drank beer occasionally. I do eat lots of veggies, eat appropriate portion sizes and take half home when eating out, but I generally do not give up anything when I am working out, I just try to eat less!! I have found allowing my self to at least have some of my favorites leads me to never having to binge eat!

I use the bodybugg system which helps you track measurements, weight and will figure your body weight. If you are not willing or do not have the funds to invest in the system then I have a few recommendations to help you. The most important thing in any weight loss program is not knowing your weight, it is know you your measurements. When you stop losing weight and if you have not done your measurements you will get discouraged and give up. At that point in time you are gaining muscle and muscle weighs more than fat, so you will need to confirm you are losing inches to keep you on track. Start an excel file with your starting weight, and the following measurements: neck, upper arm, forearm, chest (I measure under the breasts, think bottom strap of your bra to make sure I have a consistent area to measure), waist (I measure at the belly button), hips, thigh and calf. My Fitness Pal is free website/app that can also be used to track your food consumption, weight, neck, waist and hips. I know that when I started losing weight the last thing on earth I wanted to know was my measurements, but when I hit that first plateau I was very happy to see even though I had stopped losing weight that I had lost inches.

The 20 minute video consists of 3 levels, each level consists of a warm up and cool down and 3 circuits of: 3 minutes weights/resistance training, 2 minutes cardio, and 1 minute abs.

Thanks Autism Speaks for again doing nothing for us on World Autism Day!!!

Dear Autism Speaks,

I had decided to not write about you this year for Autism Awareness Day, until I got the following e-mail from you.

Autism SpeaksiPad2 Application


Dear Applicant,

Thank you for applying for the AutismCares iPad2 Grant.

We received 13,000 applications from around the world, but could only consider families located in the United States.

Although your family was not awarded this time, your application will be kept on file in case we are able to donate more iPads in the future.

For resources, toolkits, and much more information for you and your family, please visit autismspeaks.org

Sincerely,


Autism Speaks


Since you decided on World Autism Day to blatantly slap me across the face and point out how little you do for my family, my non verbal child with Autism and our autism community, I've decided to go ahead and write a blog and open letter to your organization.

I'm at a loss on how an organization that raised $50,238,297 dollars, almost $17 million spent in salaries, another $17 million on "other expenses" in 2010, couldn't possibly use some of that $17 million in "other expenses" for 2011 on 13,000 iPads. I was at Walmart this morning and the iPad 2 is only $399.00 and would only be $5,187,000 and would actually benefit the people you claim to be fundraising to help. As far as I can tell from your tax return is the only people you are really helping are those who are paid their salaries by you.

As for our non verbal child Austin and him getting a much needed iPad, I guess we will keep plugging along on how to fundraise a bit of the money away from you and into Austin's fundraiser.


For Austin Primer and the rest of the 1 in 88 kids with autism and their families that your NOT SPEAKING FOR, let me say thanks again for NOTHING and I hope you suck that blue light bulb and choke on the little blue puzzle piece.


Sincerely,


Shannon Primer whose proud to Speak for herself and proudly wearing black today!!!

Fundraiser for an iPad, Case and Warranty for Austin Primer

We are fundraising for an iPad for Austin Primer. Austin is a 10 year old boy with Autism. Austin is non verbal, he has been through several talking devices. He has the most success with the iTouch and Proloquo2go. The downside to the iTouch is its size. Austin many times has to go back because it is to small and he hits the wrong PEC. An iPad would make navigating Proloquo2go easier and give Austin a better chance at success at communicating with his friends and family.

Austin would also need a case. iAdapter is getting good reviews for protection and the fact that it has built in speakers. You can also hide the home button so that you can't leave Proloquo2go which Austin often does on the iTouch. Not being able to leave the program will also help Austin be more successful.

Even with the best case we would also get a SquareTrade.com warranty to protect against damage.

Thanks for reading, hopefully donating, and passing along our link to anyone who you think could help Austin.

I hate you all equally!

For my children, I know sometimes you think I love Austin most but I need to tell you that is not true! I love Austin like I loved you as a baby! You all were an open slate with so much potential you also were so vulnerable as all babies are! The difference between you, Ashley, Nickalas, and Emily, is you have had the opportunity to move beyond being a baby, toddler, preschooler, kindergartener, middle schooler, and high schooler, etc!

Austin has only had the opportunity to move passed baby! He is still at 10.5 a toddler! It does not mean I love him or you more, it means I love you are different, it means you all have different needs, each of you have something different that needs Loved! His needs, like those of a toddler will always exceed yours, that does not mean you are loved LESS, it means you are loved different! It means you are loved for you!

I hope some day you understand that! For me and my sisters it has always been my mom's statement that she "hates us all equally". For some that would mean your mom did not love you, but for me it always reminds me she loves me no matter what!

Thanks mom for always reminding me that a moms love is not always equal. It is what is needed!

Bullying

I’ve been a bit of a slacker lately and not been blogging as much as I should (yeah I know that is an understatement).

Unfortunately that is life and then add life of being a parent of a child with Autism, sometimes life is just overwhelming and if your children are feed, taken care of and the house is somewhat clean then the day was successful and you have to let the other stuff go, including blogging.

Today a pair of local radio personalities inspired me to come back and blog. Their post is actually not the first time I saw it, but it was the first time I saw it from any local celebrity or radio personality, which made it stand out to me (and yes I have more than one person on my friends list that is on the radio), this was the first time I saw a radio personality take on bulling).

The post that stood out was, “Special request to all you kids returning to school in the next few days: If you see someone who is struggling to make friends, or being bullied because he/she doesn't have many friends, or because they are shy or not as pretty, or not dressed in the most "in" clothes--PLEASE step up. Say hi or at least smile at them in the hallway. You never know what that person might be facing outside of school. Your kindness might just make a BIG difference in someone's life!”
As a parent of a child who suffers from Autism, I have worked very hard in hopes that my child will not be bullied in the future, or if he is I hope that he has a bunch of mainstream kids who are there to protect him. Hopefully this will pay off, but you never know.

Of course my child is only in 3rd grade and what most would consider more impacted (we in the world of Autism prefer not to use words like high functioning or low functioning, because those are never accurate on any level. In my world high functioning is potty trained, but for some parents high functioning is verbal. After 7.5 years in this world both descriptions are not really accurate as our children may not be functioning at a real world stand point, which to me as a parent of 1 child with Autism and 3 without would be that as an adult you can maintain a job and live independently.)

It breaks my heart daily to hear my friends, who are parents of less impacted children, talk about their daily struggles at school with bulling. It happens daily. We need to change the world to fix bulling, but a lot of that comes from parents in general. We need the world of parents to stop saying my child would not do that and be parents. Tell your child what is acceptable and that bulling is never ok. We also need parents of child with Autism, no matter how they are supposedly functioning to be honest with their communities. Tell the other children what is going on with your child and why they act different. In my experience when you do this, most children and their parents step up and will do what is best for your child who is different, think peer pressure, use peer pressure for good. When parents and children think a child is different and do not know how to explain why a child acts, different or weird, that is when the child gets alienated. We can change that.

The theory of it takes a village to raise a child is so true, and as our numbers of children with Autism rise it will take a village of other children who know and understand our children with Autism to grow up and understand our kids. I hope that as my 3 children without Autism and all the friends my child with Autism meets encourages other children to be accepting of all kids, and discourage bulling and encourages tolerance.

All it takes is one person or one radio personality or station to help with the cause. Thank you KSON and John and Tammy for stepping up. Here’s to me hoping you continue this outreach and helping our kids who are bullied and especially those with Autism.

Until next time PITAup and do something to change the life of a child with Autism, the life you change maybe your own!!!

Nature's Warning signs say you should remember "Special needs kids are not contagious"

The picture with this blog is Austin and Malcolm after their mainstream end of the year play. Malcolm is directing Austin to look at Malcolm's dad so they can have their picture taken. We rarely catch a picture of Austin with a smile on his face even though we see it regularly. This picture leads into this blog and my thoughts and feelings with it.

On 6/5/11 I read a heart wrenching article on a parent telling a parent like me, how they had "pity for me" but how a child like mine did not belong in the mainstream classroom. This article touched me so much that I started writing a "thank you letter" to my child, Austin Primer's, mainstream friend's parents. It concluded with Ed reading the article and editing "our" letter.

Ed at first did not really want to edit the letter, it was the end of the day and he was like "please can I do it tomorrow?"

Then he read the same article, “Special needs kids are not contagious” by Jo Ashline and he responded, "why do we never meet "these" types of parents? Haven't they seen the poster?"

Ed has a long running joke that there needs to be a t-shirt or poster that says “Natures warning signs”, and the poster will show pictures of a Rattlesnake, a Cobra, a Puffer fish and Shannon Primer.

After reading Jo's article he was happy to help me for once not be one of "Nature's Warning signs" and to write a letter from our heart to the children and parents of Ms. Coulter's 2nd grade class at Hope Elementary School in Carlsbad, CA. Here is our letter...

6/9/2011

Dear Ms. Coulter and the Parents and Children of her classroom,

As parents of a child with Autism, we are very blessed to live in a district that feels a child like mine, Austin Primer, is important. Evidence of this is in his being mainstreamed and being an important part of his community. Not every parent of a child with Autism, especially a non-verbal child with autism, gets to experience this.

Recently we read an article from The Orange County Register that reminded us how not every child like Austin is lucky enough to have classmates that realize that children with disabilities are important members of society or classmates’ parents that realize what affect that their child and they have on the special needs community. Parents and peers make a huge difference! Austin is fortunate to grow up in as an accepting community as ours (please see attached article).

We want to thank you for making that difference and for allowing your child to be an important part of our child’s learning environment. We cannot express to you how much this year has been an amazing experience and what an affect it has had on Austin, and in turn on every special needs child at Hope Elementary. From the bottom of our hearts, you and your children amaze us and here is why…

Our child with autism has worked on become a member of your child’s community over the past three years. This year it really struck us how amazing our mainstream children in this classroom are and how they have come to accept, appreciate, care and look out for our child who has “different needs and abilities”. Every time one of your children comes up to Austin and says “hello” at school or in the community, Austin’s face lights up. It reminds me why we continually work with CUSD and their amazing staff to push Austin and our Hope community for more. It amazes us how “our kids” never let us down.

It truly makes our hearts proud daily that; instead of me saying “my kid” (i.e. special needs kid) or your kid (mainstream kid), we can and do say “our kids”. We know that “our community” and “our school” are making this possible. Our District and our community will be better because of it and without each of your children and your support this would never be possible. After reading the attached article, it allowed us to have a clearer understanding of how different Austin’s program is and how different it is for most of his peers with Autism.

For all those who have invited us to a birthday party this year, thank you! We apologize that we did not attend. This year we have worked very hard on “mine and yours” goals and taking turns at home and school. Austin is just about at the point where he can do these things in social settings like a birthday party. Our goal is for Austin to attend these parties as invited during the next school year.

We hope that this letter truly expresses to you how much our family appreciates your families and how thankful we are for being part of the awesome supportive community that Ms. Coulter, her students, her student’s parents, Mr. Tubbs and the Carlsbad Unified School District are cultivating. We know not every family of a child with Autism is as fortunate as we. Also, we know Austin is truly blessed because he has been a part of Ms. Coulter’s class and that Austin was able to have your child as a classmate. Thank you for encouraging your child to look beyond Austin’s differences and for being part of an amazing mainstream team that has never said Austin did not “belong” in “their” classroom. You all have made this year the year that Austin is truly a part of a classroom and part of his community. Without you and Ms. Coulter, Austin would not be thriving. Every day you bless us by sharing your child with ours and you give Austin a better opportunity to be a future productive part of society. Your children who are our future politicians, future business owners, futures tax payers and future voters are already making a difference. They are already making our community well-rounded and as a result, will continue to grow into well-rounded adults who are concerned about and value people with disabilities.

Thanks to you and your children, the life of Austin Primer and his peers with autism looks a whole lot brighter. Thank you for helping Austin and his special needs classmates to a better tomorrow. Also, thank you for not making me the parent in the OC Register article; we are forever in your debt and we “can only hope that (we are) as contagious as humanly possible”.

Sincerely,


Shannon and Ed Primer
Austin’s Parents

iPad story on Good Morning America

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/parent-debate-ipads-smartphones-teach-toddlers-read/story?id=13626381

I think there are flaws in this “news” story. The small blonde girl was NOT READING, she was matching. The story asks if these apps teach kids to read. NO THAT app teaches letters and matching, a clearly appropriate skill for her age group.

Also the difference between this and TV is TV is passive, this is not.
Now I am not saying this should be a babysitter any more than TV should but it can be a useful learning tool when used appropriately.

Also I encounter this all the time with parents about how their child will not give something up or stop doing something. As a parent to 4 children, age 21, 19, 11, and a child with Autism age 9. Just say no. You are the parent, BE THE PARENT!! (but I regress and this is another blog)

As the parent of a child with Autism GMA should do a story on how iPad's, iTouches and apps are changing our children's world. There is an awesome mom, in San Diego, Janine Boleda of Good Karma Apps who is changing the world of children with Autism with her inexpensive apps. many companies are making apps and charging parents an arm and a leg for them, but not Janine. She is doing it for quality of life for our kids not to make a profit. Every $ she makes goes back into the next app she creates and not her pocket!!!

GMA should do a story on Janine and no I am not her, just a huge fan!!!!

If you agree, please go comment on GMA’s story.