Come walk a day in our shoes.

Spend the time walking beside us and understand how hard he works to access our world each and every day.

I hope you see that he brushes my shoulder each morning to wake me before the sun.

That I gently dress him, brush his hair, his teeth and am working on teaching him to do all of these things by himself too.

The loving and smiling faces of his team who greet him and care for him each morning as we send him off with his peers.

Walk with me and learn the stories and struggles from the other special needs parents I work with at the IEP table.

Come have coffee with special needs parents, just like me, who I learn from and advocate with each and every day to try to make this world a better feel place for our kids to grow up in.

Pull up a seat in my son’s classroom to see how beautifully inclusion can be done. How hard he works and how encouraging his friends are!

Sit next to me as we watch him and his sister race out of school together to tell me about their day.

Take a ride with us to hear him order his own ice cream and see all the ladies rush to the window to ask him how his Christmas was.

Sit down with our therapist who gives up an evening with her own family to help us make ours more successful

Come lay on the floor and try to appreciate trains the same way my son does.

Lay with us as we read three bedtime stories by flashlight, when he whispers “I love you” and you try not to nod off with him.

These are the beautiful parts, and I want you to walk closely to experience these moments with us. To see the beauty that’s wrapped up in autism in the day to day.

But I want you to lace up your running shoes and be ready for the hard parts too.

The anxiety, the hoarding, the aggression, the tears. The rigid behavior, the sleepless nights, the meltdowns.

These are all parts of autism too, and the part that nobody understands unless it’s part of your life.

But because it’s all opened my eyes to a world I knew nothing about, and he’s made me a better person because of all we work through each and every day…… I encourage you to try your best to keep an open mind, to lead with kindness and if you feel so compelled to come walk alongside us for a day in our shoes.

Spend the time walking beside us and understand how hard he works to access our world each and every day.

I hope you see that he brushes my shoulder each morning to wake me before the sun.

That I gently dress him, brush his hair, his teeth and am working on teaching him to do all of these things by himself too.

The loving and smiling faces of his team who greet him and care for him each morning as we send him off with his peers.

Walk with me and learn the stories and struggles from the other special needs parents I work with at the IEP table.

Come have coffee with special needs parents, just like me, who I learn from and advocate with each and every day to try to make this world a better feel place for our kids to grow up in.

Pull up a seat in my son’s classroom to see how beautifully inclusion can be done. How hard he works and how encouraging his friends are!

Sit next to me as we watch him and his sister race out of school together to tell me about their day.

Take a ride with us to hear him order his own ice cream and see all the ladies rush to the window to ask him how his Christmas was.

Sit down with our therapist who gives up an evening with her own family to help us make ours more successful

Come lay on the floor and try to appreciate trains the same way my son does.

Lay with us as we read three bedtime stories by flashlight, when he whispers “I love you” and you try not to nod off with him.

These are the beautiful parts, and I want you to walk closely to experience these moments with us. To see the beauty that’s wrapped up in autism in the day to day.

But I want you to lace up your running shoes and be ready for the hard parts too.

The anxiety, the hoarding, the aggression, the tears. The rigid behavior, the sleepless nights, the meltdowns.

These are all parts of autism too, and the part that nobody understands unless it’s part of your life.

But because it’s all opened my eyes to a world I knew nothing about, and he’s made me a better person because of all we work through each and every day…… I encourage you to try your best to keep an open mind, to lead with kindness and if you feel so compelled to come walk alongside us for a day in our shoes.