Introduction

Well, let's start with an introduction. I am a mother with 5 children on the autism spectrum. My oldest is Alec, he is 29 years old. Alec is married to a wonderful man named Kent. My second child is Timmy, he is 27 years old. My little girl, Karen (aka Shuff) is right in the middle at 24 years old. My fourth child has requested I use an Alias for him so he will be Bob. He has just turned 18 years old. The youngest is Jeremy at almost 12 years old. I am in my third marriage. This husband is Mikey. He is an amazing father and husband.

They have all given me permission to write about them using their actual names or in Bob's case an alias.

Alec and Kent were one of the first 2100 gay couples in Utah to get married. Kent has had his work cut out for him as he learns Alec's little quirks. Alec was diagnosed with a plethora of different types of things by the time they officially said autism spectrum disorder when he was about 15 years old.

Timmy still lives at home. He has issues with (in his words) stupid people as bosses. He hasn't been able to keep a job for more than a few months. It seems that about the time 3 months comes around the boss begins to get on his nerves and they begin to butt heads over things. He loves to work at the haunted house in downtown Salt Lake City. In the last couple of years, his body has begun to give him issues. His joints start to hurt after a few minutes of repetitive motions. He has seen doctors for it and keeps getting told they can't see anything in X-rays and scans.

Karen has decided to change her name to Shuff once she gets her taxes and the COVID relief from 2020 that she didn't qualify for in the spring but has been told that she can claim it with her taxes as she was an essential worker when the virus hit. Due to her autism, she needed to quit shortly after COVID hit. She has trouble wearing a mask. She also still lives at home. I will likely switch her names back and forth in different story segments.

Bob has been amazing this year. He came up with a 5-year plan to live on his own. He is set to graduate high school halfway through the year in the middle of January. He works at a thrift store in Murray, Utah. That thrift store will assist him in getting his certification for a forklift driver. As a forklift driver, he will go work for a major distribution company after two years of steady work. Then after another two years finishing out the 5-year timeframe he'll move into an apartment with a buddy of his.

Jeremy moves up and down the spectrum based on how his day is going. This keeps us on the run just staying up with him. Jeremy is a distance learner this school year as we don't feel his school could accommodate his particular issues. He has mentioned things like: how can they sanitize the books in the library that everyone shares? How can they sanitize the gym and playground equipment between each use? Plus he doesn't understand the need to use sanitizer the way the school does without someone breaking it down in simple explanation every time it gets used. Plus he just mastered the dexterity of putting on a mask. We are trying to figure out how to do Junior High next school year. As the elementary has enough difficulty handling his moods. If he is stressed or upset even a little he tends to become non-verbal. On the flip side if they are studying war he goes off on a tangent about generals and tanks and other military stuff. Once he is started on those tangents he doesn't stop until his thought is completed which can sometimes take hours. He refuses to write a lot of the time and rarely reads unless it's the subtitles on a video or comments and instructions in games and videos.

Welcome to my fun life. I plan to write more in-depth stories for each of us as the months go by.