Chocolate Chip Cookies!

     Hello everyone!  I hope you all had a wonderful Mother's Day!  My son totally ignored it but the rest of the family made sure I had a great few days! 
     First off, I'd like to thank all of you for checking out my blog.  It's close to 100 views already!  There are apparently many of us needing hugs and willing to give out hugs.  I'm glad we are finding each other.
     My son was born in 1993.  According to the CDC, in 1994 the rate of autism was 6.6 in 1,000 or about 1 in 150 children.  Between then and 2003, diagnoses increased by over 800%.  There are many more now than back when I was getting started with my son.  When I left the doctor's office with my son's diagnosis, I had in my hand a large manilla envelope filled with the current articles of the day about autism.  I was told to read them, to learn about autism. (Autism Speaks wouldn't be around until 2005.)  It was a very lonely time.  I had a friend who had worked in a home with autistic young men who never answered  the letter I sent her asking for support.  My sister, my only sibling, cut off contact with me.  Then I got pregnant again. 
      We were living in a very rural area at this time.  After the baby was born and we knew that she too would need special supports we decided to move back to the east coast where we could get the support they both needed.  The one good thing we learned before we moved was that my son did not have Fragile X.  Once here, we found the supports we needed.  Early intervention programs in Massachusetts and Rhode Island are quite good.  Bradley Hospital in East Providence was really wonderful.  When our son wasn't potty training and he was nearly 5 years old we turned to them.  After some wonderful discussions that made us feel for the first time that we were good parents, they taught us how to train him.  We used a reward system.  He loved matchbox cars.  We let him pick out a new one and then told him he could only have it while he was successfully on the potty.  It worked!  I won't go into how many cars we had to get out of the toilet after being partially flushed!  My poor husband could have got a job as a plumber after all that!
      I realize now that we were very lucky that he potty trained as easily as he did.  If you are having a particularly hard time with it, I urge you to see a professional as we did.  Also, there is a wonderful blog  at www.autism-daddy.blogspot.com.  This wonderful family has a son who has severe autism and is nonverbal.  They are on their third time with potty training and it is successful this time!  The dad wrote a great blog about it that you may find supportive. He is also on facebook and twitter.
      This week I got the letter for my son's next IEP meeting.  I noticed this time it is at the Special Ed office and not at his school.  Also, the organization that will help us deal with his transition out of high school will be there.  I'm so nervous!  Please keep us in your minds on June 4th!  I really hope the end of his education goes as well as the beginning of it did.  On the news here this morning they said that 7 years after high school 1/3 of autistic adults do not have a high school diploma or a job.  I didn't hear whether that was for here or nationwide. 
       Time for a treat!  This is one of my favorite cookies.  I found the recipe on the back of a package of Stop and Shop semi-sweet morsels.  My son was not a chocolate fan when he was young.  It was like he knew he couldn't handle all the sugar.  As he got older it became part of his diet, though he still prefers a plain cookie. I have cut back on the brown sugar and the salt.
       Chocolate Chip Cookies  makes about 3 dozen
       Ingredients:
       1 cup softened butter (two sticks)
       1 cup granulated sugar
       1/3 cup brown sugar
       dash of salt
       2 eggs
       1 teaspoonful vanilla
       1 teaspoonful baking soda
       2 1/4 cups flour
       chocolate chips
       All you have to do is add the ingredients as they are listed.  Hand mix the chips in, as many as you like.  Heat the oven to 350 degrees.  It takes about 10 minutes for them to get golden around the edges.  These are super yummy and quite sweet.  I suggest you stash them away to reward yourself after a bad day!
                               Keep smiling and hugs to you all!
                                                                        Nancy