When Covid-19 started in early 2020, Dayna was not even five months into her new life at the Holden home. She was still getting used to the routine and the home itself when suddenly it all changed. Before the pandemic, Dayna's day consisted of going to her day program on each weekday. We were able…

In 2017, I took a break from the blog.....well, let's face it, I stopped all together. The three posts I put up during that time I already pulled back down, they didn't reflect what I wanted this to be. What I write comes from deep inside, and those posts were 'informational'. The truth is, after…

Just over three years ago I started to write this blog.  For the past three months though, I have struggled to write again.  Recently, I've quietly decided to put an end to AutismChallenges.com. As I started to write this last entry, I looked back at my second post....A Week in the Life of Autism.  It…

Times get rough with Dayna, and in this age of social media we tend to post the frustrations of those times on sites like Facebook.  Welcome to venting in the new digital world.  When we do so, we often get questions about housing for Dayna as she continues to get older. When will we decide…

So Dayna went to her prom last night, and had a blast.  It wasn't her first prom, they held one last year when we lived in Maryland that she really enjoyed and as a result she was looking forward to this one as well.  But this was different than last year.  In Maryland it was…

I usually write my blog posts with greater thought.  Tonight, in the middle of the night, with Dayna yelling, I decided I wanted to dump everything on my mind at once. Autism is winning.  Winning the race, or maybe the fight, I don't know which it is.  Either way I'm realizing that 'slow and steady…

We are often asked about how our other children handle day to day life with Dayna's Autism.  Dayna is our oldest at 16 (almost 17), her sister Kiley is 14 and her brother Sean is 7.  Neither Kiley or Sean personally have any effects of Autism, but they do deal with the challenges nonetheless.  Here…

It's 2:44am….yep, Dayna has found a way to help me write my blog again.  Unfortunately, it’s because once again she is up in the middle of the night.  Now to be fair, her overall sleep is much better than it used to be.  As you know from the past, 11 p.m.-5 a.m. was considered a…

Well, its my first update since Dayna came back from Murdoch, an inpatient behavioral medical facility here in North Carolina. She spent 6 weeks there to help her deal with the fact that she would not sleep at night and would fight us going to school. It was a hard 6 weeks for her and…