Dancing With Max - a Book Review

I recently joined LibraryThing to try to organize my book collection and, along the way, signed up on the site to be an early reviewer.  This means that every month I receive an email linking me to many books that LibraryThing makes available to its members in exchange for a review.  You can request as many as you would like and if you are chosen to receive a book, it is sent to you and you have several weeks to read and review the book (more people request most books than copies are available so you don't get all you request).  In my second month on the list, I actually got a book.  As fate would have it, from the many I had ticked off as books I was interested in, I received an autism book:  Dancing With Max:  A Mother and Son Who Broke Free by Emily Colson (with prologue and epilogue by Charles Colson, her father), published by Zondervan. The following is largely based on my LibaryThing review but I wanted to share here too.

Dancing With Max is a wonderfully uplifting story of breaking free of what parents of children with autism are often told to expect from their children, but the book is much more.  The book is about both author Emily Colson and her son Max growing and changing, in sometimes unexpected ways.  It is about forming a truly deep parent-child bond despite the challenges of autism.  The book also is about how Emily's relationship with her own father evolved and healed, due in part to the family having to understand, accept and adapt to Max's challenges with autism.  Chuck Colson was special counsel to President Nixon, a workaholic, who did not always, by his own admission, spend enough time with his family.  He also was incarcerated on Watergate-related charges.  He became more religious and founded a non-profit to minister to those in prison.  Like her father, Emily is a woman of strong faith and she found unique and wonderful ways for Max to share in her faith. 

Emily's story demonstrates what so many fail to understand about "autism moms" - how a mother can continue to fight to improve her child's life - searching for new therapies, schools, treatments - but all the while accepting him and loving him for who he is at the moment. 

I suspect that while on the surface there are many differences between myself and Emily Colson, deep down there is much that we share. Her book is a moving tribute to her son and her family.  It is clear that, while he faces many challenges as he becomes a young adult with autism, Max also has a gift to share with the world and Emily is working is ways both small (in their everyday lives) and large (the book!) to share Max and his gift with others.  While the book is frank about tough moments - any parent with autism would see through a book that did not give a fair shake to those tough times -  it is ultimately affirming -- a story about moving forward, persevering, growing, loving and being loved.

Congratulations!

Congratulations to Angela Fish, the lucky winner of "All I Can Handle:  I'm No Mother Teresa"!  Enjoy Angela. 

Giveaway and Book Review: Kim Stagliano's "All I Can Handle: I'm No Mother Teresa"

Reading Kim Stagliano's new book, "All I Can Handle: I'm No Mother Teresa" from Skyhorse Publishing is like sitting down with a cup of coffee (glass of wine?) and catching up with an old friend.  It is the perfect book to cozy up with on the sofa on a chilly day and read cover to cover (or maybe that's just because this is exactly what I did).  See the end of this post to see how you can win your own autographed copy of "All I Can Handle"!

Kim is the mother to three amazing daughters, each of whom is on the autism spectrum.   She is also the managing editor of AgeOfAutism, the online newspaper of the autism community, a HuffingtonPost contributor, and a blogger.

In her "Kimoir" (as she calls it), she shares her no-holds-barred story of raising her girls.  I sound like an overblown ad for a blockbuster movie when I say "I laughed, I cried - bring your family and friends, see (read) it again!" but that is exactly how I felt about this book. Kim's story is one of negotiating the ups and downs that life throws our way with faith, humor, and aplomb.  But, as the title says, she is no Mother Teresa.  Thank goodness!  Her story would not ring true if it was all roses and ponies.  Plus, this book would not be nearly so funny if she was a saint.  And it is laugh out loud funny!  If you cannot imagine an autism story written with humor - think again.  Without giving away too much, the image of Kim inadvertently stealing a fan from a local store after a bathroom flooding "Stagtastrophe" (her name works so well for wordplay like this!) is priceless (and hysterical!).

She shares moments of joy, such as her daughters' First Holy Communions, successful birthday parties, exciting career moves.  But she also shares challenging moments of anger, marital stress, financial difficulties, illnesses, a child lost in a vast Disney resort.  What she shares is real life.  As the parent of a child on the spectrum, her book is particularly meaningful to me but I truly believe that everyone can enjoy this book because there is so much more than autism here and the lessons of life, even when learned through the lens of autism, are applicable to so much more.

But back to autism... this book also serves as an important PSA to parents of children with autism.  It is incumbent upon us to be the best advocates we can for our children.  My heart broke and my anger swelled when Kim related her experience of a neurologist telling her that they just aren't that aggressive in treating children with autism.  I felt such anger reading this that I cannot imagine how the Staglianos felt at that moment.  This doctor was writing off a child - a child with so much potential - merely because of the label of "autism."  As so many parents know, and as so many doctors still so fail in ignorance to recognize, children with autism are sick - they have GI problems, they have seizures, they have immune system dysfunction, they have metabolic and mitochondrial disorders.  Thank you Kim for spreading that message.

So run, don't walk to your nearest bookstore or e-tailer and get a copy today.  Also, I am privileged to have an autographed copy to give away to one lucky blogreader.  Comment below, leaving your name and full email address, and I will pick a winner at random on November 15, 2010 and contact you by email.  Enter to win and feel free to share this post and spread the word.

Come meet Kim and hear her read from her book at the National Autism Association - NY Metro Chapter parent network exchange meeting this Wednesday, November 10, 2010, at the Rebecca School, 40 E. 30th St. in Manhattan (b/w Park and Madison Aves.) from 6pm-8:30pm.  Increase your chances of winning a copy of Kim's book by also visiting NAA-NY Metro's facebook page or blog!

Communications Shutdown for Autism - Nov. 1

Can you live without Facebook and Twitter for ONE DAY!?! I bet you can. And now you can do it and raise money for autism worldwide. National Autism Association is one of the beneficiaries. All it takes is a small donation - and some willpower to avoid FB and your Twitter! Join me in tuning out for a day and raising awareness.

Fox News Steps Up to the Plate on Autism

Regardless of your political leanings, autism warrior moms and dads should tune in for continuing autism coverage on Fox and Friends - they have made Saturday mornings newsworthy several of the past weekends!  To those following autism in the news, CBS's Sheryl Attkisson often seemed like a lone media voice willing to investigate and report on controversial autism issues.  Now she is joined by Fox and Friend's Alisyn Camerota.  In late September and early October, Ms. Camerota has presented three segments on controversial autism issues.

First, TACA's Rebecca Estepp went head to head to with Dr. Marc Siegel regarding the Hannah Poling case and "Vaccine Court" (the omnibus proceeding), among other things:

The next weekend, Mary Holland, an NYU law professor, and Dana Hall, a parent with a case pending in the autism omnibus proceeding, appeared on Fox and Friends to discuss recent developments in the omnibus proceeding:

Mary and Dana captured in a few short minutes many of the flaws in the omnibus proceeding and why it has failed. Mary summed up with this powerful statement:  ". . . we will look back at this proceeding in shame." 

Then, on October 2, Dr. Bob Sears, a board-certified pediatrician and author of The Vaccine Book, appeared to discuss the CDC's failure to test vaccines in real world circumstances - i.e., to test the safety of vaccines given in the multi-vaccine combinations in which they are administered to infants and children.  Dr. Sears called out the CDC on its testing failures and challenged its blanket claims of vaccine safety, including the CDC's claim that vaccines present lower level exposures than children may encounter in their environment - pointing out that inhaling and injecting are very different!  Finally, he touched on the issue of bias and scandal surrounding some vaccine research. 

This coverage is welcome and we hope to see more.  Let Fox & Friends know that you are tuning in and continue to support Sharyl Attkisson's superb coverage on CBS as well.

Restaurant Review: Pure Food and Wine - Haute Raw Vegan Cuisine

Haute raw vegan cuisine - not words you usually imagine putting together.  But you can at Pure Food & Wine on Irving Place in Manhattan.   I had the pleasure of dining there a few nights ago with a good friend and I cannot wait to go back.  I love casual, down-to-earth eateries too but for a change of pace, haute raw vegan rocks it!

The restaurant space is beautiful and sophisticated and it has a large back garden (but it was too hot a night for me to enjoy outdoor dining so we opted for inside).  The menu is likewise sophisticated.  I started with king oyster mushroom scallops in a lemongrass/coconut broth and my friend had an heirloom tomato and watermelon salad.  Both were amazing.  The king oyster mushrooms had a texture that was remarkably like a scallop.  We shared a plate of Dr. Cow's nut cheeses (made locally in Williamsburg (Brooklyn)), with rosemary crisps and strawberries, mache and raw honey as accompaniments.  Yum! For a main course I had a delicious zucchini "fettuccini" with asparagus and peppers and my friend had beautiful stuffed squash blossoms.  We were too full for dessert - a huge regret because they all looked great.

You can also order some of the products used to create delicious raw vegan cuisine, along with some awesome raw cookbooks featuring recipes from the restaurant, at the OneLuckyDuck website.  I am going to try the tomato/watermelon salad in the next few days - I think that was my favorite thing out of all the things I tasted at dinner.

I have stockpiled a bunch of raw cookbooks and want to start incorporating more raw meals into my diet.  I appreciate that Sarma Melngailis, the owner of Pure Food and Wine, admits to not being raw, or even vegan or vegetarian, all the time - definitely takes some of the pressure off - especially for raw newbies, like me.  That said, every raw recipe I have tried so far has been great - so fresh and just "good" - getting back to the essence of what food tastes like.  You don't even need a recipe to be raw (though there are some great ones).  One day I just pureed chunks of butternut squash in the VitaMix (this may be a must-have for vegans and raw food enthusiasts -- never have I seen a blender work so well.  It  costs $$$ but is worth it). The raw butternut squash soup - seasoned with some fresh herbs, was amazing.  This past week, I had a lot of Crenshaw melon at home - I pureed it, with some lovely oil, vanilla infused sea salt, a touch of (non raw I think) maple syrup, cayenne pepper and seeded cucumber - delish, even my husband loved the fresh and 99% raw fruit soup.

 Plus, eating raw brings incredible health benefits, preserving many of the enzymes naturally found in foods.  I have a tendency to go full bore at something for awhile and then tucker out but I can definitely see slowly incorporating more raw cooking ideas into everyday life -- it is all about the balance (see Sunday's post - but then ask why I am up at 3am??? - work in progress....).

Balance

My "Balance" ecoBowl

Balance is my new mantra... Wish me luck!

I spent two weekends in August in New England working on ideas related to energy healing.  First was a series of workshops led by Dr. Miriam Wolf in Putney, Vermont.  Two days of learning and working on healing techniques on many levels - it was eye-opening, challenging, very positive, and centering.  After that great experience, the next weekend, the whole family (it was our anniversary too!) traveled to Exeter, New Hampshire for a little R&R and for me to work with Hilary Crowley, to catch me up in my Reiki master level training.

Both these weekends got me thinking much more about balance and the need to reestablish balance in my life.  I tend to go 110 miles an hour on everything, rather than balancing.  So now I am going to start making a conscious effort toward more balance.  That may mean letting go of some of my preconceived notions of how and when things need to get done, figuring out what it is important to focus on at any given time and what can wait.  I am hoping that this new outlook will be liberating but it will definitely be work for me to let go of some of the old paradigms.  I also have to recognize that it won't happen overnight - it will take time to recalibrate and, in a first step in that direction, I recognize that this is okay.

While in New Hampshire, we stayed at the lovely Exeter Inn - our stay was terrific, the only downside was that our shower, while beautiful, was not designed for tall people (the building is older and space constraints dictated what they could do).  While I worked with Hilary, the boys explored Exeter and then we met up to check out Portsmouth, New Hampshire - which was completely charming.  While there, I happened upon a great shop that had opened up only days earlier called Presence of Nature.  This shop sells beeswax bowls (ecoBowls), the creation of which helps beekeepers (who sell their scrap beeswax to create the bowls).  You use the bowl as a vessel into which you can place all sorts of materials, including air plants, to create a very personal environment (you can buy pre-made versions or create your own with their huge selection of items).  The shop's (and website's) tag line is "No matter what you choose, it's right."  You cannot make a mistake - I love that! When I walked in one of the first things I saw was a small flat stone with the word "Balance" engraved on it - there's a message for you!  I used that as a centerpiece to create my own bowl, which is now in our dining room (see the photo above).

Both weekends inspired me to continue to learn more about different energy healing modalities and to challenge myself to open up my mind to new ways of thinking.  One thing I am now very excited to learn more about is Matrix Energetics, a powerful healing modality developed by Richard Bartlett, DC.   But there are so many other things to learn about as well.  Dr. Wolf introduced me to some amazing books a variety of aspects of energy medicine that I cannot wait to dig into.  Of course, I have to balance all this new learning with the rest of my life!