Kim Likes Westerns? NO!

But "BILLY THE KID" Looks Aspergian Cool.

Added, 12/2. So I had lunch with John R. today before our event at Elms. The event was terrific and I'll blog it later. John got an advance copy of the movie! And he says it is very powerful. The way he described it, in spite of his calm Aspergian manner, tells me it's a tearjerker for us Moms.

One of the best things about living so close to New York is getting to know the events that are happening in the city - even if I can't get to them, which is most of the time. But I can tell YOU about them! And chances are you are far more unfettered than I. So maybe you can go!


There's a new documentary movie called BILLY THE KID that's won a boatload of awards about (drumroll please) a kid with Aspergers Syndrome. How appropriate I found it right when I'm speaking with the newly famous Aspergian John Robison!

If you can go to the event on December 5th in NYC please report back on the movie! I'm eager to know how it presents Aspergers and whether it's a one, two or three hankie flick.

OH DEAR GOD.

Kim Stagliano and John Robison at Elm's College this Sunday.

My friend John Robison invited me to join him as a panelist at Elm's College in Chicopee, MA this Sunday. 12/2 at 2:00pm.

Come join us! Details HERE.

"Whatcha been doin', Kim?"

"Oh, just sitting around."

"Really? That's not like you, is it?"

"Not at all. I usually move at warp speed."

"So, um, why all the sitting?"

"Because my little sweetheart is learning to use the toilet."

"How's she doing?"

"GREAT! Success after several years of trying."

"Years? Wow. So what's your secret??"

"You must mean my, "SECRET WEAPON."


I took a toilet training seminar by the dynamic, engaging, delightful Brenda Batts at the National Autism Assoc. Conference earlier this month. Brenda Batts knows what she's doing. She's a fantastic presenter. Her system WORKS. I have the clean undies to prove it.

I'm so happy for my daughter, who is feeling both dry and proud this morning. Thank you, Brenda Batts!

I must have THIS T-shirt!

Bernie Rimland Froze out the Refrigerator Mother Theory over 40 years ago.

Dr. Rimland founded the Autism Society of America and went on to create the most influential organization for the treatment of autism, The Autism Research Institute. Dr. Rimland passed away on November 21, 2006. This video was created as a tribute to him.

You can hear him dispel the theory that autism was a result of cold mothers within the first five minutes of this 27 minute video. No matter what your thinking on treatment or cause, we all owe this man, Bernie Rimland, a thank you for telling the world that we mothers we weren't the cause. You and I know that now. But 50 years ago, when autism was a RARE blip, seen once in a blue moon? We would have been to blame.

Thanks to Stan Kurtz of http://www.childrenscornerschool.com/ for creating the file for me. I'm trying to link it to http://www.ageofautism.com/ but the blog platform will not accept it.

Mmm, pumpkin, apple, blueberry, chocolate silk, strawberry rhubarb, sweet potato, cherry, squash. Dig in. Have seconds.
KEEP EATING.....

Happy Thanksgiving. I'm thankful for my faithful, handsome rock of a husband, my kids, a good job, food in my cupboards (even the GFCF stuff) gas in my minivan, new coats and boots for my kids, fine schools, dedicated teachers, loyal friends, loving family, parents I can always rely on, hope for treatments for my girls, a fabulous literary agent who believes in my writing, a roof over my head, the ability to buy some gifts for my kids for Christmas, good health, the autism family of strong, dedicated parents from all walks of life, with all perspectives on autism, being able to laugh, being able to cry. For all this and more, I am grateful.

Happy Thanksgiving, friends.

KIM

THINK ABOUT THIS YOUNG WOMAN AS YOU SEND YOUR DOLLARS TO THE SAUDIS.

DAMN!

Money - WASTED! Not this Mom.

THIS STUDY is a crock of shit. How's that for a Monday morning? Scientists are going crazy trying to find out any cockamamie idea for the cause of the explosion in autism. Now they are saying we mothers DRANK during our pregnancies.

I had one scotch by accident when I was first pregnant with Gianna. Let me rephrase that. I didn't know I was pregnant and I drank a cocktail. I felt terrible about it for 8 months. When I became pregnant with Bella, Mark and I joked that I should head into the city to score some Crack Cocaine. After all, two clean as a whistle pregnancies hadn't done much for my older girls.

My generation of Moms is the first to have been liquor Nazi's. How DARE anyone think that these studies will divert us from looking at real potential poisonous causes of autism?

Mother's moderate drinking, watching Elmo and Barney (named in a study as a cause) old fathers, what's next? Breathing the mercury laden air?

Where's the Chivas? I need a shot in my coffee.

I'm Tired of Autism. Here's a Gluten Filled Post.

Enough with the autism already! (Yes, I can read your mind.)

Last night I decided to whip up a nice dinner for Marky Mark. He asked for a spinach pasta with clam sauce. I, the ever dutiful, Italian wife (and no where near PMS time) agreed with a smile. Plus, it's the easiest meal ever to create, even if your Italian food repertoire consists of opening a can of Chef Boyardee and calling Pizza Hut.


It's Sunday today. LET'S COOK!

You do have Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin playing in the background don't you? No? All right. John Bonjovi will do.

Mark likes clam sauce. So do I. But when I opened the fridge I saw a bit of pizza sauce from the GF pizza I'd made the kids for dinner and a carton of heavy cream from the chocolate ganache I made last Thursday for Mia's teacher appreciation luncheon. Tomato sauce plus cream = heaven. So let's make two sauces so easy you can whip up both on the stove and pretend you're the Olive Garden with "Choose your own sauce night."

Make two sauces for your man and I'm telling you - YOU WILL OWN HIM. See that hunk of cheese? It's REGGIANO PARMAGIANA from Italy. If you're shaking yellow sawdust out of a green can go to jail and do not collect 2 million lira. Spring for the good stuff. See that thingy next to the cheese? It's a microplane. Grates the cheese faster than Britney can run over a papparazi's foot. Get one. Works for chocolate too.

CLAM SAUCE

Cover botom of pan with Olive oil. Not an Exxon Valdez kind of slick, just cover the bottom.

Crush/press two cloves of fresh garlic into the oil. Garlic powder eliminates you from this game. Heat the garlic on medium until you think Sophia Loren has just entered your kitchen.

Open a can of minced clams. We use SNOWS brand. Any brand will do. Put the can of clams into the pan with the juice.

Cut a lemon in half. Squeeze 1/2 a lemon over a strainer into the pan. Taste the lemon to prove you are still 6 years old at heart. Make fuuny scrunchy face at your kids. Promise yourself to make homemade lemonade from other half. Know you are lying.

Get out some salt and pepper. Add a sprinkle of each. Toss some over your shoulder to ward of the devil.

If making sauce for two I just use the can. If making for 4+ I use two cans of clams, and then buy a bottle of clam juice too. Up your lemon and garlic too.

Warm the sauce to a low boil. Lower heat. Add clam juice if you need to stretch out the sauce. Most of us Italians started off really really poor. Thus the cheap pasta and horsemeat of days gone by. Many of us still are. We use pasta and lots of sauce to feed our large families. Taste. Add more lemon juice, salt or pepper as you'd like. That's it. 8 minutes and you're done. Kinda like... Nevermind.

NEXT: Tomato Cream sauce

Pour 3/4 cup cream into pan. Tell yourself you'll diet tomorrow.

Add your favorite tomato sauce until the sauce is as pink as you like. (homemade, jarred, your call. I won't police you on this one.)

Crush in one clove of garlic. You DO own a garlic press, don't you? Ask Santa to put one in your stocking.

Add one tbsp of butter. BUTTER! Not oleo-margarine plastic stuff. Moo cow butter.

Grate in a ton of Reggiano Parmagiana (cuz the only green can in your house now is a can of Heineken, right?)

Add salt to taste.

Do not boil, just heat to under a boil. Musn't scald the cream.

Boil your pasta. Toss with your sauces, grate more cheese on top and enjoy!

Happy Sunday, friends.

Kim

Why am I a Biomed Autism Mom?

Miss G. was a non-verbal toddler until close to 4. She had horrible tantrums. She had red papery cheeks, runny nose, terrible diaper issues. She ran screaming out of her classroom. She woke at night. She had odd movements, like chicken arms and constantly bending over at the waist. Her neuro told me she would be on Ritalin by first grade. Her EX-neuro.... I never believed the dire prognosis for my girls. It never felt right. Not for MY kids. I can't speak for anyone else's.

This is from her teacher today. Please note, Gianna does NOT eat Skittles which are high fructose corn syrup and artificial colors. Bad stuff for our kids. Gianna won an award for achievement this week, for her progress this year. I brought her a GFCF pizza so she could partake with the other kids. I baked it at 9:00am this morning.

"So today at lunch after you left, Gianna walked up to a little girl (who was eating skittles) and said, “What color skittle is your favorite?” And the little girl said, “Green and Red.” Gianna goes, “How about orange and purple?” The little girl said she likes those too and then G said “Cool!” I had tears in my eyes because she initiated that all by herself!!! I just had to share… Have a fabulous weekend!"

And that is why I bust my ass every day for my kids. We are 6 weeks into a new protocol. And it's working. Anyone who tells you to love our kids and leave them to stay as "God" made them is missing the boat. There is much we can do for our severely affected kids.

It's a big boat. We'll make room for you. We'll give you a life vest. We'll take care of you. Come on board. You don't have to call it "cure" or "recovery" if those terms offend you. I don't know if I'm curing or recovering anything. I don't care if I am or I'm not. I only know my child had a real conversation with a peer today.

Can't we all just call it love?

Jenny McCarthy Bares All in CDC Call!


I knew that headline would encourage you to read the article....


So my caterpillar is now a butterfly. I am Managing Editor of a new site called, AGE OF AUTISM. Nationally acclaimed former UPI journalist Dan Olmsted is our editor. Here's our latest scoop:


The beautiful, funny, autism Mom/best selling author/actress named Jenny McCarthy called the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) LIVE during her presentation at the National Autism Association Conference last weekend in Atlanta.


Age of Autism has the five minute phone call on videotape! RIGHT HERE!

You'll need the free Apple QuickTime Software download software to watch the clip.The five minute clip takes a few seconds to download and the audio synch is a bit off, but you'll get the jist of her call.


Jenny is NOT letting the CDC off the hook when it comes to vaccines and the autism epidemic. She has the brains, the beauty and a platform that's even higher than her heels to get her message out.


A couple of weeks ago, an autism Mom sort of rolled her eyes when I mentioned Jenny's book Louder Than Words and asked me, "Do you think she's the real deal?" Yes I do. She spent three days at the conference, meeting parents, signing books and DVD's and made time for the many kids with autism who were there with their parents.


You know, another big name in autism likes to say, "Autism knocked on the wrong door." But Jenny McCarthy has put her MOUTH where her money is. (And what a mouth it is!) My money (what little is left after caring for my three children with autism) is on Jenny McCarthy.
Go, Jenny, go! And thank you, "Sweetie."


(Thank you to the folks at FAIR and Life Is My Movie for creating the file for Age of Autism.)

Say Goodbye to your Healthcare Rights.

Think reproductive healthcare rights are a hot topic? Check out THIS bad boy. Courts ordering parents to come in if their children are not fully vaccinated.


No matter what your opinion on the safety of the national vaccine schedule, you might ask yourself if the legal system can force you to partake of ANY medical procedure or treatment for your children.

What if the AIDS vaccine that is currently being tested (Oh wait, they pulled it from human testing in Africa because it made recipients more likely to contract HIV) ends up on the pediatric schedule? Will you give your tot a vaccine for HIV? How about Gardasil with its thousands of adverse reactions including deaths in teens and young adults? If your state adds it to the list of required vaccines for schools are you in?

You might want every vaccine to ever come down the pike for your child. That's your right and very personal decision. If a parent does not want every vaccine, he/she should have that right too. Mind you, I'm talking about basic healthcare and current vaccinations. Not an anthrax or smallpox outbreak. That's another kettle of fish I hope we never need to stir.

Things you do not want to see when landing at an airport.








Had a bit of a delay getting back from Atlanta on Sunday. In fact, I got home on Monday. Here is a photo from my seat on the plane. But you can not see what was following us on the runway. Looked kinda like this:

We were en route to NY from Atlanta when the Captain announced an emergency landing at Dulles in DC. The computer said the hydraulic system had a problem. I do not know what hydraulic systems do. I think they make things go up and down. Like carousel horses and airplane wheels and wing aelerony thingamajiggies. That stuff that makes an airplane go "ZOOM!" and remain high up in the sky. Hydraulics are important. We landed in dead silence without incident. Amen to that. Six hours later, the plane had been repaired! But the crew was no longer able to fly according to FAA regulations. So they can fly with cocktails in them as long as they are under the hourly limit but can't fly stone sober 11 minutes after the alotted work time. Go figure. We ended up in a cheesey Holiday Inn in Sterling, VA.

I met a lovely young woman I'll call, K. She was traveling alone and none too pleased about being solo at a hotel hundreds of miles from home. We hung out together, shared a cab and I got us hotel rooms with an adjoining door in case she needed to come in. I also had a long chat with her mom via phone, telling her to come to this blog and check me out. I'm really a Mom with girls and not an axe murderer. While we were walking to the cab stand a man approached us, "You need a ride? I can save you some money." I declined. K looked surprised. I explained, "You NEVER take a ride to save money as you'll spend far more than anything you save on the dry cleaning bills to get your own blood out of your clothes." Always go to the official cab stand where the people in uniforms put you into a legit cab. I felt very old and motherly!

Briefly on the conference, it was fantastic. If you have a child with autism this is the conference to attend. You'll learn a ton about treatment from the top docs in the nation. And you get to meet gorgeous women like Jenny McCarthy. She is filming a documentary of her book, "Louder than Words." She spent 3 days at the conference. Spoke with everyone, met with the kids, and is genuinely a funny, warm, gracious woman. Standing next to her I felt like I had eaten 24 fried Twinkies myself! I now know what a size 0 looks like. More later. Good to be back!

Your Kid will be having Sex in Chinese....

READ THIS TOY RECALL and then stop and think before you buy one toy for the holidays from any American Company who manufactures in China. If everyone buys even 50% fewer toys from Mattel, Hasbro and every other toy company you will hurt their bottom line. That's the only way they will take your child's health and safety seriously.

They ought to be whipped with a limp noodle. And if they eat this toy? They just might like it....

DISGUSTING.

OK, now I'm really off to Atlanta.

Off to the National Autism Association Conference! See you next week!

This piece is turning into a forum for parents to tell the "outside" world how well or poorly their pediatrician, neurologist, dev. ped and other docs treated/diagnosed their kids on the spectrum. The comments at HuffPo are blowing me away.

If YOU are the parent of a child(ren) with autism PLEASE do go over to HuffPo, sign up so you can comment and tell the world your story about how the docs who are now supposed to diagnose kids after years of missing them treated you and yours.

You can use an screen name and NO ONE knows who you are. There is NO cheating on HuffPo. I get no info on who is commenting at all. Just what you use as your screen name, so don't worry about being "outed."

And I'm asking you to forward this request to every autism blog you visit. No matter what "flavor." ALL of our kids deserve better treatment by the docs. And by treatment I mean RESPECT, not literal medical treatment. That's another fine kettle of fish.

THANK YOU! KIM


My latest on Huffington Post, "The Boys on the Bus."

http://tinyurl.com/2uv622

Someone's been eating her fried twinkies!

Just scored a pair of Levi's on ebay! Mine, all mine! Mwahahahahaha!!!!!!!

(Confused? Think I'm a beyotch? See my post a little lower about how I need women to get F-A-T so they will sell this style of Levi's on ebay in my size. These jeans are no longer in production. So I have to resort to Subcutaneous Darwinism to find them. They're as elusive as the crumple nosed snorkack.)

People with Autism Deserve to Earn a Living

Praise the lord and pass the Danish. Really, the DANISH. Get it? (See that flag? Denmark.) Many people with autism never graduate from high school, despite their high intelligence. You can image what that means for their job prospects.

A Danish IT company has found a creative way to hire people with autism and Asperger's who do not have diplomas by implementing a "Certification Program."

Something like 75% of their employees are on the spectrum. Which would make their Christmas party a rather quiet affair but still, it sounds pretty damn good to me.

We need this kind of program in American companies. If our companies can hire "Sanjay I can barely understand you from Bombay" they can hire people on the Spectrum. Can and SHOULD.

Read the full article HERE.

I'm still here!

Can you see the tiny hand sticking up out of the paper? C'est moi! (That's me.)We're getting the edges of what was hurricane Noel today.

The new autism blogsite I'm designing is coming along nicely. Guess what! When it's complete, if you like what you see, you can ADVERTISE on it! Swear to God. Just like Perez Hilton except without the crotch shots and a drunken Britney Spears every other day and the owner with pink hair. We do both share a penchant for men though. (I guess that would be a singular "man" for me being married an all.) I'll post the news next week when we're up. If you want to advertise to the autism world, we're your ticket to riches beyond your wild dreams! (All claims are slightly smaller than they appear.)

How was your Halloween? OK here. We're on a busy street. Doorbell rang twice. One was a carful of kids from Bridgeport. Can you imagine driving with your Mom for candy? Half the fun was walking the neighborhood in the dark and pulling pranks. Not around here. Too busy. I brought a note over to the 55+ condos next door on the 29th asking if Gianna could Trick or Treat at 7pm. I even gave them the candy. So she got to knock on a few doors.

How do you explain to a child with autism that on ONE night of the year you knock on a door but you do NOT enter the house? Get back to me on that one, won't you?

Off for a pizza splurge at Frank Pepe's. Enzymes packed? Yes. GFCF dinner packed for Bella? Check. Pizza cutter packed so I can cut the pizza into tiny pieces for Mia? Check. Ordering a Moretti Italian beer? Check. Check. Check.

Sarge Goodchild treating children is VERY, VERY RIGHT.

In contrast to yesterday's gloom, read this from the Beverly Citizen about an amazing (and handsome) man name Sargent Goodchild. Isn't that the best New England Yankee kind of name? (Says the girl with a million vowels in her names.)


Sarge Goodchild, at Active Healing changed my girls' lives. When the doctors wrote the kids off, told me to take them home and call the schools for help and just love them, Sarge said, "There's much you can do, Kim."


Sarge gave me the ultimate gift. HOPE. Real hope. Not empty promises, but an assurance that my kids had potential and were worth treating. Treating well.