My daughter Ava has a project in her kindergarten class called Flat Stanley. They take this little paper guy called Flat Stanley and color him and send him somewhere far away to get his picture taken. When my son Benjamin (now in the fourth grade) was in kindergarten, we sent his to a cousin of mine who lives in Las Vegas. Flat Stanley went out on the Strip, hit some slot machines and played some blackjack.

But Benjamin was kindergarten well before Operation Jack, so I didn’t know nearly as many people as I do now. I was thinking of various places I could have sent Ava’s Flat Stanley — Alaska, Maine, Miami, the Midwest — but then I realized I made a connection last year with U.S. Army Major John Atilano, who’s currently deployed to Afghanistan. I’ve chatted via email and Twitter with John a bit over the past six months and he’s a great guy.

[Read more…]

I came home from work last night and saw the kitchen table decorated and set up for a nice dinner for two. Ahhh, how nice. My wife put together a romantic meal for us! But then I found out the dinner wasn’t for us — it was for my son Benjamin and my daughter, Ava. Even better!

It was a last-minute thing she decided to do for the kids and it was so cute! They had a cute little Valentine’s dinner together. They say a picture is worth a thousand words … rather than write a book about this, I’ll just post a bunch of pictures. They speak for themselves.

If you’ve been here before, you know about Jack. If not, Jack is our middle child. He’s 7 years old and he’s severely autistic. He wasn’t a part of the dinner because realistically, he’d get frustrated sitting at the table and it was past his dinner time. That’s just life for a family with a child who has autism.

If you’ve never been here before, the name of this site, Operation Jack, refers to an endeavor I took on last year, running 61 full marathons to raise money and awareness for a charity I’m a part of called Train 4 Autism. I’m done running the marathons, but it’s never to late to click on the Donate Now link at the top of this page and make a tax-deductible contribution! Just sayin’ …

After the kids went to bed, Tiff and I had steak and salad for dinner and then watched a terrible movie, Knight and Day. I actually only watched half of it because it put me to sleep.

OK, watch this quick video and then check out the pictures!

I’m kind of mixed on Valentine’s Day. Part of me thinks it’s a rip-off holiday created by greeting card companies and florists and restaurants and jewelers. But I always like an excuse to do something nice for my wife. This year, I’m not buying her anything.

For the second straight year, we decided to use the money we would have spent on gifts for each other and for dinner and donated it to a cause that meant something to us. Last year, we had a gift card to Outback Steakhouse and went out to dinner (a pretty nice trick, considering I ran a marathon in Austin that morning). Tonight, we’re just going to kick it at home. Maybe I’ll bring her in a Subway sandwich or something.

It’s not a big holiday for us though. It’s just an excuse to take time for each other and have a date night, even when that date night just consists of candlelight fast food in front of the TV.

Today is also my dad’s birthday. He’s 63. His older brother turns 66 today. Talk about a raw deal — growing up, his birthday was his older brother’s birthday. Once he escaped that, his birthday belonged to his woman. My stepmom, who he’s been with for the past 21 years, is really good about recognizing that today is birthday. So hopefully he has a good day. He’s not sure if the folks at the office are going to take him out to lunch or not. If not, I will. If they do, I have a turkey sandwich my Valentine made me last night.

Weekend Recap
I guess the biggest thing for us this weekend was Jack struggling. I guess if you’ve never been here before, Jacks is my 7-year-old son who is severely autistic. The name of this site, Operation Jack, is an endeavor I took on last year in his honor, running 61 marathons to raise money and awareness for a charity called Train 4 Autism.

Anyways, we did some things with his diet and supplements last year and changed up his routine. We noticed a lot of good changes to his insides and his meltdowns have gone from daily to non-existent. He’s been gluten-free for maybe seven or eight months, but he snagged a half of a cupcake late Friday. On Saturday morning, he had meltdowns for three hours. When he finally came down out of that, he was hyper all weekend.

He was screaming gibberish all weekend — he doesn’t really talk, so it’s not like it was a language regression, but it’s still headache-causing. And he was on a chewing rampage. If we took our eyes off of him for 15 seconds, he’d have something in his mouth that he shouldn’t. He was wild and tore up everything in the house. Hopefully this week and next weekend will be better. The unpredictability of autism can be good and bad, no question.

Well, that’s all I have for today. Have a great Monday/Valentine’s Day. I’ll be back tomorrow or Wednesday.

Back in 2001 when my first son was born, my wife spent four nights in the hospital recovering from her c-section. It was our home away from home for a little while. Over the course of four days, with tons of visitors, we accumulated a few things. When we left, we left something behind.

I don’t remember exactly what it was, but I remember going back to the hospital to get it. When I got there and small-talked with the nurses, I joked that they had forgotten to give us the owner’s manual for Benjamin. We were about a day into our new life, which was life at home taking care of a child. There was a lot of help in the hospital, but once you get home, you’re on your own. With the first child, that’s kind of scary! And I like to crack jokes, so I couldn’t resist asking for the manual, as if he was a car and there were simple instructions to take care of him.

We had no clue what we were doing, and in a way, I feel like we still don’t. We’ve taken it day-by-day from day one, adding a Jack into the recipe and then Ava. Jack’s autism has brought on even more twists and challenges for raising the other two, but we pray that we make the right decisions as we keep doing what we think is best for the kids on a daily basis.

Last week, we got a confirmation that we might be on the right track with a name Benjamin called a classmate. He was in an after-school chess program that he likes to go to. He’s actually starting to get pretty good. We’ve been playing for the past few years and he’s never come close to beating me. I rope-a-dope him, stringing out the game until bedtime and then putting the hammer down, executing a checkmate within a couple of moves.

I’m not competitive with my own son like that, but I want to challenge him so he’ll get better. Letting him win won’t help him. He finally beat me fair-and-square on Saturday. I beat him in a tight rematch, even though he accumulated two queens, but I know I need to bring my A game when I play him from now on!

Anyways, back to the name-calling. He was in an after-school chess program that he goes to every Monday. There’s another boy in there that he doesn’t get along with. Sometimes kids just don’t get along. They all have their individual personalities, and sometimes they clash. We’ve dealt with the issues between Benjamin and this child with the teacher, Tiff spoke to the mom once — it’s been an ongoing problem, one I definitely blame on the other child after last week’s incident.

I’m not sure what triggered this — from what I understand, it was something trivial and inconsequential. The boy told Benjamin, “I did your mom last night.” Benjamin was confused. So the boy continued, “Do you and your mom make babies?” Benjamin didn’t know what the boy was talking about, but he got angry and snapped.

“I don’t even know what that means, you … banana head!”

Now, I’m not totally OK with him calling other kids names. But I’m totally OK with him defending his mom. And if he must call another kid a name, let it be “banana head”! That’s the kind of thing a fourth-grader should be saying.

We still have a lot of things to work on with Benjamin. I’m sure the parents of every child in his class would say the same thing about their kids. But I’ve been pretty happy with the son we’re raising, and him calling another classmate a name confirmed my thoughts.

We never did get that owners manual, but so far, I think we’re doing OK.