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.