Holidays are the hardest when you have a child that can't play with toys the way other children can. What do you buy them. Most adapted toys are way too expensive for the average family. Family & friends don't buy the child anything because "they wouldn't know the difference anyway." They buy for the other children in the family as if it was the greatest thing they ever did. I saw the hurt on my child's face but no one else seemed to notice. As often as I would suggest they all put their money together and buy him an adapted toy they never did. That tells me how much they cared about my special boy. He is an ^angel^ now and I have decided not to invite my family and friends this year for the holidays. My angels adaptive toys are going to other special children this year. This will be his gift to them.

Sandi please forgive me I just read again what you wrote and now know what you meant about your son being a angel.
I am so sorry for the loss of your boy and the fact that your family never got to know how special he really was.
The holidays will be hard enough without holding onto bad feelings. You do what is in your heart and what makes you feel right at the time.
Again, please forgive me for being so insensitive to your letter. Maybe someone else reading it will start collections to make it easier for outsiders to give gifts to our special children. My daughter wouldn't care if she never got another thing from anyone. It is having friends and family together that matter in the end. As long as they are caring,loving people and it doesn't sound like your were.
My prayers and thoughts are with you.

Birthdays and Christmas are cherished by our family! My daughter who is diagnosed with CP, s non verbal and non mobile.
Yet we always make the best of it! For her birthday we book kids play rooms and climb with her, it's been getting a little harder now..so this year we went bowling and she loved bowling (hand over hand.

She loves opening her gifts at christmas and birthdays...as for the gifts the family usually buys her clothes...two of her aunts are always trying to find toys that will engage Sabrina! She also gets lots of dvd's and books...as she loves them!

The thing is that wenever we travel as you may know we have to pay for the airplane seat for our children even though they don't use it, since they can't sit on it being too big for them, without a pommel, no sde supports and so on. so their seat is vacant but still paid!! and we end up with them on our lap for over 3 hrs back and forth. nwmy question is ... See morewhat happens if i'm sick? where is he going to sit? plus what happens when he's older....he sits on me because he's still youg and small! A mother called our airline to ask them what happens if somone is in a wheelchair, and they told me that in that case th person is lifted out of his w/chair and put on the airplane seat and then back in his w/chair when on land obviously!! when I told them that my son (And I'm sure he's not unique) needs a special chair to sit it while in plane theytold me that Ican order a stetcher and he spends the whole journey in a stretcher! can u imagine.... NO WAY!! Now Im making all this fuss for future reference, I can't imagine a 20 year old young man havig to lie in a stretcherjust because the airline doe not cater for one special seat.

My 15 year old son now currently has a love/hate relationship with holidays and birthdays. He loves the food involved but his autism prevents him from participating fully with the family and friends interaction. For Christmas we have to hide all the gifts still until after he falls asleep on Christmas Eve or he will open them. If he got up first the next morning he would open all the gifts or tantrum to open everyone’s gift; things got a little easier when he learned to read names. Birthday were tough because although he understood the concept of singing (which he couldn't because he is non-verbal) and blowing out the candles, he would get so excited waiting for the song to finish to be first to blow he would primarily spit all over the cake. Thank goodness he didn't understand the reason why no one wanted a piece after that, but it gave us something to work on towards the next birthday celebration...