On a personal level I am a Father, Husband then business owner in that order and often those lines become blurred.  In my personal obsession with my business I have been negligent in my duties as a father and a husband, not in the sense of ignoring my family but by allowing certain things to go unchecked with my children’s education.

As most are away my eight year old son has Aspergers Syndrome and we have had trying times in the past with him and school and for the most part I have just been lightly involved in these issues.  This school year Alex started at a new school and first month has been nothing but problems.  The principal and teachers have made sure to exclude a child, who’s biggest disability is social interaction, from receiving an education and interaction with his peers.

The biggest bigot, as far as discriminating against a child with a disability, is a neighbor of mine probably unknown to him.  Due to the discrimination that Alex has received in the Camden County School System, we enrolled him in the Georgia Cyber Academy, unfortunately we will still have to interact with the Camden County School System but I will be chronicling this at a site  I set up just to document this at Camden Schools – The Truth.

Family is another story.  Kids, spouse and parents that are dependent on me will have a void that cannot be filled in my absence.  I don’t feel like they will have any real problems but they all seem like this is a life changing event for them.  In the past I have done very little travel with work, usually only 1 or 2 times per year except when I was managing disaster recovery projects after Hurricane Katrina.  Now that we are a mid size player in helping car dealers with online marketing I am traveling more frequently and see even more excursions in the future.

Everyone will learn to cope, personally I don’t care for a lot of travel and being away from my family and business, but it will be required for us to grow our business to the next level.  My wife is completely understanding and remembers the year I spent in the Gulf away from the family like it was yesterday.  The kids are a different story.

They have unfounded fears that daddy will be going away like he did a few years ago, managing a contract with FEMA.  No mount of reassurance can convince the smaller ones.  My seven year old thinks it is cool that daddy is going away on business because he remembers very vividly each and every prize that daddy brought home on his returns, so he is glad  I am traveling.  My four year old on the other hand has attempted to unpack my suitcase a couple of times already.  He tells me that if I stay home I can just not go to the office and spend next week with him.  My eleven year old is just pissed that he can’t go to Vegas with daddy and the adult children pretty much hold the same view.

The past few weeks has been fairly eventful for our family, the birth of a new granddaughter on September 21st and the discovery that our seven year old has Asperger’s Syndrome.  The realization that Alex is an Aspie has placed some strains on our family with us trying to develop new routines at home and with him at school.  These are positive it’s just a change for us.  The new balance we are trying to create will be disrupted in my absence, Alex could care less, but I have been the liaison with the school and doctors and helping develop the new routines at home with the other family members.

I just home that this trip proves to be rewarding for our business, after all it is disrupting a lot of lives which are all dependent on the success of the business.  On my return I am bringing in a new employee, my daughter, another journey will start there as well..

Doing research on this condition, notice the non use of the word disease or affliction, I have learned a great deal about it and myself.  The biggest thing is it is not the end of the world.  My son sees the world through a different view than most people do and personally I share some of the same traits.  They say it is genetic which explains it even more.

Some common traits displayed by people with Asperger’s Syndrome

• They generally have normal or above normal IQ’s.
• Impaired in social situations.  Many things said and heard are taken out of context.  The reading of social ques is almost nonexistent.
• Repetitive patterns of behavior and obsession with activities.
• Clumsiness and terrible handwriting.

I meet all of the criteria listed above and happen to be high functioning.   While my child’s situation is  more sever the similarities give me hope that all will turn out well for him.

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Tyler and Alex are both playing football and started a new school.  Preston is as wiry energetic three year old as you would ever meet.  We just bought a new home and I will have a real office again.

Other than that don’t have much to update you on until next time….

The youthful anticipation of a child brings and the lack of understanding that they display is what reminds me of how precious this time in their life really is and it was in ours.  Sometime I look for ways to to recapture those moments in whatever way I possibly can through them.

Today I found myself helping the boys create some mischief in the grocery store and mom was not very pleased at first.  We started a game of placing things in the buggy that we wanted that were not necessarily items that  were on the shopping list.  If you are a parent your kids have done this to you, if not you are wound way to tight.  I just joined the party!!

We were able to get to the checkout line with some goodies us guys can really appreciate.  As I sit here eating this bowl of ice cream with chocolate syrup, sprinkles, whip cream and cherries on top it makes me remember why we don’t need to rush growing up and sometimes need to take the opportunity to try to recapture that age of innocence even if it is through our little ones.

Letting expecting parents know that having a child with a cleft lip or palate is no different than raising other children is very important to me.  I just hope that it gets some of the search engine dominance it deserves for the terms I geared the page to to help other parents.

So if you want to know more about raising a child with a cleft lip or cleft palate please visit my first ever Lens of the Day.

If you cant figure out which one he is go see an optometrist…

The bad thing about having so many different things going on it makes it hard to do one thing exceptionally well.  I put being a father to my children first in my daily priorities, but other task are interfering with this largest priority in my life.  It is not a bad thing that I am busting my ass to make things better for them in the future, but at what expense?

I will wake up one morning and realize that the kids have a life of their own that does not include me in their daily plans.  I am already experiencing that to some extent with my oldest children.  Benjamin and Rebecca are now young adults and living their life on their terms, which I expected they would, while the younger three are still very reliant on me for everything and because of this reliance I am forced to be away from them during the best times of the day with them.

I have planned a vacation with the whole gang after the youngest ones are out of school for the summer.  Nothing really extravagant but it will be 5 days with with the whole gang having no schedule and no place to be at a certain time.   Hopefully we can enjoy some uninterrupted family time with the whole gang present.

Sometimes we take these things for granted.  Living in the middle of so many natural resources we overlook obvious inexpensive family outings.  This was Preston’s first visit while Tyler and Alex have been to the beach a few times it was a great inexpensive family outing.

This trip reminded me why I chose to stay in this area and not take advantage of opportunities in other parts of the country.  We have a moderate winter climate and I just love the water.  After moving inland a few years ago I had forgotten how much I actually love the beach and all of the things that it entails living close to it.  So now we have decided to buy a new home within walking distance of the water while the real estate market is getting hammered down in Brunswick, Georgia.

We found a nice property today that needs some repairs and are going to make an offer on it tomorrow.  I hope we they take our offer, because it will allow us to casually sell our current home and not worry about being in a financial bind as we make the transition to “Going Coastal” and having the freedom to casually stroll the beaches at the end of a long day.

One recent email I received was from a young lady who said because I took the time to reach out and encourage her she decided not to have an abortion. I was in tears from this email. Having dealt with the stress of surgeries and doctors appointments after the birth of Preston has been a hair raising experience at times and if it were possible for me to trade places with him and allow the doctors to work on me I would do it in a heartbeat. If we would of known that he was going to have a cleft lip and palate prior to him being born an abortion would of never been an option. That is a personal choice of mine that my wife agrees with. There is nothing more precious in this world than the unconditional love that you give and receive from your children.

Abortion to me is an aberration, I do believe it does have its place, but to terminate an unborn child’s life over a correctable situation would be unconscionable, but in todays society it takes even less than that for people to decide to have an abortion. This email though made me do some research on cleft lip children and abortions and I found a story that once again that cause me to have tears well up.

It described how doctors were given a pass for performing a late term abortion on a woman who was pregnant with a child with a cleft lip. Knowing what I do about a two year old with the most severe form of this birth defect it made me realize that I need to use my SEO skills to help spread the word on how normal a child with a cleft really is and in time everything will be ok.

If I can change just one more persons mind it is worth it.