Well, in case you haven't figured it out, I do a lot of work with Autism Speaks and the TN Walk Now for Autism . I've mentioned before why I feel it's so important to raise awareness but... I'm going to say it again. This week a group of high school kids asked Autism Speaks to send someone out to talk to them about autism. How cool, right? They wanted to learn more! And my "more," I mean, "at all." Of the 42 kids in that room with me, ONE of them even knew what autism was. Newsflash: 1 in 150 kids are being diagnosed with autism in the United States. In the UK it's estimated that the numbers are more like 1 in 67. We need, *NEED* to educate the masses. So I was thrilled to have the opportunity to teach these kids about autism and what it looks like and I encouraged them to go tell 10 people about what we talked about and make the information viral. I mean, Comic-Con and Twilight are trending topics on Twitter and yet autism is not? Really? The ...
I know, I know, I know. The topic this month is, "believe." I get it. I've been talking about "believing in yourself," but yanno what? Sometimes it's kinda hard. I get that. On a night like tonight, I get that more than anyone. Here's the thing. It's sort of a dirty little secret. But I'm about to let the cat out of the bag. A year ago, I wrote a book. Yep, I, me, April Schmidt wrote a book. Guess what it's about? Come on, guess........ it's going to be shocking. A little boy with autism. It's a children's book. A picture book, in fact. And here's the story of how it came to be. About a year ago, Luke and I were having a really bad day. Sometimes we have those. Luke is REALLY into books and as we were laying in bed trying to wind down this bad day and put it behind us, I was really wishing I had a book. This book. A book that he could "read" and relate to. A book that he could look at the pictures and say, "Hey...
I can't believe it. I moved my blog. I mean... who DOES that? I guess me. And here's why. I was discussing in my last post that sometimes it's hard for me to write. And I realized after much thought (really this has been swirling around in my brain for months) that while I have A LOT to say about autism... it's not ALL I have to say. And yet I find that when the title of my blog is, "April walks with autism," well then by golly, I better be talking about autism. And make NO MISTAKE. I will never, EVER stop talking about autism. But for those of you who have met me... you know I have so much more to say. So here starts a new relationship with my blog. One in which I will.... open some new doors. It was easy for me to figure out the new name of my blog. Let me give you a tiny bit of background. Earlier this year, I reluctantly joined the Eat, Pray, Love craze. I say reluctantly because I picked up the book several times throughout the course of a y...
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