Guest Post by Krystle Rucker

Howdy world, I’m Krystle Rucker. I am married with four children. Three of my four children are ASD triplets. Together we’re a beautiful chaos learning to navigate through life on our terms.

Our oldest child is a teen girl.  Our triplets consist of two boys and a girl. Our boys were diagnosed with Autism spectrum disorder at the age of 3. They were monitored by a medical team for ASD since the age of one. Our triplet daughter was diagnosed with ASD level 1 and ADHD in June of this year.

The triplets have received early intervention services since birth. They are now age 7 and entering the second grade.

Being an ASD Mom is beautiful, hard, sometimes heartbreaking but most of all rewarding. 

We operate on a structure in our household. We try to stick to a schedule every day. Not every day on this journey goes as planned, but I have learned that it’s okay.

For the most part, bedtime, dinner, chores, school, and playtime are the same during the school year. During the summer, I’m lenient on Friday and Saturday with bedtimes and learning times. 
Our goal is to teach them independence. We have a plan in place for everything. 

We are big on family time and self-care in our home. 

There are days where I spend time with each of our four children alone. There are also days where I may take the girls out and my husband takes the boys or vice versa. 

Early in our journey, our boys couldn’t tolerate being in many public places. As they got older, we kept exposing them to different places. Our trick has always been to go to places on the slowest days so they would be comfortable.

It warms my heart to see them conquer their fears. 

Overall, I’ve learned to roll with the punches. I’ve had days where I was so organized and everything went great. 

I’ve also had days where I’ve sat in my car after getting them to school and cried uncontrollably because my heart was heavy and my mind was overwhelmed.

No matter what, my heart is full of love for our precious superheroes. 
They are not victims and they can overcome anything. We accept them just the way they are. We just want to help them navigate life in a way that works for them.

Self–care is a necessity in my life. I’ve learned to simply be good to myself. I do the best I can everyday. Most of all, I’m good enough. Self-care for me is:

• taking a walk
• pedicure
• booking a massage
• reading
• lunch alone
• booking a therapy session.
• The list goes on.

 Two of the most challenging aspects of being an ASD Mom for me are quality time with my husband and advocating for the triplets to get the support they need. 

My husband is a local CDL driver/salesman. I’m a self-employed hairstylist. Between our careers, quality time with our four children, and additional therapies we support them through, we rarely get a break to ourselves. Thankfully, my mother steps in and gives us breaks from time to time.

Advocacy doesn’t come hard to me. However, I do find myself feeling angry at the fact that I have to stalk people just to get signatures for scripts, appts, etc. I will go to the end of the earth for my children. It’s a different kind of anger when your child has waited over a year to receive approval for a service and you find out the only reason the process took so long is that someone left it on their desk and forgot to mail or fax it. It also feels horrible to have to keep reminding An educator to follow an IEP. 

As a special needs parent, I’ve learned that people are lazy. That’s heartbreaking when you have a child who can’t communicate well enough to tell you everything that goes on. I’m thankful I have my children with teachers who now care as much as I do. They communicate with me. they are not bothered by my involvement and pop ups. That’s the biggest blessing.

Overall, I consider myself an awesome mom! I know in my heart God chose me to love and mother these awesome children because he knew I had the heart and compassion for it. I can remember in high school volunteering in the special needs classes and collecting funds for the children to attend special Olympics. 

Meet our guest blogger: Krystle Rucker