My son has Aspergers – a high functioning form of autism. You wouldn’t know it to look at him and you might not even guess it if you “knew” him for a long time. It’s really only those very close to him/us that would really see just how far reaching and debilitating this almost invisible condition can sometimes be. Why? Because the older he gets the better he is at hiding/managing it, and he works very hard at it, knowing just how many friendships he has lost because of shallow minded judgmental people who have nothing better to do than hurt innocent children who need anything BUT being excluded.

So, that aside, we have many hurdles we work on overcoming, fitting in one of our major issues, and food acceptance, tolerance and diversity, being the other. If my son could choose his own food he would eat ONLY penne bolognaise for the rest of his life.  Now, we all know that most kids would choose candy and corn dogs if they had to cook/choose for themselves but kids on the spectrum are different. My son would actually choose starvation over eating the “wrong” foods and we have it easy, cause some kids will eat only certain colors, certain shapes or not have food items touch each other…….we’ve gone through many trials and tribulations but these days we are definitely making progress so forcing him to eat something he can’t cope with is like chiseling out the foundation holding up your house.…

I’ve been a little distracted the last 2 weeks as I’ve been tour guide to my friend visiting from Australia. So this piece is a little overdue but nonetheless incredibly special to me. Yes, this is a picture of me on the grounds of The White House, taken less than two weeks ago after being invited to attend The White House Easter Egg Roll as part of Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign.

I ummed and ahhed about going because I knew I was not going to meet them PERSONALLY however I would be part of an incredibly important ongoing campaign to fight childhood and subsequently adult obesity – something I have struggled with for large (haha pardon the pun) parts of my life and one I have spent a large portion of my life helping others fight.  I am a passionate advocate for never giving up the battle and for working twice as hard making sure your children never have to live half a life simply because of their weight.

And so I asked myself, how often do you get invited to The White House? I grew up in a small country town in Northern NSW Australia, a tiny little town called Mummulgum, and even though I dreamed of one day moving to the “big city” and becoming a writer (both of which I can proudly tick off), I never for a second ever imagined I would go this far!…

Dear Canberra,

I’m sorry. I’m sorry you can’t take a joke. I’m sorry so many of you are so bored with your obviously incredibly boring lives in Canberra that you would be outraged at the jokes that were bandied about by me, my friend Mardi, Guy Pearce and the incredibly fast witted comedic genius Craig Ferguson on The Late Late show filmed here in LA last night.

http://www.cbs.com/shows/late_late_show/video/2221637424/the-late-late-show-4-10-2012

I was just at dinner with my friend when the Canberra Times rang her to get a comment on “Canberra-gate” and to ask me for mine. ZZZZZZZZZZ sorry, did someone mention the possibility of permanent world peace, global warming or the amount of children dying from starvation in countries no one really cares about when women are starving in other countries just so they can feel good about themselves and get work? Sorry.  I thought there were IMPORTANT and INTERESTING things to discuss that the rest of the world might actually give a f**k about.

Here’s my comment: Canberra get a life, get over yourselves, get a sense of humor and hey, at least people are talking about you – which they weren’t last week. If you can’t see that it was a spontaneous, spur of the moment comedy banter with the man who WILL succeed David Letterman then you are even dumber and more backwater bred than I thought just one day ago.…

So one of my current battles is getting my darling son Kai to let go of his ragged, tattered rotten old sweatshirt that he has worn (almost every day even during summer) for about a year now. It’s tough. His Aspergers makes it an incredibly overwhelming task to transition him from the old one to what will become his new one (we have yet to find that one though). We must have tried on about 50 different hoodies none of which smell or feel as good as the one he just can’t give up. It’s  like a baby with their blanky except my son is 12, nearly 13. And anyone who has a kid on The Spectrum knows that getting them to let go is easier said than done. It’s not just a matter of a few hours of tears then they move on. It’s weeks and weeks of obsessive talk, tears, refusal to go out, sleepless nights, freezing versus wearing anything but what they are used to, stressful hyper reactions like stimming (flapping of the hands) and/or uncontrollable sounds…which then leads to him getting intro trouble in class or worse, being teased.

Now of course he would give it up if he had to.…

If you are a budding designer and want to have a bash at winning the design logo competition for my upcoming curvy girl clothing brand then check this out: Beautiful Beautiful Me logo design – 48HoursLogo.com. There is money to be won, but it’s not a lot! However much kudos and high profile bragging rights if you do. Who knows how big this might get? We could go GLOBAL!!!! Yes, Anthony Robbins, thinking big is not restricted to you only lol.

Someone who “gets it”, someone who wants something different on their resume, someone who wants to help us change the world, one old fashioned pre conceived idea at a time!

Go for it and good luck!!!!

…