An Autism Mom’s COVID Craziness
The good news is that our daughter Samantha is COVID negative. The bad news is that both of her parents have COVID. Since we live in a two-bedroom apartment, Samantha is the one who must try to isolate. Howard is home for what we both hope will only be a week. His...
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Autism, COVID and Freak Accidents
Autism, COVID and Freak Accidents My title sounds crazy, right? But this unhappy word trio perfectly describes my life for the past two weeks. We had been looking forward to our son Matt returning home for the holidays to celebrate his 31st birthday with his autistic...
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An Autism Mom’s Gratitude List in a Confusing COVID World
Notice that I haven’t written any blogs since returning home from Maine on Labor Day. Why not? I could say I’ve been surprisingly busy feathering my new 74th Street nest. (That process has taken much longer than expected.) But that’s only part of the truth. The...
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An Autism Family’s Complicated Vacation
Our family vacations have never been simple, but this year we had new complications. To begin with, we had only recently moved, our new apartment was still unfinished when we arrived, and it continues to be a work in progress. Next, our son Matt had a pre-vacation...
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A Prodigal Son Comes Home
After Covid restrictions and surgery on both hips, Samantha’s twin brother Matt returned from Los Angeles to go on our family vacation. We haven’t seen our son—except on FaceTime—for 19 months, so we were excited. Would Matt look the same as the last time we saw...
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A New Nest for an Autism Family
We only moved one block from East 73rd to East 74th Street so it should have been relatively simple, right? My adult autistic daughter Samantha took it “easy-peasy.” She didn’t seem the least bit curious about her new home or bothered that her room would be smaller....
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Waiting to Turn 65 During the Pandemic
For many years I’ve been in no hurry for my birthday. Most adults past a certain age—myself included—would prefer to slow down the clock or start counting backwards. Not this year. Ever since the vaccine became available to people over 65, I’ve yearned for my March...
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Moving an Autism Family’s Nest During Covid
After 30 years of raising our twins in a rental apartment in Manhattan, we are finally going to become coop owners! Better late than never, right? I’ve been looking for many years, but we could never afford an apartment that suited us. Once our son moved to Los...
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When Twins Turn 30 On Opposite Coasts During Covid
For many months during the pandemic, nothing inspired me to sit still long enough to write. I was anxious and emotionally exhausted from the persistent virus, the surreal election AND our family’s search for a new nest. I also suffered from sadness because our family...
read moreWhat Happens When One Twin Has Autism
As some of you may have noticed, I have not been writing blogs lately. Instead of blogging, I've been busy trying to find a new nest.-- a VERY relevant topic these days thanks to the pandemic. More news on that soon. Meantime, I'm reprinting my recent article on...
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About Marguerite
Marguerite Elisofon is a New York City writer and the author of My Picture Perfect Family, a memoir about how her family navigated life with a child on the autistic spectrum before the internet and support groups existed. She also blogs about parenting young adults and disability related issues in The Never Empty Nest. Her writing has been featured in a variety of publications, including Time and NY Metro Parents magazine, and her family’s story has been featured by the NY Post, Fox News, The Daily Mail, and on Jenny McCarthy’s Dirty Sexy Funny radio show. A Vassar graduate, Marguerite was born and raised in New York City, where she still lives with her husband, Howard, in their mostly-empty nest. She is available to speak about a wide variety of issues relating to twins, parenting, and autism. 