Why Noshember?

Hello Family, Friends, and Strangers

This is a blog created to celebrate the month of Noshember.  Noshember is a silly celebration of a man not shaving for the month of November as a way to bring awareness to something, or to just be lazy and enjoy the growth of facial hair for 30 days.

I'm going to be doing a little of both.

This is me.  I'm Loren.  Here's my pic from today, the first day of Noshember.  As you can see, I'm going to have a bit of a head start.  I have a bit of a goatee already.  I hope to put a picture up daily to show my progress.  I don't really grow facial hair as fast as some guys.  But I do grow some.  The last time I grew a fuller beard it was really red and more curly than I imagined it would be.  I've turned grey some over the years since I last attempted.  So we'll see how it turns out this time.

Besides enjoying the growth of a grey and red scraggly beard, I will hope to bring some awareness to the Autism Spectrum Disorders, especially Aspergers. 

You see, Aspergers is very close to my heart. My oldest son Bailey has Aspergers.  He was diagnosed about 3 years ago now.  Maybe a little less.

Bailey is now 12 years old.  He was one of the kids who was diagnosed later in life than most children.  Here is Bailey.  He is a good looking kid. :) This is a picture of Bailey after a band performance last school year.

The key to getting any illness or disability diagnosed is in meeting the right medical professional who is willing to evaluate correctly and has the patience and knowledge to look at the situation and take the time to talk with you about what "symptoms" you have experienced.  It took Bailey's mother and I many years (about 6 actually) to find the right medical professional that was able to properly diagnose Bailey with Aspergers and give us some relief that there were answers to the situations that we were experiencing with him.

I hope that this month is a journey that you can experience with me.  My goals for the month are as follows

1.  Have fun.  I'm a fun loving kind of guy and besides all of the serious stuff I just want to put some things out there that you enjoy.
2.  Raise awareness for Aspergers.  We've talked about that some already. 
3.  Learn with you.  I, by no means, have all of the knowledge or skills necessary to tell you everything there is to know about Aspergers.  I hope to learn some new things this month and share them with you as I learn.  Hopefully this will help me as a father to continue to learn ways to work with my son and help him to grow into the successful adult that I know that he can be....disability or not.

I thank you in advance for any of you who decide to take this journey with me.

So on with the month of Noshember!