Autism

Last month we took the boys to a mountain called Vall de Núria. The plan was simple on paper. Ride the Blue Train up the valley, which is the only way to get there. Ride the cable car over the pine trees. Sleep in a wooden cabin on the French side. And make memories in our Road trip.

Simple on paper. Never simple in practice.

The train ride that made Guille light up

We parked the car and waited for the Blue Train. We started from the very first stop, because Adri and Guille wanted to see the whole climb and I was not about to deny him a single meter of track. So Luis and I planned a trip that included their interests.

The whole way up, Guille could not stop smiling. The Blue Train reminded him of Eric, the blue train from one of his favorite shows, Titipo. Imagine being six years old and seeing one of your characters alive in front of you for the first time. The look on his face is one of those things that I will keep in my heart for the rest of my life. And specially if the words: “Blue Train Eric” came out of his tiny little mouth. Music to our ears.

Adri sat quietly, watching the mountains come up to meet us. He is twelve. He does not light up the way Guille does, but he feels things just as deeply. He wanted the whole ride. Every bend. Every meter. He got what he came for. They both did.

Almost an hour of train, going up. I sat with Luis, watching their faces, remembering why we do this.

At the top

The Valley is breathtaking, so much nature, families, a lake. We decided to explore it all. I had packed sandwiches, just in case the food up there was not something the boys would eat. I did not know what was going to be available, and I would rather carry a backpack full of Ham, Boiled eggs and Sandwiches than find myself with two hungry boys on a mountain (and a mom too). We ate the sandwiches.

The cable car took us even higher. We rode up with it, and decided to walk back down. Once we were up there, the four of us just stopped. We took deep breaths. We watched a family of marmots in the grass.

Going down the mountain, we saw horses along the way. It was one of those family moments that lands quietly. Nothing dramatic. Just all of us, together, in the middle of a mountain we had never seen before, taking it in.

Alert, even on a good day

I want to tell you the truth about what else was happening in my body while I was on that mountain.

I was on alert the entire time. Guille has a tendency to just start running when he feels free. The mountain was steep. The path back down had sudden drops. I did not take my eyes off him for more than a few seconds at a time. I could feel the vigilance in my shoulders. We took turns holding his hand.

That is autism parenting. The good days are good. The alert does NOT switch off.

I think most moms carry some version of this. For autism moms, it is turned up a level. Even in the most beautiful moment, there is a part of me that is scanning. Measuring the distance between my body and his. Planning what I would do if he started running toward the edge.

I write this not to make the moment sound heavy. The moment was beautiful. I write this because if you are an autism mom reading this, I want you to know that your constant scanning is not an overreaction. It is love. It is your love doing exactly what it was built to do.

The first night went sideways

The day before going to the mountain, we stayed the first night in a Sky Lodge in France. A wooden cabin tucked into the trees. We arrived after school on a friday, which meant we got there at the end of a long week. Travel day, school day, mountain day, all on top of each other.

The cabin was fully made of wood, with ski paintings on the walls because people come here to ski in the winter. The whole look of it, combined with the long day, combined with an unfamiliar space, was too much for Guille.

He had a meltdown.

I am going to tell you what that looked like, because I think it matters.

A few years ago, this meltdown would have been something else entirely. It would have been louder, longer, more frightening to all of us. Highly considering going back home. He is six now, and he is learning. The meltdown that night was shorter. He hit stuff a couple of times, though honestly it felt more like pressure than hitting, if that makes sense. He threw a couple of things into the air. Thirty minutes.

Thirty minutes used to be the beginning. Now thirty minutes is sometimes the whole thing.

I notice this. I let myself be proud of him for it, even in the middle of it.

What we did

Luis and I sat with him. We did not reach for the phone, even though we both know the phone is regulating for him. Here is why. We lost a tablet in the summer when he threw it into the air during a hard moment, and I was not going to lose another one. So we trusted him and gave him space with the things we knew he liked, nothing he could break.

We stayed close to him but giving him space. We did not fix. We did not rush. We did not ask him to stop. We just stayed.

Here is the thing nobody told me before I became an autism mom. Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do for your child is to not do anything at all. To stay in the room. To not look at your phone. To not reach for a bottle of water or a snack or a solution. To just be a steady body in the space with them.

And then, almost like a switch flipped, he smiled. He got up. He started going up and down the cabin stairs, laughing. We did a video for keepsakes. He wanted me to watch him. I watched him. I think I smiled with my whole chest. That night he slept it the top floor of the cabin happy and safe, alongside his brother.

The rest of the trip was lovely. Trains, cable cars, pine trees, a mountain town.

What it taught us

A lot of what we have learned over years of traveling with the boys got us to this trip. The confidence to go. The confidence to prepare. The confidence to try somewhere new. The willingness to accept that one night can go sideways and the next day can be everything you came for.

That is what our new book, Autism: Our Travel Adventure, is built from. Every tool, every strategy, every social story is something we have actually used in a hard moment. The book is us handing families everything we had to learn on our own, because I remember being the mom who did not know where to start, and I would really used a book like this when my Adri was a toddler.

Here is what I would say to any autism mom about to travel with her child:

• Pack safe foods. Breakfast and dinner. You will thank yourself.
• Build social stories for the parts you know will be hardest.
• Prepare for the first night to be the hardest. The whole travel day lands on kids at once.
• Stay. Do not fix. Do not rush. Just stay with them.
• Keep the regulating tool safe. If your child throws things in hard moments, do not hand them something you cannot afford to replace.
• Thirty minutes of hard can turn into days of beautiful. I have seen it over and over.

Vall de Núria was worth it. Guille rode his Blue Train, and his face lit up every time Eric came back around a bend. Adri watched the mountains pass through the cable car window and said almost nothing, which from him is a kind of yes. We ate sandwiches on a mountaintop with a family of marmots in the grass. And were luck to find pizza in the canteen. We came home with photos I will keep for years, and with a story I needed to tell.

Traveling with autistic kids is not easier because you prepared. It is possible because you prepared.

That is the difference the book is here to make. Autism: Our Travel Adventure launches October 27. If this trip could happen with planning, yours can too.
Keep Posted for updates.

Learn more about the book here: https://lovingpiecesbooks.com/autism-our-travel-adventure/

Last week, the news here in Catalonia was heavy. A twelve-year-old autistic boy went missing from his home in Granollers during a thunderstorm. He had fled the house, frightened by the storm. Ten days later, his body was found on a beach in Sitges.

I want to start by saying to his family. We are so sorry. All of us. The autism community in Catalonia and far beyond held you in our hearts for ten long days, and we are still holding you now.

The ten days

While the search was happening, my phone would not stop pinging. The autism community here in Catalonia got together within hours. People I had never met were sharing his photo. People were asking in group chats, have you seen this boy, have you seen this boy, where was he last. Volunteers were going out organized by the local firehouse. Local parents were walking the areas he might have crossed. We were all one wide net of autism families trying to help bring someone else’s child home.

That is the part of the story I want people to know. Our community moves. Fast and with love. A missing autistic child is not just that family’s crisis. It is ours too.

The storm

The night he left home, there was a huge thunderstorm. Not a small one. The kind of storm where our own house in Barcelona shook and the lights flickered.

For an autistic child with sensory sensitivities, a storm like that can be unbearable. Imagine your nervous system already running loud, and then the sky itself turns into noise and light. Your home does not feel safe. Nothing feels safe. The instinct to flee is real.

I am not going to pretend to know exactly what happened to him. I did not know him. But I know enough autistic kids, and I live with two of my own, to know what overwhelm can do.

The comments

I read a lot of the comments under the news. Most were full of love. Hearts, condolences, families saying they were praying for his safe return. Many were educational, trying to tell people that autistic children have a known pull toward water. That autistic children can elope when they are overwhelmed.

Then there were other comments. Where was the mother. Why did the boy escape. Something is wrong with this story. There is something they are not telling us.

I understand those comments more than I wish I did. Not because they are right, but because I know where they come from.

If you have never lived with an autistic child who elopes, you cannot imagine what it is like. You cannot imagine installing extra locks on your own front door, locks that are turned the wrong way around so they can only be opened from the outside. You cannot imagine the way your heart stops every time you cannot see your child for ten seconds in your own home. You cannot imagine sleeping with one ear open your whole life.

My kids have a tendency to run when overwhelmed. We have taken measures I never thought I would take as a parent. And still, I know in my bones that one bad night, one open door, one storm, could be our story too.

What I need people to understand

Autism in our family and in that family in Granollers looks like constant vigilance. It is not neglect that leads to a child disappearing. It is the opposite. It is the exhaustion of parents who have been watching their child so closely for so long that the one moment they look away becomes the moment everything changes.

If you have ever typed a judgmental comment under a story about a missing autistic child, please read this. We are already doing everything. We are already afraid. We do not need you to look at us from the outside and decide what we should have done. If you don’t have something nice to say, please don’t.

The thing I want other autism parents to hear

Teach your child to swim. Early. Even if they do not love the water. Even if lessons are hard. Even if it takes years.

Autistic children are drawn to water. The statistics on drownings in our community are heartbreaking because they are so avoidable. Swimming lessons, from as young as you can start them, are one of the most important investments you will ever make in your child’s life. Both of my sons started early. Guillermo is in the pool every week, and still does not know how to swim very well. It is not a hobby. It is a safety plan.

For the family in Granollers

I do not know you. I will probably never meet you. But I have been thinking about you every day since the news came. Your boy is remembered. Your boy is being carried in a lot of hearts right now, more than you will ever get to see.

To the autism community here in Catalonia and everywhere. I am so proud of how we moved. And I am so sorry that we did not get the ending we were all praying for.

Please, when you talk about this story at your dinner table, lead with love. The people in the news comment sections are listening too, and some of them are autism parents who are reading every word and wondering if the world would blame them next.

I will be thinking about this family for a long time.

With love,

Dalisse

There is a folder on my desktop. It is full of photos of Adrián at school through the years. The first day of each year, multiple photos of random things, birthdays, school trips. The nervous smile he has perfected, the backpack that always seems slightly too big, and that particular way he holds himself when he is working very hard to look fine. Like when he smiles for the photo and shows all his teeth. I do prefer the more candid ones.

I was looking through it last week. And somewhere between the photo from four years ago and the one from last September, I felt it. That quiet, specific kind of nervousness, sadness, and excitement that does not have a clean name. Not sadness exactly. Not fear. Something closer to the feeling of watching a door close very gently behind someone you love.

Adrián is going to high school in September.

And I am not sure how to feel.

Everything He Is Leaving Behind

When you have an autistic child, school is not just school. It is a carefully built ecosystem. It is the teacher who learned, over months, that Adrián processes questions better when you give him five seconds instead of two. It is the support staff member who knows that if he is standing near the window during break it does not mean he is lonely. It means he is regulating. It is the classmates who have grown up alongside him and who, without anyone ever sitting them down and explaining it, just know how to be with him.

You do not build that in a week. You build it over years, through a hundred small misunderstandings that eventually become understandings. Through parents’ evenings where you sit across from a teacher and you watch them shift from reading a file to actually seeing your child. Through the quiet accumulation of trust.

We are leaving all of that behind in September.

When you have an autistic child, school is not just school. It is a carefully built ecosystem. And leaving it means starting from zero. Again.

We will still be at the school with Guillermo. Which is its own complicated thing. To walk through those same doors and know that Adrián is somewhere else, in a building full of people who do not know yet what we know. It is a strange kind of split. Familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.

The Unknown Is the Hardest Part

I have been trying to name exactly what it is that sits heaviest. And I think it is this: the unknown. Not the fear that something will go wrong. I know Adrián. He is resilient in ways that still surprise me. He has tools now that he did not have three, four, six years ago. He knows himself in a way that took years to build.

But a new school means new teachers who will need to learn him. New students who will not yet know how to read him. New routines, new spaces, new sensory landscapes. New everything.

And what I know about autistic children, and what I know about my son specifically, is that the unknown is not just stressful. It can be genuinely destabilizing. The safety that comes from predictability is not a preference. It is a need. And September is going to ask him to be flexible in ways that will cost him something.

I think about that cost a lot.

What We Are Doing to Prepare

We are not waiting for September. We have visited the school twice already. Not just the open day. We went back to meet the teachers, just Luis and I, and Adrián also visited the school on a school trip with all his classmates. While we visited, we walked the corridors slowly. We found his classroom. We sat in it. We saw the lockers. We talked about where the exits are and where he might go if he needs a minute. We showed him the special needs classroom where he gets extra support. We practiced the route from the front gate to the classroom hallway.

We are building a map. Not just a physical one, but an emotional one. What will the lunch area feel like? What happens if a lesson changes last minute? Who is the person he can go to? We are talking through all of it, not to eliminate the uncertainty, but to make the uncertainty smaller. More named. Less like a wall and more like a door he can see the handle of.

We are also being honest with him. He is twelve. He knows honesty is very important to us as a family. We have told him that it is normal to feel nervous. That not all his friends will be attending the same school. That starting somewhere new is hard for most people and harder for some. That the discomfort he will feel in the first weeks is not a sign that something is wrong. It is a sign that his brain is working hard on something new. And that we will be right there with him through all of it.

The Grief That Nobody Talks About

Let us talk about the grief of transitions. The grief of leaving behind the people and places and rhythms that kept your child safe, knowing that building that safety again in a new place will take time you cannot shortcut.

I have been sitting with that grief lately. Not trying to fix it or talk myself out of it. Just letting it be there. Because I think that is what it deserves.

Adrián did not ask for any of this. He did not ask to be autistic, to need more from the world, to have to work harder than his peers just to feel okay in an ordinary room. He has done all of that with more grace than I think I would have managed. And in September, he is going to be asked to do it all over again, in a new place, from scratch.

The grief is not about him being autistic. It is about how hard transitions are. And how much courage it takes to walk through an unfamiliar door when you already know the cost of being misunderstood.

What the New School Will Hear About Him

One thing that has helped me feel less anxious about September is knowing that his current school and teachers are not just handing over a file. They are going to sit down with the new school and talk about Adrián. And I know, I genuinely know, that what they say will go far beyond a list of difficulties.

Yes, they will talk about where he needs support. About the areas where learning can be harder for him. That is important and I am glad they will. But I also know his teachers. I have watched them with him for years. And they are going to talk about who he is. His knowledge of history, trains, and dates. The way he will quietly observe a situation for weeks before deciding to participate. The fact that he has a sense of humor that is unexpected and completely his own. The way he makes people around him feel loved and cared for, often without even realizing he is doing it.

They are going to walk into that meeting and talk about a person, not a diagnosis. And that matters more than I can say.

Because I have learned, over the years, that the educators who truly helped Adrián were not the ones who read his file most carefully. They were the ones who got curious about him as a person first. Everything else followed from that. I want his new school to start from the same place.

The Friends Who Are Going With Him

There is something else that I keep coming back to, and it has been bringing me more comfort than I expected.

A group of his classmates are going to the same high school. Kids who have grown up alongside Adrián. Who have, over the years, without anyone orchestrating it, figured out how to be his people. They know how to be with him. They know when to give him space and when to pull him in. That kind of understanding is not something you can manufacture. It is built over time, through shared lunches and group projects and years of just being in the same room together.

I am not naive about what high school means. They are going to have their own lives, their own friendships, their own things to navigate. It is not their job to look after Adrián and I would never want them to feel that weight. That is not friendship. That is obligation, and it is not fair to anyone.

But the bond is there. I have seen it. And I have faith, real faith, that it will carry forward. That it will evolve into whatever friendship looks like in this next chapter. That even as everyone grows into their own person, there will still be something between them that recognizes each other. That says: I know you. I have always known you.

That is actually everything.

To Every Parent Facing the Same September

If you are here because your child is also making a transition this year, I want you to know that what you are feeling makes complete sense. The anxiety. The protectiveness. The strange mixture of pride and worry that sits in your chest when you think about them walking into something new.

It is not weakness. It is love that has learned, over years, exactly how much work goes into keeping your child safe and seen. And it is the knowledge that you are going to have to build all of that again.

You will. I know that. And so will they.

But it is still a lot. And it is okay for it to be a lot.

We are all just doing our best with the September we have been given.

With love,
Dalisse

If this post resonated with you

Autism: A New School Year

New classrooms. New teachers. New everything. For autistic kids, the new school year can feel terrifying. This story walks Adrián and your child through the transition with visual schedules, sensory plans, and a quiet confidence that change does not have to mean chaos. A must-read before the first day of school.

Available in 4 languages  ·  English · Spanish · Catalan · Portuguese

Shipping Wordlwide via Amazon

Perfect for: back to school transitions, kids with anxiety around change, parents preparing their child’s teacher to truly understand them. Find Out More

Can I let you in on a secret?

Luis and I have been working on something that started as a dream, became a conversation over dinner one night, and somehow turned into a book. Actually, our most exciting book yet.

Adrián, Guillermo and us are going to London. 🇬🇧

And before you ask: yes, this is based on a real trip. Because if you know us by now, you know that every single thing we write comes from our actual lived experience.

I’m so excited to share this sneak peek with you today, including a first look at one of our hand-drawn illustrations, because this book feels different. It feels like an adventure.

How This Book Was Born

When Luis and I started talking about travel. We talked about how desperately we wanted to take Adrián and Guillermo somewhere big, somewhere meaningful, somewhere with trains of course, somewhere that pushed all of us outside our comfort zones.

But here’s the thing about travel with autistic kids: it’s not just packing a suitcase and booking flights. It’s research and preparation and social stories and sensory kits and backup plans for your backup plans. It’s having conversations weeks in advance about what airports feel like, what hotel rooms smell like, what happens if the food is different, what to do when everything is overwhelming and you’re thousands of miles from home.

It’s a whole thing.

And we couldn’t find a single children’s book that honestly, authentically, helpfully addressed what travel looks like for autistic families. So once again, we decided to write it ourselves.

What This Book Is About

Join Adrián and the Family on a Trip to London follows our family on a real adventure, from the anticipation and preparation at home all the way through the streets of London.

But this isn’t a tourist book. It’s not a “here are all the famous landmarks” book. It’s an autism family travel book.

It’s about:

✨ The preparation that makes travel possible – How we prepare Adrián and Guillermo weeks before departure. The visual schedules, the social stories, the conversations about what to expect.

✨ The airport experience – Let’s be honest: airports are sensory overload central. Crowds, noise, bright lights, security lines, delayed announcements, waiting. We show how Adrián navigates it and what helps.

✨ The unexpected moments – Because no matter how much you prepare, things happen. Flights get delayed. Plans change. Sensory overwhelm hits at the worst times. This book shows the real, messy middle of those moments, and how we get through them together.

✨ The joy of discovery – Because travel IS magical, even when it’s hard. Adrián’s passion for history and trains? London was made for him. Seeing his face at the Tower of London, at Buckingham Palace, the Postal Museum, at the London Transport Museum – that’s in this book too.

✨ Practical strategies woven through the story – Just like our other books, this isn’t just a story. It’s a tool. Parents will find strategies and tips throughout that they can actually use on their own family adventures.

Why London?

Okay, so why London specifically? Several reasons.

First: Adrián is obsessed with history – Roman history, medieval history, Tudor history. London is basically a living museum of everything he loves. It felt like the perfect destination for a boy who can tell you exactly which Tower of London prisoner was beheaded in which year.

Second: Adrián is a map whiz, and before even visiting the places in person, he had explored all the streets of London through Google Maps and knew the Underground by heart.

Third: We actually WENT to London as a family. So everything in this book – every detail, every challenge, every beautiful moment – is real.

And honestly? There were tears. There were hard moments. There were times I questioned whether we should have stayed home. But there were also moments of pure, absolute joy that I will carry in my heart forever.

Like the moment Adrián stood in front of the London eye and went completely still – not overwhelmed, but awestruck. That moment is in the book.

The Part That Makes This Book Different: Our Illustrations

Before I show you the sneak peek image, I want to talk about something that matters deeply to us.

Every single illustration in our books is hand-drawn by our illustrator, Edgar. Not AI. Not stock images. Not digitally generated. Hand. Drawn.

In a world where AI-generated images are everywhere, and where it can be genuinely hard to tell the difference, we want to be completely transparent: our illustrations are created the old-fashioned way, with real artistic skill, real time, and real human creativity.

Why does this matter? Because the illustrations in our books aren’t just pretty pictures. They’re emotional storytelling. They capture the nuanced expressions of an overwhelmed child, the specific body language of a child who’s masking, the sensory details of a crowded airport, the wonder on a child’s face seeing something breathtaking for the first time.

You can’t replicate that authenticity with AI. You can generate technically accurate images, but you can’t generate the love and understanding that goes into every line our illustrator draws. And when autistic children see themselves in these illustrations, when they recognize their own expressions, their own postures, their own experiences, that recognition comes from art created by a human who deeply understands what we’re trying to convey.

Every page is drawn with intention. Every expression is considered. Every detail is meaningful. And we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Isn’t it beautiful? This is the kind of art that tells a story before you even read a word.

What to Expect From This Book (Different From Our Others)

This book expands our series in a new direction, and we’re so excited about it.

Our previous books focused on:

• Meltdowns and emotional regulation (Autism: Calming the Chaos)
• Self-esteem and confidence (Autism: Confidence Starts Here)
• School transitions (Autism: A New School Year)
• Masking and emotional overload (Autism: My Invisible Backpack)
• Social events (Autism: This is How I Party)

This book focuses on: Travel, adventure, and experiencing the world as an autistic family.

Because autistic kids deserve adventures too. They deserve to see themselves in travel stories. They deserve books that say: “Yes, travel is hard for you AND it’s absolutely possible AND it’s worth it.”

And their families deserve practical support for making it happen.

The Strategies We’ll Cover (A Sneak Peek)

Without giving everything away, here are some of the strategies and themes woven through the story:

📋 Pre-trip preparation – How far in advance to start talking about travel, how to use social stories for airports and hotels, what to include in a travel sensory kit

✈️ Airport strategies – From check-in to boarding, how to make airports more manageable for sensory-sensitive kids

🏨 Hotel survival – New environments, new smells, new sounds, new beds. How we help our kids adjust to unfamiliar spaces

🗺️ Planning with flexibility – How to structure days so there’s predictability AND room for the unexpected

🎧 Non-negotiable tools – The sensory items we NEVER travel without (headphones, comfort items, familiar snacks)

💙 When things go wrong – Because they will. And that’s okay. This book shows HOW you get through the hard moments and come out the other side

🌟 Finding the joy – The magical moments that make it all worth it

When Is It Coming?

We’re still in the creation process, and I want to be honest with you about that. Writing a book is a labor of love that takes time. We want to get it RIGHT. We want the illustrations to be beautiful and authentic. We want the strategies to actually help. We want Adrián’s voice to shine through every page.

What I can tell you: We’re working hard on it right now. The illustrations are in progress (as you can see from today’s sneak peek). And when it’s ready, you’ll be the first to know.

If you want to be notified the moment it launches, make sure you’re subscribed to our newsletter. We’ll be sharing more behind-the-scenes peeks, exclusive previews, and all the details before anyone else.

While You Wait: Our Current Series

If you haven’t explored our existing books yet, these are the perfect companions while you wait for the London adventure:

📚 Autism: This is How I Party – The perfect introduction to navigating social events with autistic kids. Great prep for any outing, including travel.

📚 Autism: Calming the Chaos – Essential for understanding and supporting meltdowns, which let’s be honest, can happen during travel.

📚 Autism: A New School Year – The transition and preparation strategies in this book apply beautifully to travel preparation too.

📚 Autism: My Invisible Backpack – Understanding masking and emotional overload is crucial for travel. Highly recommend reading this before any big trip.

And don’t forget our FREE travel guide: Traveling with Autistic Kids: A Practical Guide, already available for download right now.

A Note to This Community

When Luis and I started Loving Pieces Books, we had no idea it would become what it is. We just knew our boys deserved to see themselves in stories. And then we realized: YOUR kids deserve that too.

With every book we write, we try to go somewhere new – a new challenge, a new experience, a new aspect of autistic life that isn’t represented enough.

Travel is that space. Autistic families travel. Autistic kids want adventures. The world is worth seeing, and our children deserve books that tell them so.

We can’t wait to share this journey with you. The London book is coming. And we think it’s going to be something really special.

Stay tuned.

With excitement and love,
Dalisse & Luis (and Adrián & Guillermo, our co-adventurers)
Loving Pieces Books

📧 Stay Connected:

• Subscribe to our newsletter for exclusive sneak peeks: lovingpiecesbooks.com
• Instagram: @lovingpiecesbooks for behind-the-scenes
• Free Resources: lovingpiecesbooks.com/freebies including our Traveling with Autistic Kids guide

Are you planning any trips with your autistic child? What’s your biggest travel challenge? Share below – your questions might end up informing this book! We want it to be as helpful as possible for families like yours.

I have to tell you about a happy moment in our lives. It usually starts with a brightly colored invitation, held a little nervously by Adrián. “There’s a party,” he’ll say, his voice a mix of excitement and that familiar flutter of anxiety.

For years, we navigated these questions together, building our own family “party plan” out of trial, error, and deep love. We poured everything we learned into our first book, Party Time for Adrián. It was our heart, printed on pages.

And then, something beautiful happened. You read it. You used it. You wrote to us. You shared your own stories, your victories, your struggles, and your brilliant ideas for making it even better.

That feedback was a gift. It showed us where our story could grow, where another illustration could ease a worry, where a clearer strategy could build more confidence. You showed us that this wasn’t just our story anymore; it was becoming a tool for a whole community.

That’s why today, my heart is so full as I introduce you to the nurtured, expanded, second edition of that book, now titled:

Autism: This is How I Party

We kept the warm, empowering core of Adrián’s journey, the character the birthday girl Amelia, the story that has helped so many kids visualize what a birthday party could look and even feel like. But we nurtured it, like tending a garden, to make it even more supportive.

Here’s what’s new in this second edition:

• Richer, new Illustrations: We’ve added more visual cues and scenes to help kids see each step of the party process, from getting ready to finding a quiet corner, making the social landscape easier to navigate.
• An Even Clearer, Step-by-Step Framework: We refined the party plan, making the “Where, Who, What, and When” even more intuitive for kids to follow and for parents to implement.
• A Direct Response to Your Voice: Every piece of thoughtful feedback from families, teachers, and therapists was listened to. This edition is shaped by real-life use, making it a more practical and powerful tool.

But we didn’t stop there.

Your Free Gift: The Ultimate Autism-Friendly Party Plan

The book gives kids their roadmap. Now, we want to give you, the amazing adult supporting them, a complete blueprint.

As our heartfelt “thank you” for being part of this community, we’ve created a brand-new, FREE downloadable guide: “The Ultimate Autism-Friendly Party Plan.”

This isn’t just a few tips. It’s a comprehensive, step-by-step checklist and strategy guide to:

• Prepare: How to “preview” the party with your child days in advance.
• Pack: What to put in your essential “Calm Down Kit” bag.
• Partner: How to communicate with the host family to create a more inclusive environment for everyone.
• Pivot: Clear strategies for recognizing overwhelm and executing a graceful break -or exit without shame.
• Process: Helpful ways to decompress and celebrate the wins afterward.
• Hosting: How you can be the host of your own party and how to communicate with guest about your child´s needs

This guide takes the philosophy of the book and turns it into your actionable playbook for real life.

Why This Book Exists: For Adrián, Guille, and Your Child

Autism: This is How I Party was born from our lived reality. It’s not about forcing social compliance. It’s about empowering joyful participation. It’s about giving our kids:

• Self-Awareness: To recognize their own mix of excitement and nerves.
• Self-Management: With tools like the “Birthday Candle Breath” to find their calm.
• Confidence: To know that needing a break is a smart strategy, not a social failure.

This book is for the child who feels the flutter. It’s for the parent who wants to replace anxiety with anticipation. It’s for the teacher or therapist building social-emotional skills. It’s for the host family who wants their celebration to be welcoming for everyone.

We are so grateful for the journey that led us to this new edition. This is more than a book update; it’s a testament to the power of community feedback and our shared commitment to seeing our children thrive.

Ready to turn party anxiety into confident anticipation?

• Get the new, expanded second edition: Autism: This is How I Party with the book you get to Download your FREE companion guide: The Ultimate Autism-Friendly Party Plan

Here’s to celebrating every child, exactly as they are, and giving them the tools to join the fun in their own wonderful way.

With so much gratitude,

Dalisse

I have a confession. I was scrolling through Instagram last week, mindlessly passing by vacation photos and recipes, when my feed stopped me cold. There she was. The new Autism Barbie. I read the caption, zoomed in on the photos, and right there on my kitchen floor, I was so happy.

A yeiii scream came out instantly out of my mouth. The kind that come from a place so deep inside you didn’t even know it was waiting to be vocalized.

Let me back up. I grew up in the 90s, a dedicated Barbie girl. I spent hours playing with my sister and our dolls, orchestrating elaborate play scenarios, silent stories in my head. But in all those stories, I never saw an autistic barbie, I remember the astonaut, the teacher, the fashion barbie. Even growing up with the AI I even saw a couple memes of reiki barbie (which I loved). I am a late-diagnosed autistic woman, and for most of my life, that part of me felt invisible, even to myself. I guess when I was young playing with Barbie was an escape, but it was also a quiet reminder that I didn’t fit the mold of the shiny, smiling, chatty world she represented.

Now, I’m a mom to two incredible autistic boys, Adrián and Guille. My life is about advocating for their right to be seen. But sitting there with my phone in my hand, something shifted. This wasn’t just about them. This was about me. The little girl I was, who stimmed (masked a lot!) and daydreamed and felt different, finally had a reflection.

Why This Feels Like a Hug for My Inner Child

The details are what undid me. This isn’t just a blonde, blue-eyed doll with a puzzle piece printed on her shirt (thank goodness). She’s a woman of color with a gentle, averted gaze. She’s wearing soft, comfortable clothes you could actually relax in. And she comes with tools that are lifelines in our home: noise-canceling headphones, a fidget ring, and an AAC tablet.

Seeing these items packaged not as medical equipment, but as part of a beautiful, stylish doll’s world… it legitimizes them. It tells the little girl I was, and it tells my sons now, that these tools aren’t markers of being “less than.” They are smart, helpful accessories for navigating a loud world. They are part of the story.

I’ve read so many comments from other autistic adults who feel the same way.

There’s a shared sense of being seen, often for the first time, in a mainstream toy aisle. Many of us are saying the same thing: I wish I had this when I was a kid.

The Grateful Heart and The Nuanced Mind

Now, let me put my mom-and-advocate hat on for a second. My heart is full, but my mind is realistic. I am deeply grateful to see that Mattel consulted with the Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN) and based the doll on a real, autistic girl. That matters. It moves this from inspiration to collaboration.

But I also hear the valid concerns echoing in our community. And I feel them too.

The Spectrum is So Much Wider Than One Doll
The biggest, most important conversation is this: autism is a spectrum of billions of unique people. One doll, with one skin tone, one hair texture, and one set of accessories, cannot possibly represent everyone. There’s a real risk that for a non-autistic person, this could slip into a new stereotype: “This is what autism looks like.” We need more. We need different body types, different genders, different sensory tools, and different expressions of being autistic.

I’ve seen a brilliant suggestion: what about an accessory pack? A set of headphones, AAC devices, and fidgets that could snap onto any Barbie or Ken? That would let a child customize a doll to look like them, or their sibling, or their friend. That feels powerfully inclusive.

What This Means for Our Kids (And Their Classmates)

Beyond my own healing, I keep thinking about what this means in practical terms for my boys and their peers.

For Guille, who is largely nonverbal and has used an AAC device, seeing that tablet in a Barbie’s hand isn’t just a toy. It’s a mirror that says, “Your voice is valid.” For Adrián, who needs his headphones to survive loud noises, it normalizes his need for quiet as just another way to be.

And for their neurotypical classmates? This is a gentle, powerful teaching tool. It introduces accommodations not as something strange, but as normal, helpful parts of life. It can spark questions and conversations that build empathy, not pity. When disability representation sits on the shelf next to the veterinarian Barbie and the president Barbie, it sends a message: this is part of our world. This belongs.

Holding Space for Complicated Feelings

The online discourse around this doll has been… intense. And as a community, we’re exhausted by storms. I’ve seen people dismiss the excitement with, “It’s just a kids’ toy.” But it’s never just a toy. Toys are the blueprints of our imaginations. They tell us who gets to be the hero, who gets to be beautiful, who gets to be seen.

I also understand the distrust. It’s a corporation. It’s about profit. Can real representation and capitalism coexist? It’s a fair and painful question. We can be grateful for the step forward and still demand more steps, more variety, and more authentic inclusion in the future.

A Step Forward on a Long Path

So, here’s my take, as a late-diagnosed autistic woman and a mom.

This Autism Barbie is not the entire answer. She is not a perfect representation of a wildly diverse spectrum. But she is a meaningful, heartfelt step. She is proof that advocacy is working. She is a signal to companies that authentic representation matters to consumers.

This is why I write the books I do. At Loving Pieces Books, I create stories where autistic kids are the main character. I know that no single book, just like no single doll, can represent all autistic children. My Adrián and my Guille are proof of how different two experiences can be, even in the same family. But a story can be a starting point. It can be that first, vital mirror for one child, and a window of understanding for another. It can be the spark for a conversation between a parent and a teacher, or the reason a child feels a little less alone. That’s the power of representation; it’s not about capturing everything, but about honestly capturing something that opens a door.

For me, this doll is a chance to heal a childhood wound I didn’t even know I had. To tell that little girl inside me: You were always here. And you were always beautiful.

And for my sons, she is one more brick in the world I’m trying to build for them, a world where they see themselves reflected back, not as an afterthought, but as a main character. Worthy of being on the shelf, exactly as they are.

What do you think? Does this doll feel like representation to you? Let’s have a kind, nuanced conversation about it.

With Love,

Dalisse

Just in case you need it here is the link to Buy the Autistic Barbie: https://amzn.to/3NF5dyQ