Introduction Episode, trust us, it’s YUGE!!!

Hey friends. This is the finding Mikey podcast. Our family's quest to prepare our son Mikey for life. This is a podcast for families with kiddos on the autism spectrum. My name is Mike, and from time to time, I'll be joined by my wife, Heather, or other family members and others for interviews and conversations.

And while I may mention our son, you have a mic of your own and together we're on a journey to learn as much as we can so that we can understand how to best communicate and guide our kiddos into independent adulthood. Thanks for tuning in.

So welcome to the first episode of finding Mikey. Well, it's not actually the first episode, it's actually episode zero kind of technically, because I'm going to use this as sort of an about section that you would find on a regular website, but this will just be about the podcast. And it's really to talk about my plans and, and to kind of set the expectations here.

First expectation is. I am not a professional like radio person or in broadcasting or anything like this. I'm a regular dad. I hold a sales job, uh, which gives me plenty of opportunity to be, wow. See plenty of opportunity to be in front of, um, individuals or groups of people here as well, but in a sales context, and this is just a little bit different, although I've podcasted before I hope to get better as I go on here.

So don't expect everything to be super polished and I will, I will have bloopers and I probably won't add. So just be warned, be warned. Um, ultimately though, I'd like to provide a glimpse into our life and sharing our ups and our downs with you to let you know that you're not alone and I'd like our family to connect with your family because we get it.

And I know you guys get it too, and to share what we're learning and also to get some info back from you guys on what you're learning as well. And my goal truly here is to have a weekly podcast. Where I can provide something that will either educate us or will inspire us. I plan to have on guests that will share their knowledge and expertise.

And I also plan to do things like book reviews and products and stuff like that. So basically I just have to share what I'm learning, uh, so that I can learn some more and. You know, Mikey, he can be a handful he's up to early in the morning. He's hyper-focused sometimes he has meltdowns a few times a day.

Uh, but he's snugly. He loves to tickle. He's eager to please, and he's never met a stranger for good or for bad. He pushes our buttons. He gives the best hugs becomes way too high and jumps and he charges full speed on his bike. Not afraid to try new things. Is it annoying to his older sister, grace, and he is sweet to his little sister joy, even when she's being annoying or being a pill, you know, we get it in our kids a little bit of a challenge from time to time when you put them in a group of other six year olds.

He's, he's not, he's not identical at all. You know, he takes a lot of redirection and you know, I think you guys can understand that. I think that, you know, a little bit about what we're going through, you know, you may have a more extreme. You know, a set of circumstances, you may have a more mellow, uh, set of circumstances.

You may have already gone through this journey and, and have so much knowledge that you can share with us. And I would love to hear from you. So I hope that you can tune in from time to time. I hope that you'll be able to friend us on Facebook and on Instagram, just so that we can connect. And it'd be great to be there for you.

And really that's kind of my goal and what I'm hoping to do out of this. I'm hoping to drag my wife into podcasting. Also, she's been a little bit resistant, um, but we have a great episode that we've recorded already. Then I'll, you know, that's right after this one here too. It's really about our journey and what has brought us from basically Mikey's birth to, to now to get you caught up on where we are and our story.

So, yeah, that's it. That's episode zero. And yeah, I can't wait to, I can't wait to do this. I can't wait to get this launched. I can't wait to get this out into your hands. I can't wait to hear back from you guys. I can't wait to have conversations with y'all and I'm just, I'm really eager to get this started.

So I'm going to shut up right now and I hope to see you again soon. Take care.