#fitn

Twitter much?

No?

Don’t blame you.  I was a non-believer until this past summer.  It terrified me, and to a degree still seems so very strange.

Twitter is the most difficult thing to describe to a non-Tweeter.  You have these hashtag (#) thingys to follow tweets categorically.   You ‘Follow’ other people and hope somebody ’Follows’ you back.  Then there is the Twitter Lingo that contains more acronyms than the Army – who would have thought that was possible?  Oh – and Twitter Etiquette.  You must be sure to thank Tweeps (your Twitter Peeps) for RT’s (Re-Tweets of things you tweet) and so forth.  Then there are MTs (no, not ‘empties’, but Modified Tweets) which means you had to shave down an already ridiculously-coded, short 140-character tweet so that you could add your own comment without going over the 140-limit.  I am sure there is more to say about Tweeting, but I am still learning.

So to my point.  No, really, I have one.

Tuesday evening, I had just duck-taped the children put the children to sleep for the night and lovingly kissed their foreheads as I whispered, “THANK GOD FOR BEDTIME” ”I love you, my sweet child.”  I was exhausted after one full week so far without the SGM home and was looking forward to any rerun I could find of any of the Real Housewives dramas to enjoy with a glass of wine.  But I had to check the Twitter Thingy first.

New plan.  No time for RHoBH.

It was the New Hampshire Primary, and I had totally forgotten until the feverish tweeting I saw as the polls began to close.  Campaign staffers and political news junkies were tweeting faster and more furiously than a pack of tweens hyped up on sugar and Bieber Fever.  There was a genius new hashtag started and everyone who was anyone on Primary night was using it: #fitn = ‘first in the nation’.  Brilliant.  I pounced on it faster than the hapless miners on Gold Rush stumbling upon their first nugget in the virgin ground of the Glory Hole.  (That’s a whole ‘nother post, by the way.)

It went something like this:

@mittromney Who will be #fitn to address the #1in88 #military kids w/#autism? http://cmkaa.org #CMKAA #HR2288

And it got some attention.  Which it should have since I melted my laptop sending that tweet to as many political correspondents as I could before I was cut off entirely, reaching my daily Tweet limit in about 45 minutes.  God bless the cut & paste.

In the end, with bloodied fingers and an acute attack of carpal tunnel, a few more folks learned about the needs of our military families with autism.  We gained a few new supporters.  Our voice grew just a little bit louder.

If you are on the Twitter Thingy, go ahead and help get the word out, please.  You can tweet about the bill using the hashtag #cmkaa and the site: http://cmkaa.org.

I could use all the help you can offer.  I think social media is going to prove to be the greatest tool for good mankind has ever devised.  It sure beats that crazy thing called the telephone any day.

Cheers, My Friends.

Rachel

(@MrsSGMKenyon on that Twitter Thingy)

[Ed note: YOU can support HR2288 - Caring for Military Kids with Autism Act at http://cmkaa.org!  With one click you can tell your Congressperson to sign on to this critical legislation.  You can also sign our Petition to The White House --> HERE <-- to make autism therapies accessible to all military dependents.  AND DON'T FORGET to tell your US Representative and US Senator to attend the Congressional Briefing on Autism and Its Impact on the Military Family on Tuesday, January 31, 2012, 11:30 am at the Capitol Visitor Center, Room SVC 203, Washington, DC.  I will be speaking on behalf of our families.  We are also honored to have Dr. Geri Dawson, Chief Science Officer of Autism Speaks and Karen Driscoll of ACT Today for Military Families presenting.  It is sure to be a truly informative event for our Legislators and Staff.  Thank you.]