Sunday, February 12, 2012

Foot nudity and other things

"Fro" Football Player
     It has been some time since I took time to sit and write about my boy wonder. I was surprised to see the last entry in October! Wow. I must have been busy living life...I know things have been changing for said boy. He has a new aide at his school that has been wonderful. He has been trying extra hard to write and spell and do math....all the things that up until recently he was just too overwhelmed to attempt. We definitely feel a new page in his book is being written. He is more determined than ever to catch up academically with his peers. We are currently waiting to have yet another test to see if some professional can determine why he has the deficits he does. It amazes me that this boy can pick up any given Lego and tell me what set it came from, and yet mastering the memory of 2+1 eludes him. Some days he can rattle off math facts like a "normal" kid. Other more concerning days he seems to look at the numbers as if it was the first he has heard of this thing called MATH. 
     Through it all and above all else this boy wonder has developed a sense of humor that rivals the best stand up comics. He keeps us laughing with his weird observations and comments. His dreams even conjure a laugh every now and then. A good example of this is the dream he had recently about an orange that was so despondent he decided to juice himself. This made the orange girlfriend very sad so she also juiced herself. Dark? Yes. Funny? Well we think so. He is still painfully honest about his observations however and these sometimes can be inappropriate.  He says what he thinks. Politics will probably never be in his future! He follows the Colbert Report and the John Stewart Show and "gets" the jokes that should be over his head. I enjoy his world views, his quirky ideas and his sense of right and wrong. 
     It is always fun for me to see others learn about my son. His new aide has enjoyed this oddball sense of humor first hand when my boy decided to take off his shoes momentarily at school. He warned, "There may be brief foot nudity" before unleashing his foot. The aide found his comment hysterical. I know that what ever life throws at this kid he will meet it with humor and confidence. That is a good thing. 
     Recently I spoke as part of a parent panel to local officers. There were people in the audience who have been affected by autism first hand, others knew of a close friend, but all seemed to understand this condition. That is progress. I use to live in fear that someday my boy's odd behavior would cause a run in with law enforcement that would end in him meeting a taser up close. Before the talk I asked Ben what he would do if he was in an emergency situation and there were officers asking him questions. He said, "Well first I would tell them I have autism."
WIN.
Yes because when it takes you two minutes to answer a question it can mean a few different things! Knowing about his autism has allowed me to relax a little. I do still worry that he will say something inappropriate....that will probably never go away. I am sure he will end up on a "watch list" somewhere....
I was interested to hear the main speaker Terri Todd from the Chico State Autism Clinic talk about an adult she met with aspergers. She asked if he was bothered by his social limitations, basically if he missed having friends. He said no, he was perfectly happy. I believe this because I had just had the same conversation with Ben. He and I were at the park enjoying the unseasonably warm weather and a group of boys his age appeared and began to play near by. I asked what he thought of that...if he ever wished he could go play with a group of boys like that. He looked at them and said, "No. Why would I? I play like that at my school with my friends."
And there you go. 
He is, has been and always will be happy in his own skin. That is more than a lot of us can say. Seriously.

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