Good Bye Buster Dear

BusterGwen

 

asleep with Buster

Gwen excelling at her new job

William has a difficult time with emotion. He laughs when he should have shown concern, he cries during a happy song because something about it strikes him as sad, he doesn't like hugs, loves vacuum cleaners and feels sorry for them if they are broken but often feels nothing when his younger brother is crying about something. People make the mistake of thinking that autistic people have no emotions, and if not that, then they think they just don't understand things well enough to emote over them or that their reactions are hay-wired. This past Saturday, my son's 11 year old cat died very suddenly of an embolism. The friend he'd had by his side since he was a baby, who slept with him, who grew up with him, who loved him unconditionally and never had a judgmental thought about him, who never thought of him as "The Weird Kid," who followed him around the house meowing, the friend who was the one and only warm body who was allowed to give and take affection from him, gone. I had to tell him that his cat had died. Anyone who thinks that autistic people have no emotion, that they don't know how to love, should have been there for this and it would have been something they would have never forgotten. It would have been an attitude adjusting, life changing experience, as it was for me. After the words, "Buster died," came out of my mouth, I watched his expression turn to devastation and despair, I saw him shatter into a million pieces. I felt like doing it myself. It was probably one of the worst moments of my life. He does allow me to touch him, I did put my arms around him, but I knew it wasn't what he wanted. His greatest comfort was the one he couldn't have, because his greatest comfort was the one he mourned.

We gave him some closure, which I think is a very small comfort. He looked at Buster and petted him one last time. He helped with the burial and we all said something about Buster. He knew Buster was gone. Permanence has always been a difficult concept for him, and over the next days he asked me over and over if Buster was really gone, was he really not coming back, had we buried him in the yard? Right before we buried Buster, he said something to me that I will never forget. "Mom, I don't have any friends anymore." I had known this was true, but I didn't know he knew it. I was guilty myself of something I'd resented in other people. I'd thought he didn't understand and that he didn't care. He has kids at school that he knows, yes, that he interacted with. But he seems to feel no attachment to any of them and it has always been that way. The cat was the one truly safe 'person' he'd known, and that 'person' had adored him and wanted him, had never been mad at him or rejected him. The next few days, he cried off and on. He also talked over old times about Buster, laughed over some of his memories and reminisced. He was dealing with it a lot better than I was.

Within a day or so he was lamenting that he was "no longer a pet owner." We do have other animals, but he has an aversion to dogs (I have 2) and our other cat is not affectionate at all and bites. Two days after Buster died, we got a new kitten. We have two boys and William happily agreed to share the kitten. He even let his brother Sean pick the one he wanted and Sean picked the kitten's name, too. He was called Ben 10, Sean's favorite cartoon character. That night I took a good look at Ben and realized, that contrary to what we had been told, Ben was a Gwen. Gwen is Ben 10's cousin, so Sean made a quick name change and all was well. Gwen is channeling Buster, I think. She easily chose William as her person. She sleeps with him, she follows him around meowing (to his great delight) and she cries when he leaves her alone. She likes all of us, but there's little doubt-she got a message from Buster, telling her to treat that one special.

The Zombie Apocalypse

 
       I had an experience the other day that I will have to repeat sometime after Easter break, though I don't look forward to it. I was standing, with both of my boys, in a place that I had really hoped never to see again. But next year, William is headed for the seventh grade and has to be registered. I was standing in the halls of a Junior High School. I came at the wrong time and all the people who could have helped me register him were in a meeting. I will have to go back. We were just getting ready to leave when the last bell of the day rang, releasing the darlings for spring break.

A Movie That Made Me Think About Bullies

I'm watching a movie I've never seen before. It's called Artificial Intelligence. It's about a futuristic civilization that has robots as part of the community. Mostly, I think they're workers. But they decided to make child robots that could love. The first experimental model went to a couple whose son, Martin, was in a coma and unlikely to recover. When they get their child robot, Mom is unsure, but the kid grows on her. They decide to keep him, which involves completing his programming so that he will bond with them, love them only, forever. I'm not sure what he's supposed to do someday when they die. They are quite delighted with him and begin settling in.
Just then, their own son wakes up from his coma. I'm at that part of the movie right now, and I have no idea which way they're going to go. Right at the moment, I don't like what I'm seeing, and I'll tell you why. David, the robot child, is so much like William that it's difficult for me to watch this movie. He's very curious about everything, but understands little. He mimicks their movements-he doesn't eat, but watches them while they eat and pretends he is eating and drinking too. He is extremely gullible and believes everything he is told. Haley Joel Osmont played David, and is in the top picture here. My William is the other picture. They even look alike, which didn't help.
Everything changes for David when Demon Child Martin comes home. Martin, having the true nature of a bully, immediately begins zeroing in on David's weaknesses. His curiosity becomes a weakness. His programmed love for his parents becomes a weakness when Martin tricks him into doing things that are wrong, telling him his parents will love him if he does these things. Martin makes David eat, knowing it will harm him. Martin tells David to sneak up on Mommy in the middle of the night and cut off a lock of her hair, then she will love him. Mommy and Daddy wake up and mistakenly believe that David was going to hurt Mommy with the scissors. Martin's equally bullying friends come over and test out the possibilities of David's natural defense systems, by purposely cutting him. As his gullibility does not allow him to see Martin for what he really is, he turns to his brother for protection from the other boys. David and Martin fall into the pool and Martin almost drowns. David gets the blame.
Parents or educators of autistic children won't need to wonder for very long why these things are bothering me. Autistic children are often victimized in the same ways. I mean, the exact same ways. I have heard more than one story of "normal" kids doing things to harm special needs children who were unable to feel pain. Many autistic kids have problems processing pain. They can get hysterical over a hang nail but something that should usually cause severe pain, like a bad cut or a burn might go unnoticed. I heard a story of an autistic boy who was found with hundreds of cigarette burns all over his body because his "friends" were fascinated with his inability to feel pain. Thinking that they were his friends, he let them do it. We're all taught that our real friends will never hurt us, right? He thought they were his friends and so he let them do it.
Bullies often coerce innocent special needs children, even adults, into doing their bidding, doing ridiculous things in public, things that make fools of them, things that will get them into trouble-and of course, afterward, these bullies will know nothing about any of it. I know we aren't really talking about robots here. I'll never know how the movie ended. I decided to quit when, after the pool incident, Mommy takes David out into the woods and leaves him there. The parents couldn't see their "real" son for what he was. The boys had a toy robotic teddy bear that saw what Martin was doing and he tried to help David. Pretty bad when Teddy Ruxpin is smarter and more compassionate than Mom and Dad.
Do parents really not teach their kids how they should treat special needs people? My perspective is unique. My oldest child is special needs. I was teaching the world how to treat him. I wasn't wondering how to raise my normal child. I was wondering how to protect my special one. Then we have a second child, and he is raised from birth, realizing that his brother is different and learning how to deal with him just like we do. So tell me, someone tell me. Why do they do it? Is there some natural urge to seek out and prey upon weakness? To press vulnerability? Does it really make their day to send the weird kid into the girl's bathroom when it's full of girls? Do they go home proud of themselves, patting each other on the back over how cool they are? Someone please, tell me what it is. Do they and their parents really think that my son is any less a person than they are, that he is less loved, less important, less able to contribute to society, that he is less anything that is positive and good? The only thing that he is really less is less cruel, less dispassionate, less hateful and less harmful.
Please teach your kids how to be compassionate with those that are different. After all, are we not all different? We all have vulnerabilities and quirks. If a society makes it acceptable to victimize the citizens that are most vulnerable, then I cannot be a part of society. Since William's diagnosis almost 9 years ago, I have slowly backed away from society. Some of it is because his behavior in public can make him difficult to handle. But I have come to realize that a lot of the reason for my withdrawal is because the behavior of society is difficult to handle. If you see a special needs child behaving strangely in public, please try to remember that you are not at the zoo. Many special needs children look normal but act strangely. If you see a child acting strangely, even behaving abominably, please don't start whispering behind your hands about how you would handle that kid if he were yours. If he were yours, you would understand. It may or may not be a special needs child that you are looking at, but the point is that you don't know.
End of rant.

Stuff seems to only happen when I get into the shower. I'm in the shower, fairly helpless, when the screaming starts, or I hear the sounds-of an unthinkable crash, or glass breaking, or something. I call up my most horrible terrifying voice and turning up the volume, yell, "William!" That's safe, because it's usually him anyway. I race through the most comfortable and probably the only alone time of my whole day and go running out into the hall wearing nothing but a hand towel.

This happened to me yesterday. BANG! What was that? I thought. BANG! BANG! BANG! "WILLIAM!" No answer, unless you count BANG BANG BANG. I hurried through my hair and slid wet out into the hall, "What's that noise?" I yell. Sean was planted firmly in front of Phineas and Ferb and was, as always, oblivious to all going on around him. William was standing in the lving room looking up at me. "What was that noise?" I repeated. He put on his most earnest look and I steeled myself for something bizarre (he's very creative). He said, "I think it was the refrigerator self destructing." That was pretty ominous, considering that our refrigerator, although fairly new, didn't come with that oh-so-useful feature, "self-destruct mode."

Our neighbors are already pretty shell shocked just from living next to us, so I figured I'd better get dressed and not go streaking through the house. I couldn't remember if the blinds were open, after all. "Stay right there," I ordered, pointing a finger at him for emphasis. "I will be down in a minute."

I was down in a minute or less. All looked normal as I approached the fridge. I wondered if I should open the door. I did, but nothing jumped out at me. I looked in the freezer, and all looked well. And frozen. Then I looked in the fridge side again and saw a drink pouch at the bottom where it might pretty effectively block the door from shutting properly. "Were you just slamming this door over and over, trying to get it to close?" "Yeah, it wouldn't close," he said. "There is a drink pouch in the way, keeping the door from closing," I pointed out. "Yeah, it wouldn't close," he said again.

A few hours later, I was getting something out of the fridge, off one of the shelves on the door-then I see. The whole inside of the door was sprayed with soy sauce. Once upon a time, the cap broke off that bottle of soy sauce, and so it has sat there, capless, for a long time. Capless, but still safe. Until yesterday, when a kid couldn't get the door to close and so slammed it continuously, sloshing soy sauce all over the inside of the door. My apologies to soy sauce lovers everywhere.

I need the serenity prayer...

Usually I get on here if I have some story that's cute or funny or touching to share. Today I just don't feel that way. I wish I had a way of yelling at the world, and this is the closest I can come. I have a kid who repeats everything he hears, and also repeats actions that he sees, because he doesn't know any better. So think about that when you are out in public and are loudly exercising your right to free speech frequently punctuated with completely unnecessary profanity. Look around you and think about who might be listening. A week or so ago, my 11 year old son asked me, "Mom, what does f**k mean?" After my husband had revived me with our home defibrillator, I had to explain to William, who has the maturity of a five year old, that this is the worst of all the bad words and that he must never say it again. I have tried every which way to explain WHY I don't want him using profanity, and after every session, I can see that he absolutely does not understand.

I used to hear disabled young adults and even disabled kids using bad language all the time, and I was so haughty! "Well! They must hear it at home! How else could they pick it up?" Now I know! We do NOT use it, at all. In fact, if you come into my home and use that kind of language, I will send you out the front door on the business end of a cannon. I try to moniter what they hear online and on TV. It may be naive, but I want them to be innocent for as long as possible. Desensitize them to it now, and they will find it as acceptable as many people do. And when we do hear it, they ask me, "Mom, was that a bad word? Is it wrong to say that word?" So at least we do talk about it. And now when they hear a bad word off the TV or something, they both look a little worried and sad and seem concerned for the person who said the bad word, especially William.

Almost everyday after school, I take both boys to either the playground at William's school, or the one at Sean's school. Since the weather is nicer, we frequently have older kids from the nearby Jr High and High School who come and seem to be there for no other reason than to just hang around and be offensive. A couple of weeks ago I had to chase off 2 boys, one of whom was exposing himself and both were using lewd and offensive language. All while surrounded by kids Sean's age (6). Today on William's school playground, were 2 girls and a boy, Jr. High age, who were fooling around. The 2 girls were trying to get the boy's pants off. 10 feet from me. I ran them off pretty quick too. In both instances, these kids looked at me like I was an alien from another planet. Now I know I don't really look that bad, so I could only assume that their experience with adult discipline is limited. None of them mouthed off at me, I have to give them that. But I think it was only because they were shocked that someone had said something to them.

I bring this up only because I hope people will read it and think about what they say and do, and also because I hope they will all talk to their kids, know what they are doing after school and who they are doing it with, and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!! How would you feel if you found out your son was exposing himself on a school playground in front of 10 elementary school children? Or if your daughter was giggling over a boy on the ground getting into his pants? What would you do? If adults were caught doing what these kids were doing, they would be arrested and become registered sex offenders. Your thirteen year old doesn't need a boyfriend or a girlfriend. They're physically old enough, but mentally they aren't old enough to make mature decisions. They're STUPID!! They need you!

Adventures in Williaming

For the last couple of weeks, William has been required, in school, to practice for a program that will be put on tomorrow. They're singing music from The Lion King, and I'm not sure what else. He doesn't want to do it. I know he doesn't like being surrounded by the crowd of kids onstage. He doesn't like facing the crowd in the audience. Sometimes the music is too loud and overwhelms him. He purposely misbehaves during practices, because he's hoping that will get him sent to time out, which is just sitting out in the hallway.
Today when his brother and I arrived at the school to get him, we saw them practicing in the gym. The door where we have to enter is in full view of the gym stage and he had apparently been doing okay until he saw me. He believes my appearance is his signal to leave the gym and came running to me, teachers chasing after him. It took an argument and a slight tussle to get him back to his place. As we were leaving the school, I asked him (again) what his deal is when it comes to this program. He said, "That gym is just too big for me." That may not make sense to some people, but I caught his meaning right away. He has a very hard time explaining himself, but once in a while he hits the bulls eye. I think his senses get overwhelmed and that's very upsetting to him. It's too much noise, too much light, too many people, and too much space. I think that someone who doesn't have autism just can't understand what it might feel like to have great things crushing in upon them, making them smaller and smaller to the point where they might just disappear altogether. Maybe it isn't like that at all-that's just my analogy. I have had sudden panic attacks in crowds. I once left a New Year's Eve party at quarter to midnight. I had to get out of there. I think I may have some small understanding about how he feels with these things. Ever been in a Hard Rock Cafe where the music was so loud it drowned out everything else and made you feel like hiding under the table? Imagine being affected that way by what we consider normal noise levels.
He has been overly sensitive to almost everything since the day he was born. Touch, sound, light, food, anything-but particularly touch. Practicing for this program is also not part of the normal schedule, and that upsets him too. He loves the songs, and sings them at home. So, here's hoping his program goes well tomorrow!
I also need to mention-I hope it doesn't sound like I think the teachers are mean for making him do the program. I don't! I just got back from the program, and he did a great job, and everything went absolutely fine. I yearn for normal parent moments. I want to be able to go to an assembly and watch my kid sing. I sat there this morning and thought about all he has gone through in his life, all he has accomplished, and all that teachers and teacher's aides and therapists have done for him over the years. These people have devoted their professional lives (and their hearts as well, I suspect) to these children and their betterment, and some of them are danged good at it. So thank you, to all of you who have spent your lives in helping William and all these other kids who need you so much. You know who you are.

Pity Party Sundays

It's very hard for us to get to Church. Now you might answer, "Things are hard for everyone." But I honestly wonder. I know, we all have our crosses to bear. Here is one of my crosses. William hates Church. That I am aware of, he has not had a traumatic experience, or anything like that. He just doesn't want to go. He doesn't want to sit still in a seat while someone at the mike up front drones on about things he doesn't understand. Then, he doesn't want to go to Primary (children's Sunday school). I think there are many reasons he doesn't want to go to Primary. One, I don't go with him. His brother would be with him part of the time, but they would not attend the same class. He also has a problem being surrounded by people. Sometimes, music can upset him.
So, Sunday mornings are a challenge for me. I confess, I have given in to weakness more often than not. I tell myself all the time, that if I had just never given in, had just made him go every week, he would be used to it by now. But a very small, smarter part of me says that it isn't true. I do make him go to school 5 days a week, and that has never gotten any easier, either. Every single school morning is a fight, right up to the last second, right up to the moment that I leave him at school. And every morning, I come out of it feeling like I need a nap, or maybe a baseball bat to the head. So lots of Sundays, we just don't go. My husband works all weekend, morning to night, and so I don't have anyone to help me-but I don't know if it would make any difference. I think I average 5 or 6 weeks between each Church attendance, and I'll tell you, when you are a Mormon, that makes you "inactive". I don't like being inactive. I want to be active. I want to teach a Primary class or be the Relief Society secretary or give a talk in Sacrament meeting once in a while. But if you are not active, they tend not to ask you to do those things.
This morning I got up, and said to myself, "Today, we go." I came down the stairs where the boys were already up, and I was in my Church clothes. William went into panic mode. He cried. He screamed. He laid on the floor. He hit. He kicked. If there is someone out there who thinks I should step up my attendance efforts, one of these days, I'll video this encounter and let you watch it. You'll change your mind. And don't get me wrong, in our Church, I have never encountered anything but understanding. That I know of, no one looks at me and judges me for not being there every week. I don't need anyone to judge me that way, because I do it myself. So anyway, I finally fought him into his clothes, his little clip-on tie. Sean had calmly informed me that he didn't want to go, but with him all I have to do is say, "We're going." He shrugged, made no further comment and appeared shortly in his dress clothes. We did go. We sat through that hour. But I can't get him to go to Primary no matter what I do. Sean likes Primary, but there seems to be nothing I can do to induce William to go. So when we do go, we attend the first hour and then go home. So they don't get their lessons, and I don't get mine, either. But that hour is always better than nothng.
I think one of the reasons I have such a problem is because I have this issue with him every day, preparing for school. I do it 5 times a week, you'd think making it 6 wouldn't be such a big deal. But somehow it is. The unbearable weariness of it all. I wonder all the time, "Am I really doing my BEST?" And, "Is it enough?"

Updates on Sean and William

I was just reading an old post, Sean's Future In a Trenchcoat. I am relieved to be able to say that we don't have this issue with him anymore. That was at the beginning of his kindergarten year, and now we are halfway through first grade. He seems to have outgrown this problem.
William, on the other hand, is now halfway through the fifth grade, and can be counted on to appear in the nude at just about anytime. I sure hope he grows out of it, but he is going very slowly. He has been known to get past issues and have them resolved, but the overcoming of one problem takes him a very long long time, years, typically. They call it a delay, they call it slowness. What this means to me in my hopeful heart is that he will get there, someday. He just isn't going to get there at anyone else's pace. I'm glad this isn't a race, because he will probably come in last. But in a case like this, the important thing is not to get to the finish line first, but just to finish the race.

Back in the saddle

I am back online again and so I can blog again. I'm just trying to remember how the thing works!

William and going to college

Lately William has been watching the new Toy Story 3 movie. For those who don't know, in this third installment, Andy is grown up and is getting ready to go to college. It's bittersweet, all right. Andy is excited at what the future may hold, but he will miss his mother, and his childhood. His mother is sad and will miss Andy. Andy is going to store most of his old toys in the attic, but Woody is going with him to college. Of course, near the beginning of the movie, the toys escape and then have a nail biting, hair raising adventure before making it just in the nick of time, back into their box.

For William, the important part of the story is that Andy is going to college. He has begun to obsess over it, and I know why. He has realized that when he is old enough, he might go to college too. He has alternated between excitement and worry over this. A few days ago, he was in his room watching the movie for the umpteenth time and came downstairs to me in the living room. He was crying and he was very upset. I pulled him down on the couch with me and we hugged each other tight. I asked him what was wrong.

"When I'm 18 I'll go away to college and I'll miss you!" Wow, way to get to me. If anyone out there is looking for a way to make your mother do anything you want her to do, put this as number one on your list of things to try. If your mother is 98 years old and you tell her that the reason you are SO upset is that you are going to miss her, she will do cart wheels across the floor if that's what you are wanting her to do.

I continued to hold him tight (I am one of the privileged few who is allowed to do this), and I said, "William. You don't need to move away when you go to college. You can stay right with me. You can leave for college in the morning and come home in the afternoon, just like you for school do now."

"I can?" Mingled giggling and sobbing now. He was so relieved. I told him that there is a college right here in this town, and he could go to that college, and at the end of every day, he can come right home to me. I told him he can always, always come home to me. (Note to self: Don't ever die.)

Now he was trying to recover from crying, but he was laughing and he was so happy. He told me he was happy now. He went tripping back upstairs to finish his movie and to come up with the next anxiety causing scenario.

If I were granted one wish for William, it would be that he could understand the world he's in. He is getting some of it, very slowly. His younger brother has long ago surpassed him in his understanding of "things" and Sean is forever trying to explain "things" to William. I'm thankful for that, and I hope they will always be there for each other.

Latest on Sean

Oh, Sean, Sean, Sean. You know, the first week of Kindergarten Sean seemed to be having such a bad time that I felt really sorry for him. Ached for him, in fact. This week, I realize, I really should feel sorry for his teacher, and I do. She is such a sweet and gentle young lady. I'm sure that she is used to kids who are smart, rambunctious, shy, not shy, who color outside the lines, who need extra help and who shove glue sticks up their noses. I wonder if she's ever taught a kid who gazes down haughtily from a lofty intellectual perch and occasionally graces the common folk with his presence. Such children think themselves above the resultant indignities of things like circle time, story time, the coloring of bears, and being forced to wash one's hands when certainly they are not dirty. These children cannot be expected to wear pants which have waistbands that may cover any part of the picture of Thomas the Tank Engine on one's shirt.
His teacher is at a loss as to how to deal with Sean when he is refusing to comply with a requirement. She wants him to wash his hands and instead of just doing it, he doesn't see why he should. She insists, and so he responds by laying down on the floor in a prone position, hoping to stay there until everyone around him forgets that he was supposed to wash his hands. At school, this cannot be tolerated, and I understand that. He's not learning anything, he is being disruptive and distracting, not to mention that some of the other kids might think laying on the floor like that is a good idea. But I don't know what to tell her! She wants to have a teacher's conference so that I can tell her what to do with him, and the only answer I have is "I don't know."
Once something like this happens to him during his day, it's over for the day for him. He immediately powers down like some robot on stand by. His arms go limp, his little robot gumball lights dim, and he will not cooperate again until the proper voice command in the correct voice print is administered. The, uh, proper voice command is :"SEAN!! Get yerself up off that floor NOW!!!" Proper voice print is MY voice. When he hears it, he knows, he better move, and I mean now. I do know that he does not like it when Mr. Principal gets involved. Such terrible authority makes him feel powerless and bitter. It may work for the moment, but I would hate for him to hate school or dread it every day.
I did finally find out the other day from the Special Services office why he was turned down for special ed services last year. He had several evaluations. OT, PT, speech, cognitive, and I don't remember what all. Every one of those evals said that services were recommended in the professional opinion of the evaluator. However, every eval ALSO said Sean had "advanced intelligence," "highly developed problem solving skills," "will learn more quickly than his peers," "advanced vocabulary skills," etc. The woman in the office told me that was why he was turned down for services-because he was "too smart." I wanted to say, "Excuse me, um, have you ever heard of AUTISM???"

Sean's future in a trench coat

Lately I have begun to be afraid that Sean will be an exhibitionist. At least, he would be labeled that way. It isn't that he WANTS to show himself, as an exhibitionist does. It's just that he doesn't really care. I guess really he's an anti-inhibitionist. He has no appropriate sense of modesty. I say no appropriate sense, because he does have some sense of it. It just doesn't have anything to do with keeping his clothes on like it does for the rest of us.
Yesterday he got out of the bathtub, and was walking around naked. I told him to get dressed, and he informed me haughtily that he doesn't WEAR clothes in the morning. Apparently this rule applies to the rest of the day, too, because he can be found naked at just about anytime. You might say, "well, Mom, get some clothes on that kid!" Have you ever tried to put clothes on a cat? Sean doesn't want to wear clothes anymore than your cat does. He does wear them sometimes. Last week, we had relatives over for several hours and he managed to stay clothed the entire time. If I try to force him into clothes when he's refusing to be dressed, I'm fighting a losing battle. Even if I manage to wrestle them onto him, he just takes them off. He knows he won't be playing outside or going to McDonald's if he doesn't have his clothes on.
School starts next week, he will be going to kindergarten. And Mommy will prevail. He will be wearing clothes. But then my problem will be his intense pickiness with clothes. When he does wear clothes, he's a real Diva. One of his hobbies is to get out every stitch he owns and try them all on one at a time. When he's done with one thing, it is discarded, on the floor of course. And in the end he comes out wearing nothing most of the time. Of course, everything has to match perfectly. Ok, that I can understand. Where we run into trouble is when he doesn't want THAT pair of white socks, he needs the other pair of white socks and expects me to find them. Or he wants that green shirt with the dinosaur on it because it's the only shirt that matches THESE pants. So we are beginning now to enforce a condition. Night before, we are going to pick out what he is going to wear and he is NOT going to be allowed to change his mind in the morning, so he has to choose carefully.
Now, William, on the other hand, doesn't really deliberately go about in the nude. He just gets out of the shower and tends to forget to get dressed. Once he was just stepping out of the bathroom (naked), and at that moment the doorbell rang. I tried my dangedest to get to that door before him, but I didn't make it. He flung the door open and said, "Hi!" in all his manly glory. The two Jehovah's Witness ladies on the door step were most admirably unruffled, as is their way, and I told them I couldn't talk to them just then. As this was quite obviously true, they made no protest. And this, people, is the story of my life.

William's tender heart

My Mother-In-Law April gave me the idea for the title of this blog, with a comment she made on the last one. He does have a very tender little heart, and I could give you a million examples. I think I'll just put a few favorites here for now. Several years ago, he had this little electronic piano. It was purple. That's the one you gave him, April. Those little pianos always have demo music on them. You just push one button, and presto, it plays a tune. This one had maybe four or five songs on it. One was what I can only describe as wild gypsy music. Another was the Christmas song, Joy to the World. Now the really cool thing about it was that you could add beats, change the tempo, make it sound really fun. William used to make it play Joy to the World and slow the tempo down to the speed of a funeral dirge, and then he would BAWL his head off. He would cry inconsolably and say how sad it was. I used to really puzzle over what I should do about this. A friend suggested I throw the piano away. That made me really think. He does this on purpose, he slows it down so that it will sound sad and make him cry. He wanted to. I started thinking about things that I love, that also make me cry. One of my favorite movies in this world is The Color Purple, but it makes me cry and cry every time. And yet, I still watch it. Why? There are songs that make me cry. Books that make me cry. Why don't I avoid those? I think I figured out why. There are some things that get inside of you, things that elicit such a strong emotional response that it becomes impossible to deny the connection you feel to that thing. He made and recognized an emotional connection with that song in "Sad Mode". I didn't throw the piano away. I let him listen to it, I let him cry as much as he wanted.
People who assume or think that autistic people are without emotion are making a terrible and unfair mistake. Autism is probably one of the most inappropriately named ailments. Autistics may behave automatically in a certain way, but they are far from emotionless automatons. If anything, part of the struggle that they face constatly every day is to control the emotions that are so much stronger in them than they are in others.
William is very sweet. I remember once when he was about three, he was making some serious effort to fit in and succeed in his world. A group of older kids passed us on the sidewalk, and William waved to them and said "Hi!" They ignored him completely. He cried like his heart was going to break. He had been willing to put himself out there, make himself vulnerable, and he had been hurt for it. And yet, next time, he would still do it again. He was diagnosed with autism a few weeks before his third birthday, and I immediately started to learn what we needed to do and was trying to help him learn what he needed to learn. It has been a long hard srtruggle for all of us, but I have to say this. I have never seen anyone work so hard as William has done to overcome. Speech therapy, occupational therapy, behavioral therapy, and any number of other things, too. He was always game for it all, even though he can get very frustrated and upset, he ALWAYS keeps going and succeeds in the end.
I have to cut his hair for him, because he won't let anyone else touch him. If he thinks I'm sad, he is right in there comiserating with me, rubs my back, gives me hugs. My father died when William was 8 months old, but a couple of months ago, when we stood over my father's grave in the cemetery, he said, "this is so sad!" and started to cry. His loony cat starts howling every night when everyone has gone to bed, and William is the one who can quiet him. He is very compassionate (the rest of us want to throw shoes), and talks his cat down off the ledge. The strange thing is the cat doesn't howl if William is not in the house (sometimes he is known to do it during the day). We think he is doing it because he wants attention from none other than William. No point in howling if the kid isn't even home, I guess. He has several songs that make him cry. One of them is "When Somebody Loved Me" from Toy Story 2. During that scene in the movie, he wants "to be left alone." It is a very sad scene, and he knows it.
He fights with his brother. Sometimes he can be mean. But he doesn't like it when someone is sad. Nothing stops him in his tracks faster when fighting with Sean than to realize he hurt his brother's feelings. Suddenly, toys are shared, chairs given up willingly, and everyone is happy again.

Intro

My two boys are the two most hilarious people I have ever met. They are also smarter than I am. One of them is always one step ahead of me and the other one is very difficult for me to keep up with. Four and nine, both diagnosed with autism, though the jury is still out on the little one. I think he is probably closer to the condition called Asperger's. Once when I told him he would someday be a big man like Daddy, he said, "that can't be true, for I am a mere boy." What they refer to as Little Professor Speech is definite sign of Asperger's. So many friends have told me I need to write a book, start a blog, keep a real record of the amazing comments, incredible insights, and extraordinary actions of my two little boys. I always put this stuff on facebook, and will continue to do so. My followers, if I get any! Might see some repeats. Here is the first one, from this morning. William is my nine year old, Sean is four. William goes to a special class for autistic children and he also attends summer school.
William hates to go to the bathroom before getting on the bus. He always wants to "wait 'til he gets to school." I tried a new tactic today. I said I was going to cry if he didn't go to the bathroom. He got pretty concerned and I mustered up some fake sobs. He held my face in his hands, told me not to cry. Hugged me. Squared his shoulders and looked resolved to his fate. And marched to the bathroom without another word.