"What We Celebrate" "Autie Moms Be Like - Yippee!!"
by Pamela Mari
What autism moms celebrate is not like what a regular moms whoops it up about. Our thrills are smaller, later, and less frequent than other moms. But we hang on to them and advertise them to our friends and other autie moms with a chest full of pride. The first successful bathroom visit, a new word, a full sentence, a new food, a pleasant public event, any of these is cause for a major celebration in our world.
Our house is similar. My son is what is termed "verbal" meaning he can talk. He never shuts up. The catch is however, how much of this is meaningful "conversation"? The ability to converse with another person is another highly sought after goal in our spectrum world.
But sometimes they catch you off guard.
This week as I opened the car door for my son's aide to guide him into school he asked my son "How are you today Joey?". With one foot in and one foot out of the car, stepping onto the curb my son replied
"I'm sick of this weather".
My mouth was hanging open for a few seconds. Damn straight kiddo! This weather sucks and that's exactly what I would have said on a morning like this. It was appropriate to the question. It was timely in that it shot out of his mouth without a moment's hesitation. It was delivered in an appropriate tone. And it was uttered and just left as that. He did not perseverate on the topic as he tends to do many times. Just said it and forget it.
So when your child comes home from school today and you ask him
"how was school today Henry?" and he answers "class was boring" and walks upstairs remember for a child with autism, it's the greatest thing since sliced bread.
