Wally Watches Rocks


My name is Charles and I have a 3 and a half years old son named Wally who was diagnosed with ASD, Autism Spectrum Disorder, right after my wife and I moved from New York to Massachusetts in June of 2016 to begin Masters of Divinity degrees (yes both of us), at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.  My idea for this blog is primarily to reflect on the process of being the father of a child with Autism, sharing insights and stories of the journey as well as any helpful resources I discover along the way.

You may be interested in this blog just because you love Wally (he has lots of fans) or have a kid with ASD or are a parent who wants to hear a dad's process of parenting, or if you are part of the Autism community in some other way.  Regardless of why you are here, welcome to our Autism Adventure.

When I think about Wally a flood of emotions envelopes me.  I know that learning to love him as he is and as he grows and develops each day will be a huge part of my development as a father, as a Christian, as a human being.  I don't know how often I'll post and I don't really know where this journey is going.  But you are welcome to join us on this wild ride.

Today Wally and I spent about 3 hours at a playground near where I grew up.  He had a blast.  He climbed up ever slide and went down some of them too.  The weather was absolutely perfect.  Wally spent a good deal of this time playing a game we gave the name "bloot".  This game consists of dropping or throwing rocks into water, preferably a storm drain, and then watching the ripples.  This playground has three excellent storm drains for bloot, so there was a lot of blooting going on.  So while the rest of the kids at the playground were on the swings, playing tag, playing kickball...generally interacting with each other, Wally was playing bloot.  While other kids watch each other, Wally watches rocks.

I don't know if this is something he'll "grow out of" or not, but he's always been very interested in water and rocks and balls and throwing things; and not so interested in people.  Sometimes I wonder how this will impact his relationships with his mom and I and friends and teachers and...

Obviously it's easy to get stuck on one thing like this and then get carried away by projecting it way into the future.  I think that's one of the scary things about this: I don't know what to expect.  I don't know how long Wally will watch rocks.  Maybe he'll turn his love for watching rocks into a career and become a geologist, paleontologist or archeologist one day.  Or maybe it will negatively impact all his relationships and we'll have to work on paying attention to people over things every day.   Or maybe it wont.

Wally is my son and I love him and I'm so thankful I got to play bloot with him today.  I'm going to try to enjoy him and all the ways that he is unique because of ASD.  I'm going to love him no matter what because I am his dad.

Comments

  1. UnknownMay 21, 2017 at 2:33 PM

    I just want to say that I found your blog really moving. I'm a social worker and we met when I was a student at AU. Anyway, I've always been interested in autism ever since I worked for a day camp with special needs children. If you don't mind my asking, do you do ABA or any other type of therapy with him? Is he verbal? I wish your family nothing but the best.
    -Rebecca

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    Replies
    1. cf52tasticMay 21, 2017 at 6:39 PM

      Hi Rebecca,

      Thanks for your comment and questions. Wally goes to an intensive learning pre-K program at his elementary school where he receives ABA therapy, Speech, OT and as much inclusion in the regular pre-K classroom as possible. He is very behind verbally, but he does have all his phonemes down, just not a lot of words. However, he can say "Ka-Chow" like Lightning McQueen perfectly.
      -Charles

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