Charles' and Wally's Autism Adventures

It's been a while. Wally has been growing and growing as children do.  His language skills are still far behind his neurotypical peers, but exciting new things happen every week. This week we had a poosplosion.  Most parents will not need an explanation of this term, but for those who have not experienced a pooslosion I'll elaborate.  Diapers have a certain capacity.  Poo is a certain size and exits with a certain velocity and direction.  At times poop exits at an angle or capacity that exceeds the diaper.  This results in poop being in the clothes, up the back, down a leg...anywhere.  The poop escapes. So my wife yelled, "Charles!", in that special tone of voice reserved for poosplosions and broken bones. I entered the bedroom and see my wife holding Wally's hands up, one with poop on half of it, and one still clean.  Poop was smeared across most of one of his thighs. I grabbed the wipes and got busy cleaning Wally while Kim kept...

"This is a profound mystery."  The apostle Paul said this about marriage and about the relationship between Christ and the church.  Well actually he wrote it...in a letter to a church...in Greek...about 2000 years ago.  But I thought it would be easier to just say he said it.  Now I see I was wrong. Mystery is always a part of life but it's become a daily part of mine.  I find myself thinking more and more about the mystery involved in my relationship with my son Wally.  His verbal skills continue to improve especially around letters, numbers and some colors but, his Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) means that he still has very few words in spite of the fact that he'll be 4 in December.  Another boy we know who has ASD was super verbal at this age showing ASD really is a broad spectrum.  Anyway, his largest vocabulary set is probably words related to the Cars Pixar movies.  "Ka-Chow!" counts as a word, right? Some days I get so frustrate...

Today was a big day.  Wally was afraid.  Once I realized this I did experience the expected fatherly compassion and desire to comfort him.  But this was mixed with a surprising third emotion: a deep sense of relief.  Wally WAS afraid! Some people laugh in the face of danger.  Wally doesn't even notice it is there.  I have never seen him be afraid of anything...except for during Finding Nemo, the barracuda and sharks made him run out of the living room.  But real fear at "normal" things that "normal" kids are all afraid of.  Never.  Until today. This general lack of fear or boundaries is one of the oddest and most stressful parts of Wally's ASD.  He doesn't notice where cars are.  He climbs everywhere on anything to any height.   Due to his limited language skills words rarely make a difference, especially if we're outside.  Most of the time he's just so curious and wants to explore everything so he just ...

     Wally likes climbing on rocks.  The beach we often go to here in Beverly, MA has a nice pile of huge boulders at one end of it.  Can you see the problem?  Well, this last time I could not keep him off them.  I know what you're thinking...Come on Charles, he's only 3 and half!  You're the parent so you're in charge.  Just tell him it's not safe and carry him back to the beach towel.  Above all, stay safe on the sand and away from huge sharp rocks that either of you could fall off of into the ocean!       Well, I didn't.  I couldn't.  He's forty pounds, very strong and doesn't really understand verbal directions.  So once he decided he wanted to climb on those rocks the situation escalated quickly.  He was pleading, crying out, reaching, flailing and as I picked him up bucking his head back (by far his most dangerous weapon).  I successfully avoided the head butt by carrying him sideways, but ...

Wally and I walked up to the main campus of the Seminary where my wife and I are currently enrolled.  It was a lovely evening so I thought I'd try it.  Going on walks with Wally is always a risky thing because he's very fast, and likes to wander and sometimes doesn't like to turn around.  Now that he's bigger and stronger, if he gets upset and starts kicking or head butting, you could be a mile or more from home with a bloody nose or worse and have to carry home 30 pounds of flailing, screaming, angry boy.  But the weather was nice...so I took the risk. Up, up, up the hill we went in silence.  When we got to the top of the hill this lovely flower arrangement of our school acronym GCTS appeared and Wally headed straight for it as soon as he saw it.  I guessed that he wanted to play in the mulch so it was a good thing bath time was next.  I sped up so that I'd be right next to him in order to at least minimize any destruction he might infli...

Wally and his little bro Leo chillin' on the couch. "Wally!  Can you give Aunt Heather a kiss?"  He thinks for a second, processing the request.  Puckers up.  Smooch.  So awesome.  He spontaneously started kissing on request a few weeks back.  The best is when we've been having fun playing and he turns around, thinking about what to do, and puckers up and smooches me on my scruffy cheek.  I melt.  It's his first way of saying I love you.  Words fail to describe how it makes me feel. Earlier that day while changing a diaper.  "Whap!"  Wally's foot smacks the whole right side of my face.  "NO KICKING!" I yell as I grab his ankle, trying to prevent further violence and trying to control my anger and surprise at being kicked in the head by a 3.5 year old.  "Wally, you may not kick me.  Or mommy..."  He wiggles, trying to escape my grasp.  I hold on for a few more seconds.  He looks away and ca...

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 dev...