Thursday, June 30, 2011

Awesomely Autistic

Today Timmy climbed up in my lap and he handed me a card that was on the stand next to us. It is a card that we were given at an Autism Awareness thing back in April. They had been in my purse, but I had pulled them out the other day for some reason.

He asks me, "What is this card for?"
I told him "It is about Autism".
(We haven't told Timmy he has Autism. We've had some people tell us not to. We've had others tell us to. We decided we'd tell him, but not make it a big deal at all, ya know? Because we were sure that it would come up in school or something and it'd be better for it to be explained by us than by some stranger ... or for some kid to pick on him about it if they hear about it in school).
He goes "I have the Awesome, don't I?" (Timmy has some big speech issues ... so he was pronouncing Autism as Awesome).
Me, my heart melting - "Yeah, Timmy, you have the Awesome. And yes, you have Autism too."
He goes "That's why I sometimes get really upset. Why I get hyper. Why I don't like things."
Me "Yeah, that is why, Timmy".
He finally looks up (not quite meeting my eyes) and says "It's ok to be Awesome, right?"
Me "Yeah, Timmy, you do Awesome wonderful. You are absolutely perfect, and wonderfully Awesome."

Something I learned today ...
Children are so much more intuitive than we give them credit for. This is something that has been whispered about for the last year. He's gone to lots of evals and it has been talked about, but never talked to him about. It's just been him going to see another doctor, ya know? He's been asked a million questions, asked to do a million different things, but he just did it and "went with the flow" for all of it ... acting totally oblivious as to what or why we were doing what we were doing. I guess he wasn't so oblivious, eh?

Something else I learned ...
My son IS AWESOME. He is incredibly awesome. I love him so freaking much.

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