Why I Blog

I blog about my special kids. I blog about autism and FAS because I want to educate others. Educating others will make all the difference in how my kids and others are treated in this world. I blog for Tate and Sydney.

I blog to share my experiences with others. I blog because parents need to know that drinking alcohol while pregnant will do irreversible damage to their unborn baby. I blog because adoptive mothers need to know just how hard parenting a child with no impulse control is going to be. I blog because autism is now being diagnosed at a rate of 1 in 66 and many of my readers will be touched by someone with autism, if they are not already. Sometimes my blog posts are encouraging to others but sometimes they are not. I blog for others.

I blog because it is good therapy for me. I have blogged about the disappointments we have encountered, the challenges we have faced, the people who have helped us, and the few who have hurt us. I have blogged about victories and failures, the hard work and the rewards. Sometimes when I blog I am sad, but usually when I blog I am not. I blog for me.

Although much of my audience has never met me, they are getting an intimate look into my life. I wish I knew them better. I would love some feedback, some comments after the posts. With almost 100 posts up now I should be getting a feel for what gets read and shared and what does not, but I am still surprised sometimes which blogs get hundreds of views and which ones only get dozens. I know my kids, siblings, and even cousins are reading. As long as my large family is reading I can always count on at least two-dozen views. HA. I know some of my readers are teachers. A few tell me they are reading and learning. Two of my teacher friends have told me they have learned more from my blog than they have from any other source. That makes me happy on one hand, but sad on another. Of all the people in this world that need to be very well educated about autism, it is our kids’ teachers. They should get a lot better education about their “special” charges and their needs than one mom’s view. It is one in 66 now, folks! Everyone needs to know what autism is in this day and age.

Some of my most-read posts are the ones I write about personal tragedies, not the ones about autism or FAS. The post about my miscarriage, one about the things I regret, and the one I wrote recently when I was filled with angst over my inability to influence someone I love were some of my most popular posts.* Why is that? Why do we all love a train wreck? Why do we all want to read of someone else’s sorrow or regret? Maybe it is so we can exercise those empathy skills that we would not have if we had been born with autism! And, it may be that when we read of others’ trials we can count our own blessings.

If my purpose in writing each post is not to educate or edify, does that mean I should not have written it? Must a Christian ONLY write or speak of things that will encourage others? Must we leave out the heart-rending stories that do not have happy endings? Must we never talk of our past disappointments or our anger? Have I hurt my influence with my writings? I think I know the answers but recently these questions were planted in my mind by a reader.

I realize when I “bare my soul” and share my thoughts in a public way I am opening myself up to criticism. I realize that I have a huge responsibility as a Christian not to hurt my influence. I also realize that I need a thicker shell if I am going to continue to blog. It is a good thing that I have a whole lot more encouragers than I do critics. I have read (and I believe it is true) that for every put-down we hear, we need ten compliments to undo the hurt from the one criticism. “Be careful little mouths what you say” as I used to sing to my children.

One of my favorite gospel preachers once said we can judge people’s actions but we had better not judge their motives. We cannot see a man’s heart or know his motives. Only God can. Sometimes people judge me by the words I write. I cannot fault them. I wrote the words and invited those people to read them. But, when people try to see behind the words and imagine that my words are not sincere or that my heart is bitter, can it be that my heart is not the one that needs examined? For the record: I do believe that we can judge others. A favorite quote of non-Christians is that we should not judge others based on John 7:24 but they never want to finish the verse which says we must judge others with RIGHT judgment. You will find the same idea in Matthew 7:1-5 and it finishes with the idea that pulling splinters out of an eye is hard to do if your own eye contains them. I’ll step off the soapbox here.

I will continue to blog: for Tate and Sydney, for others, and for me. From time-to-time I may have someone question my motives or even my sanity. My motives are pure and my sanity…. Well, I have as much as I ever did. 

*links to posts mentioned: Loving Chaney, Regrets, Sometimes There Is Nothing I Can Do

Next up: Why I don’t usually get excited about those autism feel-good stories I see in the news.

A Look Inside a Black and White Mind

If you know me very well you have probably heard me say that I believe I could almost get an Asperger diagnosis (or DSM Level 4 as it is now called). I have a lot of the characteristics. I was painfully shy as a small child and have never been a people person, although I have taught myself how to behave in most social situations, I still find it very difficult to interact sometimes. I am a visual thinker, thinking in pictures and categories. Ironically, being a visual thinker does not help me in the area of facial recognition. I do not recognize people’s faces until I have seen them several times. I am also a black and white thinker. By that I mean I have a lot of trouble with gray areas. In other words things are right or wrong and there is no in-between.

Many of the people in my life, even those who know me best, say I hide my insecurities in social situations very well. The story of how I learned to “fake it” goes back to my teen years. I had very few friends in grade school. I was in a large school district and very few of the same kids were grouped together year after year thus making it hard for a shy kid to form relationships. I had one friend in second and third grade that I was close to but the school boundaries changed after that and we were sent to different schools.

In the fourth grade I became friends with a girl who I truly loved. A lot of my childhood memories revolve around her. She moved away when I was in seventh grade and I spent the next year in a depressed state. There were two girls that year that got their kicks by bullying me and I had no idea how to defend myself. Then, at age 14, a couple things happened that changed my life. We moved. We moved from a VERY large school district to a VERY small school district. AND, my brother who was five years older than I, and the coolest, funniest guy who was always “the life of the party” told me something that forever changed my life. I told him how afraid I was to start at my new school. I told him how hard it was for me to meet new people. My cool brother, who had dozens and dozens of friends, told me that he was just as introverted as I was. He told me that I had to go into that school and ACT the way I wanted people to perceive me to be. I had to think of it as a play and I was an actor. I remember him saying that I had been a little fish in a big pond at my old school and I would have the chance to be a big fish in a little pond at my new school. I could totally change who I was by how I acted. I had the chance to redefine myself. I looked up to my brother like no one else I knew and I trusted him. I did what he told me to do. Within days at the new school I had made more friends than I’d had in years at the old one. Of course it helped tremendously that everyone at the new school was so welcoming and friendly. Those four years of school were amazing and because of those four years I went off to college well-practiced at making friends and maintaining friendships. I had mastered the art of social relationships, much later than my peers, but I had done it.

I am a visual thinker and categorize everything I learn or see. I had no idea that I think differently than the general population until I read Temple Grandin’s book “Thinking in Pictures.” I read her book when Tate was diagnosed with autism and I learned so much about myself. I knew and had always known I was “different” than a lot of people but had no idea why. I think differently. I did not know that everyone else did not think in pictures. I would still not know this had Tate not been born with autism and had I not needed to educate myself about it. Knowing that I think differently has helped me to understand so many things I had always considered a mystery.

Temple Grandin likened the way she thinks to a video player with clips of video she can pull from files. I would describe the way I think this way: I place the pictures I have and the “rules” I’ve learned in a sort of list and categorize them in a filing system, like a rolodex. I can think quickly through my files and find a picture or a rule that applies in most situations. When I was young my list of rules was shorter and I didn’t have a lot of “files” to draw from so I didn’t know how to act in a lot of situations. Consequently, I appeared socially awkward in new places and around new people. Now that I am older and I’ve had a lot more experiences, my list of rules and how to act in almost any situation that occurs is quite extensive. Everyone learns from their past experiences I know but apparently I am different in that I visualize my list or quickly run through my list of rules so that I can decide what responses will be socially appropriate. It doesn’t just come naturally for me. As a young adult I sometimes misjudged and came up with an inappropriate reaction occasionally. I rarely do that anymore because I have memorized and know how to use most social cues and respond appropriately. Thus, I appear very “normal” to the world. Don’t get me wrong, I feel very “normal” all of the time. This way of thinking and my rolodex works for me. It may be different than the way you think but it works for me. I get by just fine and up until a few years ago I had no idea that my way of thinking was not universal with human beings. HA

It makes no sense to me that a person who thinks in pictures like I do has such a hard time with facial recognition. I am what some call face blind. I recently read almost two percent of people have this issue. I have to meet someone more than once, and usually several times, before I can memorize a face. Then, when I see them in a different setting than I met them in, I am unable to identify how I know them. I often recognize people by their voices though so sometimes if they speak to me that can save me. Sometimes I can tell who a person is by the way they walk. If I see them walking toward me or away from me I might be able to identify them but if I walk up on them then I struggle for to place them. This inability to recognize faces is a real handicap for me and I appear to be a snob often as I walk right past people that I should be stopping to speak to. I honestly do not understand how everyone else DOES seem to recognize a face after one encounter. Unlike people with autism, I do not have any trouble with eye contact so that is not the issue. I think it is that people basically all look similar to me. Oh, there are differences, like hair length, body shape and size, and color too. So that all helps but I see maybe one of a dozen different faces when I meet someone. Weird, I know. If there is something very unusual about a person then I will recognize them after one meeting but otherwise, it is not going to happen. Most of the time when I meet someone I think, “She looks so much like ______.” However, when I mention to someone else that I think the two look similar they usually will not agree. I volunteer one day a week with a teacher friend in our local school and it takes me all year to match the kids' faces to their names. Some I never learn. That is just not "normal." Movies, especially old ones, are a real big part of our family life but I can rarely tell the actors and actresses apart. I take a lot of teasing over that.

I always dread hearing the words “gray area” because I know there is going to be a conflict my mind will have to wrestle with. There are almost no gray areas for me. Gray areas do not fit in file folders. There is no place on the rolodex for gray areas. You see, when you are a concrete thinker like myself, issues are black and white, right or wrong. I recently heard a doctor refer to concrete thinking as “rigidity of thinking.” I thought that was a pretty good way to describe the way I think. There isn’t much flexibility. There is a right way to do things and anything other than that one way, is wrong. And THAT folks, is the reason I can sometimes come off as self-righteous, calloused, or uncaring. My patient husband has taught me to rewrite many of the rules on my mental rolodex. I now can accept that there is more than one way to do some jobs and still get satisfactory results. He has taught me that people who do not do things exactly the way I do are not always “bad guys.” My rolodex continues to expand. So, why don’t I just accept all gray and expand every day? It is not that easy when you are a concrete thinker. Each bit of gray has to make sense. It has to be tried in the courtroom of my mind. If it doesn’t make sense and cannot hold up then it will NOT be added to the rolodex. Many, possibly even most, of the gray things I am asked to consider do not even get a trial date. HA. I am being a bit facetious but this  is sort of how it works for me.

I do not have autism. I have a great imagination, a sense of humor, super eye contact, and no problems with communication, empathy or theory of mind. I do not have any stereotypic behaviors or a lot of sensory issues. I do not perseverate (obsess) on things (although around election time, some might argue about that one.) HA Oftentimes, relatives of a person with autism have some of the characteristics of autism. That would be me.

I am 51 years old and still adding to some of the “rules” I probably should have known for a long time. Moral issues, biblical principals, and God’s commands are extremely easy for me to believe and obey because God’s word is very cut and dried on most issues. It is the social rules and relationships that have always been harder for me. If I wrong someone then it is very hard for me to forgive myself. I spoke in anger to a friend several months ago, apologized, and was forgiven yet I am still ashamed of myself over it. If someone wrongs me or betrays a trust then I will probably never be able to confide in them again. My respect for them is gone. I can forgive them. I can love them. I can be nice to them, but I will not ever trust them again. 

I illustrate my thoughts and feelings with pictures all the time. It is how I think. Following is an example of how I pictured it recently when someone I love did something that hurt me, and others. My mind saw a clean, steel kitchen sink, full of clear water. There was a drain in the bottom of the sink and a stopper in the drain. When my friend did the horrible thing he did, the stopper popped out of the drain and all the water quickly ran out. The water was my respect (not my love, just my respect). It is gone. The sink is dry. I have tried to refill the sink but the stopper just will not hold. Can I try and visualize another stopper and fixing the sink? Oh, I can try; and try; and try again; but there is only so much a concrete thinker can do. Can I change? I've been trying for at least forty years and praying about it daily. If anyone can soften concrete God can so I will keep praying and trying. 

You might wonder why would I want to write a blog post like this? People will think I am “weird” now. I have a couple of reasons. The first being the usual: to raise awareness and tolerance for people with autism. Sharing some of the same characteristics with Tate, perhaps does give me some insight into how he thinks and feels. Secondly, I have tried to describe some of these things to my family and close friends before and wanted to get some organized thoughts on paper. Hopefully, this will explain a few things.

If you liked this post then these two would be recommended for your reading pleasure: Why does Tate act that way? and Look into my eyes.

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It's Not Such A Bad Life

The day I realized Tate had autism, and for a plethora of days after, I was dazed and distraught. Tate got an official diagnosis well before the age of three. We had decided to use the researched based therapy called Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) before we even had the diagnosis and we had already begun our in-home therapy with a certified behavior analysis. The books I read said we had a window of time, a fairly small window of time, in which to help Tate. I was frantic. I could not get therapies in place fast enough. I wanted everything done RIGHT NOW! I needed to focus. I forced myself to calm down, get organized, and get busy. I was up most nights reading about how to teach Tate and then trying to implement the best strategies all day long. Every waking minute needed to be an educational one for Tate. There should be no down time because he used down time to stim. I was exhausted. I saw time slipping away and I felt like I was moving in slow motion. I was literally in panic mode. Why would nobody DO SOMETHING?! Couldn’t everyone understand how urgent it was that they help me save my baby and his future? We not only had to teach him to do things he had never learned to do on his own, we had to reteach him how to do the things he had stopped doing and we were in a race against time. I kept reading how elastic and malleable a child’s brain is until about the age of seven or eight. After that, we would the progress would stall, according to the books I read.* So, I pushed and pulled, kicked and screamed, made phone call after phone call, and appointment after appointment, trying to put all of the people and plans in place that could help us to help Tate gain and regain what he did not have. He had lost so much language and so much of his personality. He was afraid of ridiculous things, including other children. He could not pretend or play with toys appropriately. He could not communicate effectively. He spent a lot of time lost in stereotypic self-stimulatory behavior.

Before the very first therapist showed up to see Tate in our home, I had successfully eliminated some of the stereotypic behaviors like the hand flapping. But, as fast as one behavior was extinguished, another would replace it. I targeted behaviors one at a time. Sometimes the replacement behavior was worse than the one I had eliminated, although none were ever as awful looking to me as the hand flapping. I had to be creative. Tate loved to look at his reflection. He would stand in front of the blank television screen or the oven and turn his head, watching his reflection with peripheral vision. I put a fitted sheet over the front of the television and hung a big towel over the oven door to keep him from spending long periods of time engaged in this. Tate liked to run without purpose. That means he would run back and forth through a room, but only for the repetitiveness of it, not because he was pretending or playing purposefully. I blocked his paths. Tate loved thick books so he could fan the pages over and over. I put all the books except his picture books up higher than he could reach. Tate liked to push the buttons of toys, to hear the same song or noise repeatedly. I took the batteries out of those toys.

Tate at Preschool, age 3

Those first months of working so hard are sort of a blur. Even after we enrolled Tate in the early childhood autism program through the University of Kansas (KU), I was still exhausted. I’d never worked harder at anything in my life than I did trying to bring Tate back from the autism that stole him from me. When Tate aged out of the programs KU had to offer and entered public school I found I would have to wear yet another hat (boxing gloves might be a better illustration.) I had to learn how to fight and argue and scrap with the public school district. Not everyone who was to be involved with Tate’s Individualized Educational Program (IEP) was educated about autism, cooperative, and friendly. We fought for four long years, with very little progress made compared to the years before those and the years since. 

We saw a tremendous amount of growth academically the year Tate was in fourth grade and he has done well every year since. Tate recently began seventh grade. Things are going so well now that I can sometimes almost forget about those awful four years of primary school. I can also go days at a time now without remembering the day that I learned what autism is. Back then, when I was working so hard with a preschooler that could barely talk, and again later, when I had to fight the public school for services, no one would have been able to convince me that someday I would say, “It’s not such a bad life.” But, now I can easily say it. I can say it now BECAUSE of all the early intervention we did back then. I can say it BECAUSE of all the fights I won to get Tate the services he needed. Today we reap all the benefits of the things we did back then. Tate is only 12 and the work is not over but it is so much easier now.

It’s not such a bad life. I’m not sure I will always be able to say it. Perhaps we will have bad things happen again in our future. But for now I can say it. I really can say, “It’s not such a bad life.” Wait for it.... I can even go as far as saying, "It is a really good life!" Autism is what Tate has but autism does not keep us from loving or laughing. It does not keep us from going and doing. We are blessed. We have a good life, autism and all. A similar post: What did I do to deserve this?

*I do not believe now that we ever saw a huge change in the rate at which Tate learned after age seven or eight like I kept reading. Tate continues to make gains. 

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I still get the recommended immunizations for my son with autism.

I got a letter this summer from Tate’s school telling me he needed to have a Tdap (Tetanus) shot before school resumed in the Fall. Last week I took Tate to get the shot. Before you gasp in horror because a mother of a kid with autism is still getting their child immunized, let me assure you that I have carefully considered the risks involved. I think most mothers who read all the fine print on the paperwork involved in getting their children’s immunizations, want to grab up their children and run out of the office without the shots, including the mothers that do not have children with autism. However, if we all did that, even if a small percentage of us did that, then the diseases that had been eradicated by childhood immunizations would become common amongst us again. I have been hearing that some of those diseases are actually on the rise because moms are refusing to immunize their children. 

I did not tell Tate about the needed shot until we were ready to get into the van. You see, had I told Tate about the shot the hour before, the day before, the week before, the month before, he would have become sick with anxiety and our whole family would have suffered the whole time. We were going to see the latest Disney movie that was just released that day. Yes, we have to go the day of the release to avoid a huge amount of stress as well. So, being the calculating and conniving mother than I am, I scheduled the doctor appointment for ninety minutes before the movie time. I am no idiot though. I made sure there were other movie times available if our doctor appointment did not go as scheduled or planned. I told Tate that we would be visiting the doctor’s office before the movie so he could get a needed physical and a shot. He was very nervous but did not meltdown. I think the anticipation of the movie was definitely in my favor.

The pediatrician that Tate has seen for years has recently retired. We went “potluck” at the practice and met a new doctor. I had no idea when we made the appointment, but he is the son-in-law of our beloved pediatrician who just retired! This guy is a keeper for sure. He was great with Tate. He spent a long time talking to Tate on his level and listening to Tate’s long discourse on the movie we were about to attend. Tate talked so much to that doctor that I actually said to the man, “He just said more to you than I will hear in a whole day sometimes.” Tate does that when he is nervous or excited sometimes. He becomes a motor mouth. If he would talk about something other than a movie when he had these language events, I would…. Well, I don’t know what I would do. I would definitely be happy. I watched and listened to every word Tate said to the doctor. I think he talked at least five minutes, probably longer, and the doctor patiently listened, looking at Tate. Tate looked at the floor. He looked at the wall. He looked out the window. He never once looked at the doctor. When the doctor left the room I told Tate how proud I was of him for all the language he used. Then I gently reminded him to look at people when he talks to them. We go over this often. I know it is so hard for him and every other person with autism to make the eye contact but I still keep hammering away at it.

The doctor gave Tate a physical and was very patient and gentle as Tate squirmed and flinched. (Tate hates for his skin to be touched, especially his belly. See post: "Don't Touch My Skin") The doctor suggested that we also get immunizations for Meningitis and Hepatitis A. He explained what each shot would protect against. He seemed just a bit defensive to me when he recommended the additional immunizations. I told him that I was unlike a lot of autism moms and I did not believe that immunizations had anything to do with Tate’s autism diagnosis. I had seen the “differences” in Tate at birth that I would later learn was autism. The doctor seemed somewhat relieved and we talked about some of the early signs of autism I saw in Tate. I agreed to get all three shots while we were there. I do not believe that immunizations caused Tate's autism, but I do believe immunizations will keep him from becoming ill with terrible diseases if he is exposed to them. 

The doctor warned me that one of the shots was somewhat painful, compared to the others. The nurse who gave the shots was fast and efficient. The first shot barely caused Tate to flinch. The second must have hurt a little more as he jerked a bit. The third must have hurt very much as he hollered out. He did amazingly well. When he is really scared (and this usually happens at doctor offices or dentists) he says, “I love you, Mom” over and over and we have a sort of routine. I put my forehead on his or my cheek to his cheek and he leans into me as I try to keep his eyes off the scary object(s) in the room. I’m sure we make quite a sight, my 6’2” man-child and I, as we awkwardly share our affection for each other. As awful as it is to say: while my heart melts because of his distress, I always relish the short amount of time he needs me to comfort him. I love him so very much and he seldom has needed me to connect with him like this in years. When he was a toddler and even a preschooler he still looked to me for comfort but in the years since he has turned to his self-stimulatory behaviors to calm himself. Pacing on his toes, twiddling his fingers, stiffening his arms, do for him what I cannot usually do.

I can never visit the pediatricians’ office without remembering the day I took two-year-old Tate in and sat him down on the rug in the little patient room. I looked the pediatrician in the eye, said, “There is something wrong with my baby” and burst into tears. That doctor handed me a tissue, watched Tate play for a while, and asked me what I thought was wrong. I said, “I think he has autism.” He replied, “I think you are right.” Before I left that office I had the names of several people I needed to call to begin the early intervention that would help us so much, the early intervention that would help me wage a war against the aloofness that had taken my little boy’s personality hostage. I remember almost every detail of that day. I love him just as much at 6’2” as I did that day so many years ago.

Then...

...And Now

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"Don't Touch My Skin"

So many people with autism do not like to be touched. Before I really knew what autism was I had heard that people with autism feel things differently than the rest of us. I had heard that a gentle touch might hurt like a burn or a soft touch might feel very rough. This may be true for some but I am not sure that would be the right description for how Tate feels when he is touched. And, yes. He hates to be touched.

When Tate was very young he did not seem to have an aversion to being held, touched, or cuddled for the most part. He seemed to enjoy it like my other babies had. But he did not like to be caressed. He got upset and would stiffen and fuss if I ever tried to rub his back or his neck. I thought that was odd because my other children loved to have their backs rubbed and always had. So, as hard as it was I tried to remember. He often let me know when I forgot.

Now that Tate is older and can talk, he can sometimes put his discomfort into words that I can understand. He has a lot of trouble with meaningful conversation so he does not go into long explanations but he can give me a little insight on occasion. I think Tate was about eight or nine, when he began to say, “Don’t touch my skin” as he pulled away from my hugs. It seems to be the skin-to-skin contact that bothers him. If there is fabric between us he is more tolerant of touching. But even then he seems a little nervous, like he is afraid our skin might touch if he is not careful. He still says, “Don’t touch my skin” fairly often when I touch him. He doesn’t melt down or run away screaming; And I don’t think he is actually in pain but I do think it is uncomfortable for him. I can only imagine because I do not have all the sensory issues he deals with, but I think I can liken it to being “creeped out” by something that we might think is gross. He has an aversion to being touched by another person’s skin like one of us might have to touching a slimey slug or something really unappealing. I don’t know why, but it is what it is. I, myself, have always had an aversion to touching crushed velvet or velour. If I had to sleep under a blanket of either of those fabrics I would be pretty miserable. If I had to wear clothing made of either of those fabrics I would probably not get anything done all day while I sat and tried not to move. Ha. So, maybe I DO have an idea of what Tate is dealing with! I know a girl who hates to touch raw meat. It is really hard for her to cook sometimes for this reason. I have no aversion to touching raw meat but I sort of “get” what she means when she talks about how creepy it is for her.

Tate does not like to touch animals either. I am no expert on sensory issues, and I could be very wrong about this, but I don’t think that Tate’s issues with skin-to-skin contact are exactly the same as his issues with touching animals. I can almost see a shudder if I rub Tate’s back or touch his neck. I do not see the same shudder when an animal touches him. Oh, he hates it. He hates it a lot if a cat rubs up against him or if we ask him to touch a dog. He reaches out two fingers and barely touches the animal, ready to jerk his hand back quickly. I believe the issue Tate has with animals is more from the unpredictability of the animal. He cannot guess what the animal is going to do and surprises are frightening to a person with autism. As fate would have it, our animals are very attracted to Tate. Poor guy! Ha.

I asked Tate this evening if he wanted to hold our new puppy, fully knowing the answer I would get. Then I asked him why he did not like to touch animals, trying to gain some more insight. He said, “You know, animals can attack you.” I laughed and told him that the puppy was just a baby and wouldn’t attack anyone. He smiled and said, “I just don’t want him to bother me.” He has shown a little bit of interest in the puppy from afar and I’ve been pretty excited about that baby step.

So. Do I live my life carefully trying to avoid touching Tate? NO WAY! I am sympathetic and always watchful that we do not push him harder than he can stand, but affection is very important and he has to suffer through lots of hugs.

Tate, age 12

There is a four-year-old boy at the congregation where we worship. He (like our cats and dog… Haha) is drawn to Tate. The little guy wraps himself around Tate’s legs and hugs him at almost every church service. It is the cutest thing. His family has asked me repeatedly if they should try to stop him. My answer is always the same, “No! It is great therapy!” Lately, Tate gets out of the van to enter the church building saying, “That kid will NOT hug me this time!” The cool thing is: he has a smile on his face when he says it! See? The free therapy is paying off! Bring on the hugs.

Here is another post about the way Tate feels things: Does it hurt?

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