So typical; so beautiful

Nick and I were early. Noah's after-school science club meeting was still in session, so Nick and I made our way over to the playground. He climbed up on the play structure, then ran back and forth across the bridge in joy.

A couple of little girls came over and climbed up the steps to the slide then slipped down.

Nick watched them from the bridge and laughed. "Slide down!" he said and went over to join the girls in their play. The three of them slid down the slide, time and time again, and sometimes Nick would get so excited about sliding that sometimes he forgot to wait, sliding into the girl in front of him, laughing all the way.

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Such an unnotable, typical day at the playground for just about any parent. Any parent, that is, except for an autism mom. I watched my child play and wanted to call every single person in my cell phone to scream out my excitement.

You see, six months ago, Nick would not have even noticed the girls. Six months ago, Nick would not have been able to say "slide down." Six months ago, Nick would have never gone over to other kids and joined them in their play.

It's the most average, typical things that are the most precious; they are the things I celebrate, the things that make me cry.

"That sounds far-fetched"

That's what I was told when by district transportation today when they finally called me back about my report that my child had been assaulted by seven children on the bus this afternoon.

"That sounds far-fetched."

You've *got* to be freakin' kidding me.

He made this judgment before talking to the bus driver, before interviewing a single passenger, before reviewing the video tape.

I guess that in the Amphitheater School District in Tucson, Arizona, the idea of actually investigating a group of neurotypical children attacking a child with autism on the bus is far-fetched.

I guess that believing the wounds on my child came from his bus ride home would be far-fetched.

I guess that thinking the transportation department that once dropped off my severely autistic, non-verbal son AT THE WRONG LOCATION would care at all about the children with disabilities that they transport would be far-fetched.

But if you have a child with a disability and you live in the Amphi District, I don't think it would be far-fetched at all to move. Right now.

Damned Lemon Blossom!

The boys and I were in the backyard as the sun was creeping down toward the horizon. I sat on the porch proofreading my book chapter (which Noah felt was wholly unimpressive) while Nick planted himself in the sandbox and Noah perched himself on top of a little ladder to check out the lemon tree.

"Mom, how does the flower turn into a lemon?" Noah asked as he touched a lemon blossom.

I'll admit, I was geeked. I was going to get to talk to my son about cool science stuff! I went over to the tree to talk with him about pollination.

In language he could understand, I told him about the sperm and the ovules and how bees fly from tree to tree bringing the two together. He already knew about a sperm and an egg coming together to make a baby, so I said it was kind of like that--the bees bring together the sperm and the ovules in the flower, and a baby fruit is born.

I was going to tell him the part that I thought was really cool--that less than one percent of flowers ever become fruit--when he asked me a question.

"Who brings the male and female parts together?"

"The bee, honey," I answered.

"No, not in the flower. With people."

I'm not uncomfortable talking about sex; many of you know this about me. But somehow, in spite of myself, my face flushed and I struggled to find words.

And so I skirted the details, and felt completely lame for doing so. I told him about how a man and a woman decide to mate and then bring their egg and sperm together.

"Do you know what 'mate' means?" I asked.

"Yeah. Marry. Mate. Then die," he answered.

I laughed warmly. It's actually not too different from the way many men I know see the reproductive cycle. "Where did you learn that?" I asked.

"In the butterfly unit at school," he answered. Okay, fair enough. I guess a butterfly doesn't live for too long after mating.

"But how does the sperm get delivered to the egg?" Noah asked.

I knew that I had to answer the question now. For some stupid reason I was still flushed. "It's something you can't talk about at school, okay?" I said, fearing the calls home I would get when a teacher heard him say something about penises on the playground. This stuff happens. Like when Noah got obsessively interested in movie ratings, and his dad made the mistake of telling him that X was the worst of the worst movie ratings . . . Noah had no clue what the content of an X-rated movie was, but next thing I know, his teacher is complaining that Noah is talking about X-rated movies at school.

Noah agreed not to talk about it at school, and then I started to explain. "The sperm comes out of the man's penis and goes into the woman."

"This is a weird conversation," Noah said.

I laughed. "I know, honey." And just then, with our joint admission that it was weird, the nervousness was gone.

I took my son over to my chair on the porch and sat him down on my lap. I explained the nuances of male and female anatomy and how the two came together. Noah listened and put the pieces together in his head, with just a little confusion when he thought at first the belly button was the opening I was talking about. And then, when he'd learned all he needed to know, he said, "Okay, time to change topics."

So we talked about video games, and I realized my son wasn't a baby anymore.

Hangin' with Nick

Nick's part of our world now. He's still Nick, and he still has autism--he loves lines, letters, numbers, and hand stims as much as ever. It's not so much that he's changed, but that he is sharing who he is with the rest of us.

He's become social in his own beautiful way. When people he likes come into the house, he'll look them in the eye and say "tickle!" And then they tickle him. No, it's not the neurotypical "hello," but I'd say it's far more cool and interactive.

And he's sharing things with me. He wants me to be part of his experiences. I love it when he takes me by the hand and leads me to whatever is interesting him at the moment, like a ceiling fan. He'll tell me about it in his limited language, "fAn!" with a long, high-pitched "a." It's a conversation, a social interaction, and I love it.

There's so much talk of being cure/anti-cure. One side says we should accept our children for who they are, the other side says we should do all we can to free them from autism. I suppose I found a third space that doesn't fit into that dichotomy. I love my son and embrace all the beauty of who he is, and yet I'm thrilled that he's connecting with the world and will do all I can to help him do it more.

Putting the key in the lock

Our world is based on words. They are the way we share our feelings and fears, our hopes and needs. Whether they are signed, written, or spoken, they are the way we communicate with one another.

But imagine that you never understood that words were communicative. You spent your life around them, and maybe even used them to label things in your environment, but you never understood that they could be used to convey your wants and emotions to others.

Imagine that, and you know what life has been like for Nick.

Nick is almost five years old, yet he'd never made the developmental leap that infants master: understanding that the sounds one makes are a way to influence those in the world around him.

The irony isn't lost on me; here I am, the writing teacher who believes in the ultimate rhetorical power of words to shape and change the world, and my own son is oblivious to the power I preach.

But Nick got it today.

It started on Thursday when Jerrud was working with Nick. Nick usually uses PECS cards to communicate, but when Nick was wanting chips, Jerrud was pushing him to say the word. "Chhhh-ip," he modeled for Nick.

For some reason, Nick decided to go ahead and copy Jerrud. And magically he was rewarded with the chip he wanted and lots of praise.

Nick didn't think that was so bad, so he played along again. And got his chip.

He started putting the pieces together: "I say this group of phonemes, and someone gives me a chip. Cool."

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday we practiced the word "chip." Sometimes I'd manipulate the situation, getting chips and then asking him what he wanted as he drooled over my stash (actually, that's also how I taught him to use his first PEC, which was a chips card). Other times he'd request chips all on his own, bringing me his chips PECS card but saying the word when he made the exchange.

Today, though, Nick learned to transfer the skill he learned with the word chip to other contexts.

First it was "pretzel." But the cutest imaginable version of the word *ever*. It was more like two words, actually: "Pweh. Zil!" After some frustrations, he deftly navigated through the linguistic landscape, saying "chip" when that was what he wanted and "pretzel" when he wanted something different.

Of course, salty snacks make a child thirsty, so how about some juice? I filled his cup with apple juice . . . and he said the word when he wanted Jerrud to give him the cup! Awesome!

So we spent the early afternoon cycling through these three words when I got curious. What else would he say?

I brought in a 16-ounce bottle of Coke, which he loves. I gave him a choice between the apple juice and the Coke. "Nick, what do you want?"

"Co," he answered.

Sweet!

I hunted down a bag of M & Ms, and my child asked for the candies, over and over and over again, by saying "M" (this worked for me; I mean, there's just one "m" on the candy so why should I make him say two of 'em?).

Next I brought him some cookies, and again, success.

Nick has had some language since he was one year old, back when he'd read the letters and numbers off the license plates of cars. He's babbled in his own language, and he's labeled things in his environment as he attends to them. But his words only reflected context. Today, though, my son became a rhetor and learned about audience and purpose. He realized that he could guide his audience (me) to a specific purpose (to get him stuff he wanted).

How many times I have drawn that tired old triangle on the board in my writing classes, telling my students how important it was that their message take into account audience, context, and purpose? I preached it for years . . . but I never really understood its significance until today, when my child finally put all three together and opened a door to a new world.