a few of my favorite things…about my son
This morning, I’ve been baking, and the house smells like rich chocolate. Chocolate Curious George cake, to be exact.
Adam will be 9 years old tomorrow, and the cake was a request. I shared this with some of my sisters a few nights ago, asking them to thank God along with me for the gift He gave me for Adam’s birthday. One of them prayed aloud, “Father, thank you for this wonderful, little thing, that Adam could indicate what he wants for his birthday. I’m sure for someone who has autism it’s not a little thing at all but actually a really big thing, and I don’t want to minimize it one bit..” She was exactly right. For us, talking to Adam about his birthday this year has been like opening a tiny little box and finding the Hope Diamond.
Our discussions started months ago, when Adam noticed our new 2011 Under the Big Top calendar and all the March pictures of himself, smiling widely, his mouth full of chocolate cupcake. He came to me and said, “March 26 is Adam’s birthday.”
“Yes, it is. What do you want to do for your birthday, Adam?”
“Cake.”
“What kind of cake do you want?”
“Chocolate.”
“What kind of chocolate cake?”
“Mermaid.”
???
“Mermaid? You want a mermaid cake?”
“NO!” He said it like, “Really, mom? Are you kidding??” Then I realized that as he dreamed up his own birthday, he was recalling the last one he went to and the mermaid cake he’d eaten there. He smiled at me, continuing, “Curious George cake.”
That made sense. “Oh, you want a chocolate Curious George cake.”
“Yes!”
And so it began. From there, we’ve had conversations about what he wants to do: Jumping Beans (inflatable jumping mania); whom he wants to invite; and what he’d like to receive: presents. I love that my son, who has never been very “stuff” oriented, does not seem to care what’s inside the packages. I have tried asking that question ten different ways, and he always says, “I want Adam’s presents,” and then gets frustrated with me if I don’t seem willing to accept that as an answer. But his interests are simple and passionate: numbers, Curious George, music; and he knows that his presents will not disappoint. I even wrapped them in Paul Frank monkey astronaut wrapping paper.
Thanks to the help of a friend, I found Adam a cool Curious George cake topper online, and while I was there, discovered some Curious George balloons. So, tonight, while Adam’s asleep, I will fill the hallway outside his room with helium balloons in primary colors—bright red, yellow, green, and orange. The balloons are always Adam’s favorite part of every birthday. He plays with them for weeks afterward, finding pure pleasure in dropping them down the stairwell from the hall above.
Every time my children reach a birthday, I spend the days just prior to their “big day” thinking about the gift they’ve been to me and all the ways that God has blessed me through them. Then I spend their birthday thinking about the day that they were born. I am such a blessed woman. For the past 9 years, God has granted me the joy of this beautiful, funny, brilliant, amazing little boy with eyes as blue as the oceans he loves. And if we’re sitting face to face, and you ask me to talk about my Adam for more than about five minutes, well, there will be tears. I’m so thankful for every minute of life I get to share with him.
So, in honor of his 9th birthday, I’d like to share ten of my favorite things about my son:
10. Adam is a walking tribute to the saying, Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Although Adam has a very difficult time finding the words he wants to say, he has a wonderful ability to understand language he hears in context and generalize it for his own use. Unintentionally, he points out all the things the rest of us say repetitively. Recently he has blended the ways that Riley and I typically answer him in the affirmative. I often say, “yep, that’s right,” and Riley usually says, “mmhmm.” This morning, I said, “Adam, are you excited about eating cupcakes today with your friends?” From the breakfast table came, “Yep, mmhmm.”
9. Because language is difficult for Adam, he believes in extreme language efficiency. After he understood that “I’m” was short for “I am,” he started substituting it in his responses. “Adam, are you hungry?”
“Yes, I’m.”
The biggest problem with this is that this makes everyone think he’s going to say something else. It creates this blank that just hangs in the air, unfilled, and it’s very unsettling. I know, and I still find myself turning toward him, waiting. He even overgeneralized this phrase as a substitute for “I do.” I might ask him something like, “Adam, do you like that book?” and he’ll answer, “Yes, I’m…”
8. Adam has taught us that it is untrue that individuals with autism can never understand figurative speech. Adam loves to borrow Kevin’s ipod, and one recent weekday morning, he went to Kevin and said, “Daddy’s ipod, Adam’s ipod.” That’s Adam for, “Dad, can I use your ipod?” Kevin was on his way off to work and wanted to take the ipod with him. So, after making Adam repeat the question appropriately, Kevin said, “Sorry, buddy, I’m getting ready to leave for work.”
Riley piped up from her spot at the table, ever her brother’s advocate, and asked, “Dad, why do you have to have your ipod at work?”
Kevin leaned over and kissed her on the forehead and said, “Because the monkey doesn’t fall that far from the banana.” She wrinkled up her nose and said, “Huh?”
Adam, meanwhile, followed Kevin into the kitchen. Just as I was about to explain to Riley that Kevin loves music as much as Adam does, Adam looked at Kevin and said, “Banana’s ipod, please.”
So, maybe if it’s the right metaphor, it’s not so problematic.
7. Adam can do most two-digit-by-two-digit addition and subtraction problems, and some three-digit problems, in his head. He has them memorized. So, his teacher hands him math worksheets and he completes them effortlessly from memory. Then, he gets mad at her when she makes him go back and add or subtract column by column to be sure that he knows the process. He’ll write down the answer, and she’ll point at the ones column and say, “No, what’s seven plus eight?” Then he’ll look back at her, point at the entire answer, and say, “ninety-five.” In other words, “Hello? Don’t you see that I already know the answer?” Of course, Ms. Heidi knows he knows the answer, but she has no way to explain to Adam, in a way that he can understand, why he needs to know the steps in between. I laugh with her about this challenge often. It reminds me of something another one of our friends in the AU world recently theorized: Our children with autism probably think the rest of us are a bunch of idiots who take the hard way around everything.
6. Adam is never too tired to have fun. Adam’s favorite story book right now is How Do Dinosaurs Say I Love You? by Jane Yolen and Mark Teague. He and Kevin started this game wherein Adam reads every word on the page except the last one. Then Kevin reads the last word in a crazy voice, and Adam dissolves into giggles. Adam loves this game so much that he now wants to play it no matter what book is read or who is reading it. He gets so excited anticipating the last word that his voice starts trembling about halfway through each paragraph.
5. It might surprise a lot of people if they knew that Adam is actually very aware of his own challenges, including the fact that he often has difficulty pronouncing things correctly.  But for Adam, this is less a cause for frustration as an opportunity to find humor. When we practice memory verses, he loves to say 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 and Zephaniah 3:17 most of all because he has trouble saying “Thessalonians (which always comes out “Thess-ti-onians”)” and “Zephaniah (which always sounds more like “Zedicanna”).” He laughs and laughs every time we correct his pronunciation and the words come out all wrong, despite his best efforts. Eventually, he manages “Zeph-a-ni-ah,” but he never can get that “ti” out of “Thess-ti-onians.”
4. In just the last week, Adam has decided that he likes to do word searches. Although Riley owns enough word search books to do word searches everyday for the next five years, she finds it very frustrating that her brother likes to sneak off with her favorite puzzle book and finish off several pages for her. One morning, while Riley harassed Zoe for a good morning hug, Adam slipped past her and smoothly lifted her word search book from the counter.  On his way out of the kitchen, I moved in front of Adam and made him talk to me. I was so intent on drawing out language that I failed to notice the pilfered item in his arms. After a few clipped responses, he glanced over to where Riley pestered Zoe and said, “All finished downstairs. I want to go upstairs, please.” Feeling successful at eliciting such a nice sentence, I moved out of his path. Moments later, Riley gasped, “Oh! Adam took my word search book!” I laughed out loud and then suggested that she try to trade him one of the books she wasn’t using for the one she wanted, promising to replace the book she gave him in trade. She stomped upstairs and returned in a few minutes. Adam says, “no trade,” she said, with a dejected sigh. Even after I wrote “Adam’s book” and “Riley’s book” on each of the puzzle books, Adam still preferred the one that his sister wanted (naturally).
This morning, I found them sitting side by side on the couch. Riley was working on a word search, and Adam sat perched over her shoulder, hugging George monkey. “Yea, this is my word search book, Adam,” Riley was saying.
As I walked by, Adam said to Riley, “Yep, you’re all finished.”
3. The movie August Rush makes me cry every time I see it because I think Adam experiences the world as a musical symphony, just like the main character in that movie.  Adam constantly taps out a rhythms on his own chest. When he sits in a metal chair, he’ll tap the side and then lean over to listen to the reverberation coming from the chair back. When we’re listening to music in the car, Adam announces the title of each song on the CD based on the track number, before the music begins. At home, Adam plays music continually, setting his own stereo to repeat mode. At the beach, Adam stands in the waves, lifts his eyes to the sky, extends his arms, and radiates joy, as though he’s listening to the best concerto ever written. And he is.
2. Adam gets so absorbed in movies (have no idea where he gets that:)) that he reacts as though the action is happening to him personally. Recently we went to see Voyage of the Dawn Treader in the theater, and Adam thrashed in his seat while a sea serpent tried to eat Peter right off of the mast of the ship. Finally, Riley yelped, and that did it for Adam. He started crying. When I touched his leg, he jumped a mile and said, “I need to go to the bathroom, please.” At home, whenever Adam’s not sure he wants to see what will happen next, he always disappears into the bathroom.
1. Lately, Adam and I seem to struggling with all the same emotions, and his innocent way of handling it all helps me keep my own expressions in check. The more exhausted he gets with our routine and the more his free spirit longs to buck the system, the more he has to say about it. One morning this week, a little girl helping with carpool opened Adam’s door and he said, “No school today! No peppers! I don’t like it peppers. No carrots! I don’t like it carrots. It’s Tuesday, no school today on Adam!” That little girl’s eyes widened and followed Adam, who’s litany continued all the way into the school building. I laughed out loud as I drove through the parking lot thinking, You and me both, sweet boy.
Oh, friends. There aren’t enough words for how much I love this little boy. Happy Birthday, Adam!
Thank you, God, for my son.
