Everyone Craps Their Pants

I took max to one of our favorite parks today. He tried out the swing and
got really high then did a perfect jump dismount. He went around the
playground testing out his usual spots all the while vocalizing in a
high-ish pitched voice. I am so used to this and it drives me mad. It always
sounds like he is in a bit of distressI passed a little girl around 8 yrs old who had a skirt on that looked a bit
like a tutu-that I would have killed for at her age. I complimented her on
her skirt and resisted exclaiming “I would look fantastic in that!”  A
little later she came up to me as I was watching max and said “why is he
making that sound?” I said he has autism and doesn’t speak very much and I
really didn’t know why he did it.  “Maybe because he can’t speak very much
he likes to pretend he can. Maybe he’s talking to us and we just can’t
understand him. Or there’s always the possibility he is practicing to be an
opera singer. What do you think?” She nixed the opera singer choice. I told
her I really wished I knew what he was trying to communicate. He was
repeating “what’s the matter” and “what’s wrong?” Along with an occasional
“I’m not a squirrel! I’m a boy!” Maybe he is unsettled about our move to a
new place. Again I wish I knew. Then she asked if he was like that from the
very beginning-and I explained no-he changed when he was about 3.

The whole time we were talking, her friends kept coming up and asking her to
play with them and she refused every time. She was so curious and earnest I
wanted to hug her! Ok -I know that would be creepy so I didn’t.

And today I realized the real loss in our move to a close but different
neighborhood is that Max will no longer will be surrounded and loved and
accepted by our dear friends who have known him since he was a cute
tow-headed, blue eyed, typical little boy (not a squirrel). They won’t find
his eccentricity cute or funny-they will think he is weird. They won’t
understand what has gone into getting him to this point in his life-how far
he’s come and how much we’ve stumbled. And the worst thing is that they will
be afraid of him because he not only seems weird, he is almost six feet
tall.

And I just don’t know how to make it not so.