I tell tales here about my non-verbal son and I couldn’t be more grateful. As I said many times, these blogs are helpful for me too. It lets me tell our family’s story and share my son.

This is something I need to write about. Why? Well, because when I tell people one-on-one, they tend to interject with the wrong emotion, either vocally or through facial expressions. They don’t get why I’m telling them what I’m telling them and, many times, they will look sad.

It kills the mood for me and, although their reactions stop my joyous storytelling, I understand their stance. They don’t live with Lucas and, to them, a misunderstanding or lack of communication is terrible. It’s painful, hurtful, and not something they deal with themselves. They project my boy into their own home and imagine the hard parts. They picture the times when they saw him upset and didn’t know why. That’s what they picture. They picture his worst moments.

Meanwhile, I’m telling them, what I thought was, a funny story about something my son did. It’s a story that made my daughter laugh. It’s a story that we “get” in our house.

I mean, Lucas is my kid. Just like his sister, he does funny things that I laugh about or tell others. Both my kids have moments like that.

For example – and please don’t tell her I wrote this – but during Christmas, our Elf on a Shelf snuck into my jeep to surprise my daughter. I warned him not to, but he did it anyway. As I drove my kids to school, my 15-year-old baby girl looked up at the visor and saw Elfie staring back at her.

She was pretty livid. In classic teen talk, she began objecting to my arrogant fatherly act of fun. How dare I be festive? We’re a Lana Del Ray family around here.

Why would you do that? You’re driving me to school! People will see this.

Then, stopping to gesture towards the elf in a frantic way, her eyes bugged out, and she said the thing.

I’m going to accidentally TOUCH HIM!

I lost it. It was the funniest thing ever. She realized what she said as soon as I did. If she hadn’t, then she did when I affected a condescendingly sympathetic tone and said:

Awwwww. Then he’ll lose his powers?

I tell people that and like Joe Pesci, it’s funny. Funny how? You know, the way I tell the story and everything. It’s funny. Not like a clown, but like a charming anecdote you share with other parents. No one is laughing at my daughter in this scenario. Sure, she’s the one who makes a misstep, but it’s cute. We laugh because we get the joke because we know her. She’s a kid. People know kids.

Kids with autism have a smaller built-in audience to immediately laugh at the stories you tell. Lucas has funny stories too, though. It’s just harder to tell them. People don’t get it. They’re conditioned to find them sad.

For instance, I still try to get my son to talk. I always have. He doesn’t need to ever say a word and, at this point, it will never be his main form of communication. I’ve accepted that my non-verbal son might never speak. As a parent, I had to do that a long time ago.

When he was little, I’d joke that Lucas was like the frog in those old Looney Tunes cartoons because, every now and then, he stumbles into a word when we’re alone. I’d excitedly tell everyone and then he’d never do it again.

He still does it. Sitting in the car and stimming out random noises, he will unexpectedly land on a “daaa-dee, daaa-dee”! I immediately freak out.

Yes! Lucas! Daaa-dee! Yes, buddy! Do it again. You did it!

And that’s all it would take…to get him to stop making any sounds at all and just stare at me.

No. Buddy, don’t just stop. You just did it. Daaa-dee! You got it! Do it again.

Stare. Double tap of his own lips as if to ask for food.

Yeah. Food later, kid. Later. Oh well.

As I turn back around, of course, I hear a string of sounds with daaa-dee haphazardly wedged in. This freakin’ kid.

Now, see? If I told that story to a room full of people, I’d get a good chunk of sympathetic stares. Even writing it, I’ll get praying emojis in the comments if I use it as the Facebook preview. It sounds like it should be sad, but it’s not.

As I mentioned, I am still actively working with him on seeking out a word. If he can do something, I want him to try. It doesn’t matter if it’s going to be a success. If the possibility exists, I will do what I can to help him reach any goal.

We sneak in time during shoe-tying and face washing for word exercises, so to speak. In the last few months, I noticed he has created a bizarre technique. His attempt is either melodramatic to get me to go away or else he’s massively overthinking it.

The word I always try with is “hi”, but it’s actually “Hhhhh-hi.” I spell it like that because, in his life, Lucas has actually repeated “hi” on a few occasions. The way he did it was by making the hard h sound and capping it off with a high-pitched and miniscule “I” noise at the end.

Is that cheating? Absolutely. Whatever. We don’t care. This is just for me and him.

Lucas, say “hhhhh-hi.” You go. Hhhhhh-hi. You try.

And that’s when my son clinches his eyes shut tightly and arches his body back. As he does, he grabs the collar of his shirt with both hands and wrenches it all the way down with incredible force. I kid you not. He looks exactly like Marlon Brando screaming “Stella!” I don’t know where he got this from, but it’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen him do.

As soon as he does it, I laugh out loud and we stop the hi-lessons. I think that might be his goal.

It’s just like how he will walk through the store with his iPad and the moment he gets poor reception, he holds it above his head like the Statue of Liberty. The first time I saw it, I couldn’t believe it.

I don’t know where he learned this trick. I can’t ask him and it speaks volumes about him as a kid that he can’t unbuckle his own seatbelt, despite me trying to show him for years, but he can manage WiFi outages at Whole Foods based off of seeing someone do it once. Kids today. Feh.

My kids are my kids. Just because my boy is non-verbal that doesn’t mean he doesn’t play into the balance of our lives. He’s not a touchy subject or an unspoken issue we tip toe around. He’s amazing and he’s wonderful.

He’s also the kid I caught eating hand moisturizer and then had the nerve to get mad at me for taking it away. If that doesn’t prove he belongs in this family, I don’t know what does.