The easiest articles to write about raising my non-verbal son are the ones about the breakthroughs. The moments where he and I are in sync, despite the absence of words, truly are a joy to share. Everyone claps. Everyone wins.

I feel like Superman in those moments and the look of pride on his face tells me that he does too. Aren’t we terrific? Here, let me post about it so everyone knows how terrific we are.

After all, these moments are the polar opposite of the sad and forlorn expressions we share during times of disconnect. The frustration that I feel seems to only be outmatched by the frustration he feels when we can’t properly explain what needs to be said. Who would want to read about that?

That’s why we graze past the stories about dinnertime requests at 3 in the afternoon. It’s then that I would tell him to wait and, for the longest time, Lucas didn’t get it. The passing of time was a concept that is incredibly difficult to broach without the common building blocks of language we’re all used to. How do you pantomime time passing?

Eventually, I realized I could put my hand up and comically screech, “Waaaaaaait!” Laughter would ring out as he would try to get his iPad or whatever thing I was keeping from him. Still, I persisted. He giggled and, as time went on, he got it. Wait means wait. So, he waits.

As it relates to food, this lesson has been helpful to an extent. With the passing of time also comes the insistence on the things he wants. When he’s told to wait for food, Lucas will ask with his device, then lead me to food, and then throw a mini-tantrum. It sounds aggravating and I guess it is in some ways, but it’s satisfying to see him have so many different outlets to request. During those times, I try to give him something to at least appease him.

Yet, there’s another part to all of this. There’s the cooking of the food that takes time and that explanation has taken a bit to get across. When he was little, he couldn’t grasp how the food I just offered him wasn’t ready immediately. I had no idea how to tell him.

This isn’t Back to the Future 2. Pizza isn’t instant. It took months of leading him to the oven to show him it was in there that he finally learned to give it some time. If I’m being honest, this acceptance of time by him makes me feel proud. He sees it’s in there and trusts me that it’s coming. Once he verifies that I’m aware of his wants, he knows I’ve got his back. I got ya, little man.

For every one of these slow-burn life lessons, there are some that we may never be able to bridge the gap on. There are things that simply don’t come up enough or make little sense for either him or me.

A perfect example of this happened at school a few weeks ago. His teachers told me that they believed his leg had fallen asleep that morning. He stood up and became wobbly, confused about what was happening. It shook as he stood, and they came over to rub and comfort him.

How does one explain a limb falling asleep? I have an entire vocabulary at my disposal, and I still have very little understanding of it. Blood circulation and all that takes some intimate knowledge to grasp. There are no common signs for “the life force in your body isn’t circulating temporarily to your limbs.” There are no buttons on his device for it either. We’ll just have to chalk that one up to long-term goals.

The same can be said for the rare mornings that he wakes up upset, seemingly from a bad dream. I have to assume because he can’t tell me and, honestly, I’m not sure he even understands what that may mean. Again, for him, an abstract subject like that in his nuts-and-bolts world is a bit out of left field.

If Lucas was writing this, he might tell you his own frustrations with me during the bouts of unexpected sadness he gets driving down the road and turning into a random parking lot. Twelve years into his little life, I have never understood why he does this. We drive around town and, steering into particular parking lots or down certain streets causes him to break into tears.

We have been trying to figure this out forever and have been given some pretty solid leads on possibilities. Still, I have accepted that I might never know. He does the same thing with aisles at stores. When Lucas doesn’t want to pivot, he doesn’t pivot. Reason? I don’t know. I’m sure he’s annoyed at me about that.

At the end of the day, the stories of our successes are special because there are stories about our missteps. These out-of-sync moments are nothing to hide or be ashamed of. They are part of what makes our proudest moments what they are.

I might never understand everything he wants and vice versa. Then again that can be said about literally every other person I have ever met in my life. Truth be told, my percentage of success is much higher with my non-verbal buddy than it is with most others who don’t stop yapping.