My son chews his sleeves like a starving wolf. It’s awful.

You have no idea. Whatever you’re picturing, picture worse. Let me paint a picture for you.

He will be there, in his room, swiping on his iPad with one hand and the sleeve of his other deeply in his mouth. His bite is so firm and he’s pulling so hard that his hand is now where his elbow should be. There is about a foot of sleeve without any arm in it at all as he yanks the material further with his jaw.

Lucas! No mouth!

That’s me. I’m yelling from outside his room. He then cranes his neck to see if I’m really out there and, as soon as he does, he relinquishes his toothy grip. It’s like releasing a catapult.

With that, the saturated sleeve goes flapping from his mouth and into the air. A stream of wetness flies off from it and sails across his room like a baseball player chewing chaw.

I stare in stunned silence as he shakes his arm back into the soaked fabric. I give him a disgusted, “good job.”

This awful tale has a happy twist to it. Did you catch it?

The positive take-away here is that he knows he’s not supposed to be doing that.

Huh? If you’re not impressed, keep in mind that there was a time when I thought my son would never understand anything. I’m not exaggerating or putting on a show with big language either. I mean it. When he was just about two years old, I was prepared for him to never comprehend a single thing around him.

What made matters worse was that we are at a time when he was still sort of a baby. I didn’t know him as a person yet. All I knew was what he wasn’t doing and the red flags to remember for the doctor. My one and only son was essentially a checklist of concerns. I felt that way and, worst of all, I hated that I felt that way.

Despite that doom and gloom outlook on the future, one thing remained unchanged in my mind back then.

I had to treat Lucas as if he could understand everything.

To this day, I talk to that boy constantly. He hears my voice more than anyone. He hears about my day, the rundown of how to drive a car, and who won at SummerSlam.

It’s actually not that hard of a thing to do. Lucas is the best audience around. He’s literally the easiest person to talk to.

The reason I told you the repulsive sleeve story is that, at the time, I was given lots of suggestions early on about how to curb that laundry-eating issue. Rubber chew necklaces didn’t work, just like the dozen other tricks. He just likes to pull his sleeve, I guess.

Of course, among these suggestions was the classic “put hot sauce on his sleeves” idea. For those born after 2000, there might be a gasp here. For my generation, you’re probably like, “Oh yeah, my mom did that to my brother.”

Either way, no. I didn’t do that. Not only has it not aged well, so to speak, but also it went against what I really wanted. I wanted him to know that he’s not supposed to do it. I wanted him to understand.

That’s my goal with everything we do. It’s why I show him how to unbutton the very buttons I entrusted with preventing him from taking his clothes off. At the end of the day, I want him to keep his clothes on because he knows that’s the rule, as opposed to facing buttoned barriers from stripping.

Sometimes, in the early days, it could feel like this way of thinking was fruitless. I’d read bedtime stories to a disinterested toddler, searching for a glimmer of acknowledgment. When he would, I would celebrate in my head and picture a whole different future.

Then, the next night, he wouldn’t react at all. It would knock me down.

My kid was good at not letting me stay down, though. Over time, he started to show how much of a difference it was making

For every misstep, he had a victory waiting that eclipsed it. The first time I said, “we need to go wash your hands” groggily under my breath and he walked into the bathroom to turn the water on, I was blown away. After years of enunciating and acting out turning on the faucet, he got it. He understood.

This wasn’t the result of a school checklist or an organized lesson plan. This was me talking to my kid for his entire life as if he knew exactly what I was saying. It was the result of our time together.

Not all of these achievements were as easily seen as this one. It’s really about paying attention, comparing today to six months ago, and then realizing how far he’s come. Without doing that, so many of his hard-earned accomplishments would fly under the radar.

All kids are different and while the things that work for Lucas might not work for everyone, aiming upwards is usually a pretty good place to aim. It’s important to be realistic when making future plans for my son, but equally important to help him reach for the stars on a daily basis.

I was determined to have a relationship with my son, even when I thought that might not be possible. We built that together and it’s helped us both become the people we are. I’m proud of him and I love him. And I know he understands that.