It’s 4:30AM, and I Just Learned Something About Autism Appreciation

I’m writing this at 4:30 AM. There’s a reason for that.

It’s because, at 4 AM, I experienced something that tested my patience and understanding, while also perfectly illustrating the reason I have developed “autism appreciation” for my son. By the end of this, you will too.

I’m not doing this for poetic purposes. I don’t create scenarios for drama. This literally just happened.

Lucas falls asleep to lullaby music. Since he was a baby, it’s always been the same tune. As he got older, rather than buying him replacement after replacement of rare Rainforest mobiles, I simply recorded the song on a small player. Whenever he wants to sleep, he presses the button. It’s adorable.

It’s also a projectile when he wants my attention. Regardless of time, Lucas will use the gate on his bedroom door to rattle up the house. He runs his hand along the bars like a prison movie. If that fails to get me, he’ll begin throwing things into the hallway. The first is always the music box.

What does he want? Usually, the iPad. That’s his precious. If he were another kid, we’d probably be planning an intervention at some point.

So you’re all caught up when I tell you that hearing him bang away at four in the morning is nothing new. I know what it means and, since it is nightly, I know how to handle it. That’s what I did.

Hearing those bars rattle will wake me from the deepest of sleep. It stuns my system like an alarm clock you’ve gotten used to. I heard them and, as I normally do at 4 in the morning, I called out to him.

Lucas… no. Too early. Go to bed.

Rattle… rattle… rattle…

Lukey! Bed! I’m serious. Head on the pillow!

Still, he persisted.

At this point, I went to phase two. That’s physically getting up, walking down the hallway, and telling him, to his face, “Go to bed.” Even then, he’ll often stare me down and bang the gate. I expected that.

My eyes weren’t fully open. I had struggled to sleep that night, and this early wake-up didn’t fit well for me. I was stumbling and my vision was blurry.

To his credit, Lucas was turning to go back to bed. As he did, he was motioning for the music box he had tossed into the hallway. I reached down to hand it to him.

That’s when I saw it.

What did I see?

I had no earthly idea.

He was splattered from head to toe. His pajamas, which were blue, now had a graffiti pattern all over them. My fuzzy brain was like, “Oh, he must have bought new ones overnight.”

I’m sure you’re guessing all sorts of horrendous things, like I did when I finally realized what I was looking at. As a special needs parent, I’ve seen it all. But this is the part where we flip the script.

It was white.

Yeah. My brain tried to adjust to the sight. Why was there white all over my son? Oh, and apparently also all over the bed and the blinds. His cup was covered in it.

This must still be a dream, right?

No.

At this point, my half-asleep brain was three-quarters awake. It went in this order.

Did I leave a can of white paint in here?

No. That’s ridiculous.

Did he have a cup of milk that went sour and exploded?

No. He doesn’t drink milk, and that’s even more ridiculous than the paint.

Did he squeeze a tube of moisturizer?

That made the most sense and, as the third thought, confirmed that I was thinking normally again. Alas, no. It wasn’t that.

With my head back on track, I finally focused. There it was. The culprit.

The freakin’ banana.

For Christmas, Santa brought a giant squishy banana for Lucas’s stocking. It looked very much like the one that his dad won from the crane game at the supermarket three weeks prior.

Lucas had taken to sleeping with it in his bed. At some point, he either squeezed it too tight or rolled over on it, and the thing popped… all over everything.

The stuff inside shot out like moisturizer but seemed to harden like light spackle. It was all over him. His hands, his face, and even his eyelashes had this white oobleck garbage in it. I felt so bad for him.

And then I remembered, even with this massive disaster all around him… he was going back to bed because I told him to.

My heart broke, and suddenly, his dad went from demanding he go back to sleep to rubbing his back and saying he’s sorry.

This is autism appreciation in action.

Think about it.

How many times do you hear about how demanding a boy like mine can be? That 4 AM cage rattling is the tale most would lead with. It’s demanding and it’s persistent. It’s hard for me.

And sure, the things that Lucas loves, he loves. But when it comes to making an issue over something like this, he’ll just go back to bed because his father said to.

It shows the trust and love that he has for me. It also shows an innocence and selflessness that I can’t even begin to wrap my head around.

There’s a lesson in that.

Because he trusts me so deeply, I can never afford to dismiss him. Even when I’m tired, even when it’s inconvenient, even when I think I already know what’s happening, I have to be present. Always.

As I changed his sheets and scrubbed his blinds, I blamed myself a bit. Those without a kid like mine will immediately tell me that I did nothing wrong.

Those who have a kid like mine are probably shaking their heads and saying, “I’d have known that banana was getting popped.”

Hey. Lay off.

Stories like this are best shared with those who can appreciate them. That’s why I ran to write it down while it was still fresh.

There’s no one like my son.

It’s moments like this that remind me of that.

If this story resonated with you, I talk more about what changed after my son realized I was really listening on this week’s episode of
Hi Pod! I’m Dad.