YouTube Rockstar

My son got an email yesterday - from YouTube!
They were writing to inform him that his video had received so many hits and positive comments that they would like him to join their AdSense campaign and begin earning money from his posts!!

Here is a link to his video.  PS3 update video  It's received almost 5,000 hits and loads of positive feedback!!

We have completely different reactions - my son and I. When he told me about the email, I was simultaneously not surprised at all (Of course they did. You're a genius with computers. Duh!) and quietly ecstatic (Yay! My son's a genius and I'm so proud of him!). To be outwardly exuberant would have cemented Jackson's never telling me about another accomplishment again. I tried to be stoic about it and it was extremely difficult. And he was brilliant in accepting my praise and adoration despite his almost compulsive resistance to any hugs or physical displays.
His modesty is virtually unshakable regarding his talent because he doesn't see it as the talent that it truly is.

My son simply does not understand why everyone doesn't have the instinctual insight into how computers work that he does. This capacity is so entirely innate in him that to be otherwise would be like asking any other person to think about what it would be like to go through life without the ability to breathe on his or her own.

I hope he pursues this. I hope he makes more videos. I know that he will - do something incredible that will leave me astounded, thoroughly impressed and incredulous as to why I'm surprised by his genius. As well, I know that whatever he does will be on his terms and will be nothing I might have expected, but something that makes complete sense because it will be of his own design - something I never would have conceived and couldn't possibly - because my brain just doesn't run on the same operating system as his. Thank God!

"I feel better"

You just can't imagine how the simple words can change your world. Most clinicians agree that Autistic children don't have the insight or ability to connect a voice with their emotions to enable any communication where feelings are concerned. So when my 15 year-old said, "I feel better" the other day hearing those words was like a dam had broken. Instead of the disastrous flood that was expected, I imagined a parched earth finally inundated with cool, clear water. Growth might finally be possible where it hadn't been before.

"I feel better" was how he described dealing with the stress of having to start high school, moving to a new environment and forgoing the independence and surety of his bike for the unreliable means of a school district bus. After months of pre-transitional stress and weeks of learning new routines, new faces, new issues  - new everything - he 'feels better.'
He's growing up. He's learning to deal with his environment. He understands that he can use the way he feels to discover areas he's uncomfortable with and then resolve to change and manage what he can. As well, he's realized that this applies to relationships as well. He plays with the idea of how his actions affect how others react to him.
For a high school boy - could you really ask any more? Some grown-ups don't even make it this far.

Produce Bag Ties

Taking my son to the market is no fun, but I have to. He's almost 15 and he needs to learn to shop. He wants to push the cart, but refuses to drive as though it were anything but a bumper car ride. He doesn't like to wait while I look and compare. He ALWAYS picks up a handful of bread or produce ties and balls them up. I find them, frazzled, sometimes stripped of most of their paper covering, rusted and frayed in a ball in the dryer. They look like a tiny bunch of barbed wire in the aftermath of a nuclear blast. Normally, beyond obtaining them and destroying them, he keeps them in his pocket and never thinks of them again. But not to get them is impossible. I don't think he's ever left the store without a tie-ball.

He loves the self check aisles. I hate them. He's good at comparison shopping but not so good at thinking about what he needs other than the exact items we came to the store for. Occasionally, he'll ask for some Humus. He always asks for sushi - and Coke - oh and cheese, bagels and butter.