Taking the Scenic Route

Like Father, Like Son

(In order to understand why this is funny, you need to understand the concept of delayed echolalia.)

We are being interviewed by the communications/media person from his main therapy place because they are wanting to do an article on Zane for their newsletter.  Over the last few weeks she has been sitting down (or walking around) and talking to us about Zane.  One of the days I was not able to come and she tried to interview just Zach.  Now, Zach isn’t exactly Mr. Talkative as a rule, and this time she was asking more abstract questions than she had been.  One in particular is a few variations of “What would you tell somebody who is where you were a year ago (before we started therapies)”.  Zach said he asked what she meant, and after a while, just said something to the effect of “I don’t know”.  Now, the funny part:  Today he relayed to me that the reason he was having such a difficult time answering the question is because all the phrases running through his head as he searched for how to say what he wanted to say were ad slogans (like “just do it”, or “try it for 30 days and if you aren’t completely pleased, ask for your money back”) and movie lines.  He didn’t have the time/energy to chop those phrases up and translate them into a more novel language.  Yeah….wonder where Zane gets it from?  hmmm.   lol. 

Along those same lines, today at preschool Zane started getting really upset when they were putting together little booklets from the story Who Sank the Boat.  As the main clinical educator came over to help navigate the problem, after some investigation, she discovered the student had put the animals in a slightly different order and the student wondered whether or not that might be the problem. Um. Ya-think?  Anyway, the main teacher helped give Zane words and fix the problem and all was well in the end, but it was used as a teaching moment at the end of the day for the students working in the preschool.  As she was explaining how important it is to maintain sequences and patterns for kids like Zane…that kids with that level of intelligence and pattern perception are going to see patterns where the rest of us totally miss and for young kids, it is really important to recognize that they see something you don’t.  She used her conversation with Zach that morning to illustrate her point.  Apparently, when she was talking to him this morning when he dropped off Zane, he made an offhand remark that “thats a cool pattern”.  She was looking all over the room to try and figure out what he was talking about as she asked him what he meant.  He said “the kids”, and she still couldn’t figure out what he was talking about and asked again.  He said “look..the kids are sitting on the benches 1 per bench, 2 per bench, 1 per bench, 2 per bench…all around the semicircle.”  The point is that Zach, like Zane, lives in a world where his brain automatically sees patterns that just zip on by the rest of us.

On a serious note, it is the similarities in how Zach and Zane think that make me know it is all going to be ok.  Zane is, in many ways, just an exaggerated version of Zach.  He has some of my sensory things thrown in there to make things interesting, but at his core, he is very much like Zach.  It is things like the extremely high visual perception, intelligence, and pattern recognition that makes Zach so incredibly good at what he does.  Because of this gift, he is able to hold entire large scale programs in his head and navigate around in them when others get lost.  It is that gift that allows him to be introduced to a new programming language one day, and hyper-learn it to the point he can teach it, and teach it very, very well, within a week.  It that skill that lets him make connections between things that almost nobody else can see, and to make leaps that seem impossible for others, but effortless for him.  He has the most amazing mind and spirit of any person I have ever had the privilege to know, and my son is, thankfully, very much like him.  I am so blessed. 

Now, a few pictures.

Sometimes it is good to be behind on cleaning up.  The box got destroyed in the rain and I was going to pull it and put it in the trash.  Glad I didn’t get to it yet.

He made this “Safari Vest” in his Literacy playgroup today and wanted to wear it around the yard.

Zane had been in the backyard for a while, and after I read Zora a dozen or so books, I was up and getting laundry.  I heard giggling and popped my head around the corner to see this. 

That was a mess to clean up, but it was really cool to see them interacting through the window.  So worth the few minutes with a hose later.