James Guttman: 0:00

I want apple juice. Lucas wants apple juice. I know I heard him say that. Can I have apple juice? Yeah, you can have apple juice. Can I have soda? Yes, you can have soda. Can I press that button? No, you can't press that button. Why? Because that's going to play the theme song. I'm not ready to start the...

James Guttman: 0:30

Hi Pod, I am Dad. He's not just Hi Dad, he's my dad. James Guttman! Folks, James Guttman - Hi Pod, I'm Dad. Welcome back to another edition of the podcast's Valentine's Day. It's 2025.

James Guttman: 0:49

Thank you so much for finding me on... Any streaming service means a lot to me. Uh, maybe hipodimdad. com, if you found me there as well. Like subscribe, tell your friends, tell your enemies, tell anybody who will listen to you. Tune in and check it out. Thank you it.

James Guttman: 1:03

It has been a long week, man. We had snow and we had like this craziness my head hurts. You ever have that? Your head just hurts. And what's funny is that I forget that a lot of this is because I guess I'm old. I turned to my daughter one day. We were in the car and I just had a pain like in my arm and I was like ugh, my arm is killing me. I'm like you ever just have like a, like an ache, and you don't even know why. And she looked at me and she's like no. And I'm like oh, yeah, you're 16. And then I kicked her out of the car and I just kept driving and cried inside, so that's what happened. So one of those days, man, I'm just like oh, and I got to tell you, man, the kids they don't help.

James Guttman: 1:43

It's funny because I I read a lot about autism appreciation, about the positivity, but at the end of the day, my kid, lucas, is still a kid, right, so he still does kid things that drive you a little nuts, and even then it sometimes is um, definitely specialized for a non-verbal boy. And he's got this new thing. And I feel bad because before I look at him like no, and he knows that I'm getting upset about it, and he doesn't. I don't know if he can't stop himself, doesn't want to stop himself. Hear me out, let me just. Let me just vent to you a little bit, okay, because I love him. I love he's so sweet and he has sweet faces when he does these things, so it's hard to even be mad at him. It's like you want him to be a jerk, you want to be like I want you to be a jerk as you're doing this thing. That annoys me, so I don't feel bad being annoyed by it, but it makes me feel bad while I'm annoyed as well.

James Guttman: 2:28

So lucas has his ipad, he has a. An amazon fire is his favorite thing and what he does is he goes on youtube and he goes through videos and he watches all his videos and his whole life there have been different times where he's put on videos that sometimes will drive you crazy. He'll watch a video that's not in his language or like. For example, he likes the show Flying Fairy School, right, so he'll watch a Flying Fairy School episode straight from Sesame Street ripped right onto YouTube. But every once in a while he'll find one that somebody, for whatever reason, recorded off of the television and as they're watching it off the television. When I say recorded off the television, I mean holding the iPhone up to their TV and recording a show that he has on YouTube already that he can see. It's just a different version of it and as he's watching this second hand video, there's somebody in the background kind of making noises and that's the thing that he'll like. Go back and rewind and watch again you'll hear somebody in the background be like hey, and I'm like, is that what you're watching? So things like that have been kind of like. Well, lately he's been driving me kind of nuts where for the longest time he would come to me with his iPad when he would get lost on YouTube. Right, so he'll start watching videos and then from there he'll go to the recommended videos and then he'll watch one of those and then we'll go to another recommended video. Before you know it he's down a rabbit hole on YouTube and he's all over the place.

James Guttman: 3:50

Well, lucas only likes what Lucas likes. He's not really big on discovering new things. It's very rare Lucas will come to you with a nursery rhyme you haven't heard of or a video that you didn't know existed. It's always something he's seen already, or a Sesame Street or a Wiggles. So what he does is he comes to me with his iPad and he will have me go to the search bar. Right, and I learned a long time ago the search bar should be Flying Fairy School. That is what he wants. He wants to watch it. It's from Sesame Street, abby Cadabby, flying Fairy School. It's almost like a claymation style. I think it's claymation really. Pixar, I think I'm dating myself with that uh video.

James Guttman: 4:25

And so I'll go and I'll search for flying fairy school and he goes through them and he watches them.

James Guttman: 4:29

Well, lately he's been almost immediately.

James Guttman: 4:32

He'll start watching them and if he can't find, what he'll do is scroll through them. Right, you put on flying fairy school and he starts scrolling through the videos, looking for a recommendation out of those that he wants to watch. So he'll come and find me and have me put on Flying Fairy School and scroll through, and if he does not find the video that he wants, he will press the search button again and hand it back to me. Now, once he presses the search button, he can't do anything because he can't spell, right, so he's not typing anything in. And it will happen repeatedly, over and over again, and I'm getting mad. I over and over again, and I'm getting mad. I'm like dude, stop, you have to stop doing this, stop. I'm doing no, no, no. And then he'll do no, no, no, back to you and hand me the iPad and stand there sad, and if I leave he'll bang on his gate. If he's in his room or if I'm somewhere else, he'll chase me around and as he's doing it, it drives you crazy.

James Guttman: 5:23

But yeah, and I got to tell you you're talking about autism appreciation. Somebody hears that story and they go oh, that's hard, is it? He's 13. It could be a lot harder, couldn't it? It is a lot harder for some people out there. So in that respect, man, I count my blessings. I have a great kid. If this is the most annoying thing that he does, then hooray. I mean most annoying thing that he does, but it's definitely one of the most persistent things he does and at the end of the day he makes up for it and all of his other actions.

James Guttman: 5:55

And what am I talking about? I'm talking about literally the two things I wrote about this week on HiBlogImDad. com. I started on Monday and I wrote about why I never push away my son with autism's inconvenient hugs. This is something I've talked about before, kind of as an aside, as part of a story, but I haven't really focused on it which is that Lucas is one of the most loving people I've ever met in my life.

James Guttman: 6:13

And Lucas also doesn't really I don't say register, but he doesn't focus on the things going on around us if they're negative especially so he might spill an entire box of cereal down the stairs and, as I'm cleaning them up, come over and give me hugs and kisses as I'm doing it. There's no sense in his head of like, oh, wow, I just knocked all the cereal on the floor. My dad has to clean it up. This must be hard for him. No, he's just like I would like to give this man a hug right now. Just gives me a hug. Now some people hear that and they go oh, is he hugging you because you're cleaning up the cereal? No, he's just hugging me. That's what he does.

James Guttman: 6:47

Lucas is a loving sweet boy and the reason why he's a loving sweet boy is because when he comes over to give me the hug as I'm cleaning up the cereal that he spilled down the stairs, I don't push him away, I don't get mad at him, I don't go. No, no, we don't hug. You know there's people who will definitely do that kind of stuff to people. I'm not one of them and I'm also aware of the fact that if I do that he's not gonna hug anymore. It's gonna slowly be something he doesn't do. So I kind of share that with everybody and I can't tell you for sure how your kid is, whether your kid has autism or not doesn't even make a difference. Lucas is unlike anybody else, whether they're on the spectrum or not.

James Guttman: 7:24

I wrote about this a few weeks ago. Lucas is himself. He's unique. But what I learned with him is that if you encourage him to be the person you want him to be, he will make an effort to be that person right. So Lucas is a sweet boy.

James Guttman: 7:39

If I stopped him, if I try to teach him every day, don't do the hey, this is, we don't hug now. It's not appropriate right now. We don't hug now, it's not appropriate right now. We don't hug, he wouldn't do it anymore. He'll just stop. Now I do teach him that if you don't want to hug, like if it's an inconvenient time, if I'm driving the car, let's say like I'm driving and he's in the front seat and he wants to like, grab me or hug me, he knows not to do that and that's something that took a little while to teach him how to do. As we hit a light, I put my arm around him, I give him a hug, kiss him on the top of the head, tell him he's a good kid. I encourage it. I want him to be that person. I want him to be this beacon of sunlight in the world, because there's not a lot of that. Man, people are a little. Eh, people can be what they are and that's a lesson that I've taught throughout man, my daughter the other day we were talking about, she's on this kick now.

James Guttman: 8:27

She wants to find another job. She worked briefly last year, which is crazy because I don't know, she's a baby, right, she's a little baby. She's a 16 year old baby and she wanted to get a job. And I told her, I said you have to call these places and ask them if they're hiring. She didn't. You know, my friends say the job they're at. If somebody calls for a job, they don't even take the message or they'll throw away the resume. And I looked, I said, yeah, probably. I'm like that happens, dude. I'm like, but you can't always expect it to happen Like. I'm going to be honest with you In the world people can be pretty crappy, but if you assume that the world is full of crappy people, you're going to miss out on a lot of opportunities. You got to take the risk, you got to put yourself out there and she did, and we ended up calling a place and the person on the phone was nice to her and took her name and number and it was, it was legit. So that made me happy. So the same thing with her, same thing with him. I encourage them to be the people I want to be, be the change you want to be in we do.

James Guttman: 9:22

And then on Wednesday, just to show you I'm not just exaggerating, I wrote about a secondary thing about Lucas, again, autism. That makes him a sweet boy. Lucas doesn't lie. Lucas can't lie, and I know when I say that people will be like, well, he's nonverbal, of course he can't lie. And yeah, I get it. Smart guy, I understand what you're saying. Not just verbally. Lucas doesn't make any attempt to deceive at all, right, not just verbally. Lucas doesn't make any attempt to deceive at all, right.

James Guttman: 9:51

And the example I gave was something that literally happened last week. I was downstairs in like the den in the basement of my house and I heard stomping on the main floor and I'm like what is happening up there? I thought it was my daughter, I thought she was getting food and I come up the stairs and there's lucas with pasta roni on the floor, a handful, handful of pastaroni. He ate most of it. He had gone into the fridge. He had taken pastaroni out of Tupperware. He had eaten it with his hands. Some was on the floor, a lot of the remnants of it was on his face and the rest, I guess, was in his body. He was done devouring it and he turned and he saw me and his eyes kind of got wide and he looked at me and he slowly handed me his iPad because the battery had died.

James Guttman: 10:29

And I sighed and I went come on, buddy, and I brought him upstairs, got him ready for bed. He went right to bed. That's what he wanted the whole time anyway. But I didn't get mad at him. And one of the reasons why I didn't get mad at him, at least in that moment moment, is because he not only did he show me, he did the no, no, no with his hands, but there was really no point to it. At the end of the day he made a mistake. He did something he knew he wasn't supposed to do. We've already hammered home the whole don't take food out of the fridge and run around the house with it lesson. But Lucas didn't lie. Lucas doesn't try to hide it. He didn't cover up the food on the floor. He didn't try to push me out of the room so I didn't see it.

James Guttman: 11:10

Lucas is just Lucas. He's not deceitful, he doesn't know how to be deceitful and that is, honest to God, one of the most beautiful and wonderful things about his personality. It's something people don't talk about, something people don't think about. It's something they don't tell you when they start to lecture you about vaccinations and all these things to be afraid of when you have a baby, oh, be careful with him. He'll get autism. He'll be the sweetest, you know, most honest boy in the world. That's what I got. I have the sweetest, most honest boy in the world. And again, autism appreciation. It's not despite autism, it's because of autism. That's what makes him who he is. It's such a major part of his personality. It's something that sounds so beautiful and so wonderful, and I think the fact that most people can't understand it speaks volumes about neurotypical people. We don't get it. We don't understand how does, how, do you live a life and not deceive people? It's possible. My kid doesn't. It's a beautiful thing. So I wrote about that on Monday. I really like getting to do that too. This is the greatest thing that's ever happened in my life. I'm going to be honest with you Not just having Lucas as my son, not having kids and being a father, but getting the opportunity to write about it has been I don't know.

James Guttman: 12:29

Sometimes I still expect to wake up. I had a doctor's appointment today new doctor we sat, we talked a little bit about the autism writing. He was asking questions and then, all of a sudden, I mentioned that I used to write about wrestling and I always forget if I ever mentioned that I used to write about wrestling. I either find out that they don't like wrestling at all, which is rare, or they know everything about wrestling and there's a million questions and stories and I met Scott Hall one day and just like a lot of things to talk about and even just going back and talking about wrestling. I love wrestling, I love the work that I did, I love the job that I got to do for years, but nothing, nothing compares to what I do today. Nothing compares to the writing that I get to do for years, but nothing, nothing compares to what I do today. Nothing compares to the writing that I get to do. Nothing compares to the way I feel when I create one of these posts where I get to share my son with the world where I get to help people who maybe are dealing with a struggle that they're not really understanding.

James Guttman: 13:21

My goal ever since December 13th 2012, when I had my quintuple bypass, was to leave more good into this world than I take out of it, and I feel like I've done that. I've done that kind of with and with humility too. I'm going to admit to you. I do this every day and I never even think about anybody reading it. I do it because I need to do it. I like to do it. I like to talk about my kid.

James Guttman: 13:50

I feel like most people won't understand, lucas, if I just sit there and start talking about it like I'm doing now, like if you were sitting in front of me and you don't know anything about autism, you would stop me and be like oh, he didn't. Oh, he ate all the pasta roni, and then I feel bad and then I don't want to talk about it anymore. I feel weird. Getting to write about him, getting to do these podcasts, getting to have a one-sided conversation where I tell everyone the wonderful things about my son, is a dream come true for me, and if nobody ever reads it, it's therapeutic in a sense that I just get to get these stories out, share them, tell people, explain it. The fact that people read it and the fact that people can get people read it, and the fact that people can get something from it, the fact that they could share it with their friends who maybe don't understand autism. Maybe they could share it with their spouses, who are struggling with it and they're trying to get past it, and all this stuff that makes it even like 10 times more. So, yeah, it's a big deal, guys. It's a very big deal. So I'm excited. I'm excited to share so much more of it.

James Guttman: 14:49

Um, I think I think the final cover for the book came in this week. I will give you guys more. Again, I keep saying I'll give you more information and I hope you don't think that I'm just pushing it off. Pushing it off, but I don't know. I feel uneasy about it. I'm not really ready, until they're ready to release the cover, to tell everybody everything, but let me assure you to tell everybody everything, but let me assure you, things are fantastic. They're moving along. I'm excited. I've been talking to people all week about this and uh and yeah, 2025 is gonna, it's gonna be a great year.

James Guttman: 15:21

So do me a HiBlogImDad. com, go to . Follow along with the blogs there. Please let me know if you read it. Drop me a line. Go to the contact page. Follow me on social media. @HiJames Guttman, let me know. I'd love to know what you think about it. It's uh, it's really. This is my, my life's work and uh, and I don't know like I, I hesitate to say it's my masterpiece, because I consider my, my kids, to truly be my masterpiece, but sharing them with you is is beyond a dream come true for me. So thank you, thank you for listening, thank you for reading, thank you for paying attention and thank you so much for the last eight years on Going Strong. So thank you. That does it for me, guys, until next time. This is James Guttman saying be well, bye pod, I'm dad, thank you, I'll see you next time.