James Guttman: 0:14

Hi Pod, I am Dad. He's not just Hi Dad, he's my dad. James Gutman, just hi dad, he's my dad. James gutman. Folks, james gutman, hi pod, I'm dad. Welcome back to another edition of the podcast. I appreciate you checking us out anywhere you found me. Hi pod, I'm dadcom. All the archives, any streaming service like subscribe, yada, yada, yada. Thank you so much for your support. Thank you for supporting HiBlogImDad. com. Every Monday, every Wednesday, brand new blogs and, of course, Hi World Om Dad.

James Guttman: 0:49

My new book in stores June 19th, available for pre-order now on Amazon, available on Barnes Noble, available on Jessica Kingsley Publishing's website, available pretty much wherever you pre-order books. And I gotta tell you and I've said from the beginning, there is a big announcement to go with this announcement and I'm waiting for when I can tell you guys about it. But I'm very excited about a lot of the things that are happening with this book and a lot of the things that are planned by JKP and by everybody involved. This has really been a great experience getting to write about my life and writing about my son, who is on the cusp of turning 14 years old, which is nuts, and I say that because I think a lot of parents who are in my position, who have nonverbal children or have children with autism or special needs and require all this different care and different help when they're little. You're told that these things are going happen. Your son is gonna need this, and your son might never do that, and you can't imagine what the future is gonna be like. I remember, when he was like four, being scared of six and being six and being afraid of eight, and now he's gonna be 14 years old, which is crazy. I can't even imagine it. So, yeah, and to this day right, there's things about my son's life that have remained difficult, things that I used to tell myself when he was little had to be fixed quote unquote in order to have a good life. And they didn't. And we have a great life, and that's the message, that's the message behind the book, that's the message behind the blog, that's the message behind the podcast here today. I want everybody to understand that things don't have to turn out quote unquote the way they're supposed to, or the perfect way for them to really be perfect. This boy that I have in my house right now is perfect for my life. I love having Lucas in my life.

James Guttman: 2:39

Lucas is going to be 14, but he does not. I don't want to say he doesn't act like a 14 year old, because he does. There's things about him sometimes where he gets to be 14. He likes to be in his room. He'll go in there, he'll close the door. He'll literally walk me through the door and close the door on me if he wants to be by himself or if he wants to like lay down or just watch TV. It's cute and it's adorable. It's very 14, like right, but, and in many ways because of autism. But, and in many ways because of autism, which is the autism appreciation. Lucas is the sweetest 14-year-old boy you'll ever meet. He hugs and he kisses me, he loves me, he loves being around me, he needs me, he wants me around.

James Guttman: 3:15

Coming home today, right, I picked him up after school and we came back to the house and I had bought Reese's Pieces little candy Reese's Pieces so that we can come home and we could sit and we could eat these Reese's Pieces together. And doing that with my 14-year-old nonverbal son is the equivalent of like playing a board game, I guess, or something else it's. We look forward to it. We sit next to each other. He plays on his iPad. I look over, I laugh, I elbow him, you know, on the side, or hey, he laughs. I look forward to that. I get that in my life. He's at an age where some 14 year old boys would still hang out with their parents or whatever. Some don't. My son does. So I count myself lucky and that's a big part of what the book is about, A big part of what this podcast and the blog have always been about, what this podcast and the blog have always been about telling people who we are and what our life is.

James Guttman: 4:09

And it's hard sometimes to really parse it, because I look back right on the early days of my son and think back on the fear that I had and the concern that I had. And now it kind of seems ridiculous because I know who he is, he's fantastic. But I can't in clear conscience go back and pretend that those fears didn't exist just because they make me feel bad now, you know, or somehow make it seem like my life is not, as I don't want to say, wonderful, but like as positive as I put out there, because that's always been the thing that I thought, even from the beginning. Some people think, oh, he's kidding himself. He would much rather have a 14-year-old who plays baseball and watches wrestling and does all the things that a dad should want his son to do. And don't get me wrong If my son loved baseball, I would want him to play baseball. My son, you know, wanted to watch. You know a certain show or a certain thing. I would totally be down with that. But he doesn't, so we don't, and I've had 14 years to get used to who this kid is. So I don't grieve the boy that he should be or the boy that he could be, or the boy that he should be, or the boy that he could be or the boy that he would be if circumstances were different, because I never thought about that boy. I knew from the very early age that more likely than not, the kid who's in my house was going to be the kid who's in my house now. I knew it and I prepared for it and in the end I didn't have to do too much about it because he ended up being great. I got to know him as a person. It did take that moment of kind of I don't want to say letting go, because that implies that there's something to hold on to but that moment of understanding, right, I've written about it, I've talked about it. I think it's talked about in the book too. I'm pretty sure it's talked about in the book too. I'm pretty sure it's talking about in the book.

James Guttman: 6:06

That first day that I sat on that couch and I watched him playing with that little phone toy and if you haven't heard the story, it's really quick, it's really easy. This was years and years ago. He was little and he would play with all his toys inappropriately and it drove me nuts. I used to get upset Come here, come here. No, that's not. Look, we pick up the telephone. We go hello, who's? This? Is this for Lucas? I'm trying to pick up the phone. He's pulling it out of my hand. He doesn't want me to do it, he hangs it up.

James Guttman: 6:42

What he was doing with his phone it was a toy phone on wheels, which is a weird. I don't know who makes these things, but you know what I'm talking about. You've seen the toy. It's a classic toy. They sell it in a little cardboard box looking thing at Target like as a retro thing. And as you pull this little phone, you know it makes like a squeaking noise. I don't think on purpose, I think the wheels just squeak and the eyes open and close, open and close, open and close, and there's a little string, right. That's what this is. If you've seen it, you know it. And what he was doing was taking the phone, putting it under this red chair that we had in the living room, and he would hold onto the string and he would slowly pull it out from under the chair and, as he did, he would look in the mirror to watch it come out. He's watching the glare of it, or the reflection of it, I should say, and I knew, I knew that Lucas had liked glares and reflections.

James Guttman: 7:31

This was an issue that we were dealing with because you know when, when your kid is little, and you're noticing delays, that's one thing. But then you start to notice things that are not necessarily delays, but unique, I guess, is lack of a better term I would call it unique. Now I don't know what I would call it then. I was freaked out then. But you know, these are red flags in your head Like, oh my God, what is he doing? What is he doing? It's one thing not to speak, but it's another thing to like be obsessed with the glare in the window and I would bug out. I'd be like, oh my God, what's going to happen? This is the first day I didn't do that. Right, it was after my heart surgery. I've talked about that. I had a quintuple bypass when I was 35. It was a surprise yeah, no, alan Funds, no, you know, but it was unexpected, I guess you could say and it changed my outlook on everything.

James Guttman: 8:20

My life has changed so much since December 13th, 2012. And this was one of the moments where my life changed. And I'm sitting there and I'm watching him play with the phone. I was like you know what? What would he do? And this goes in my head what would he do if I walked over and I did this with him? Would he let me? Would he know? Would he get it? So I walked over and I sat next to him. I go, hey, and I tell you that I was, I'm tapping like myself and I said, even to this day, I want to ask him something. Hey, hey, give me, I do. I came over and I was like, can I? Hey, let me take the string. And I pulled it out slowly from underneath the red chair and I watched it in the mirror and he watched me watch it in the mirror and then gave me a hug and it was like the hug almost said like oh, you get it. Like he was like so happy to have somebody get it. You know, and that was really the first moment that I can tell you that I felt like I really bonded with my son.

James Guttman: 9:23

Prior to that I didn't think he really knew who I was, and that's terrifying, man. Let's be honest here. This whole book is honest, right? So this podcast is honest, the blog is honest. Let's just. Let's just be honest with each other.

James Guttman: 9:35

I used to be incredibly worried that he didn't know who I was, like really genuinely worried. He didn't know who I was. We had a speech therapist one time the worst speech therapist we ever had, remark that he didn't even look up when people walked into the room and I was the one who walked into the room. She was like he didn't even look up at you. I'm like I know, lady, I know, but worried me. So when school asked to send in pictures of us for him to identify and get to know who they are, I didn't want to know anything about it. I sent in the pictures. I didn't ask about it because my worry was that he wasn't going to know who I was, and I don't mean not know who I was. He knew who I was. I lived in his house, I got him food or whatever, but not know my title and really not care per se, because I still didn't even know if he cared who the people were, as long as they brought him what he wanted.

James Guttman: 10:23

And as a parent, that rips your heart out. You know, you worry about it, you think about it, and this was the first moment where I felt like, oh, he gets it, he knows who I am, he understands that I care about him and I'm here for him and I'm on his side. Now I want to make a point because this is important. I know that all different parents listen to this podcast, and there are some people who have children who do feel the same way, like Lucas does. And there are some people who have kids that they're fearful of might not. There's people who have kids that don't understand who the people are around them.

James Guttman: 10:54

And I'll tell you this, as difficult as it would have been, I knew then, if he never understands me, if he never knows who I am, if he never gets it, I'm going to still do everything for him because he needs somebody to be there for him. I brought him into this world, I gave him this life and, at the end of the day, I love him. And I knew that even if he didn't understand, even if he didn't know me, that didn't mean that he didn't love me and that he loved other people but not me. He might not have understood what that meant. He might not have understood how to show it. There was nothing personal against me. All I knew was that if, in any way, shape or form, even if he was never able to relate it to me, if this kid was able to understand in his head who was there for him and who wasn't there for him, I wanted to be one of those people that he knew was there for him. Right, I might never know. If he knew that, he might never show it to me, he might never tell me.

James Guttman: 11:49

But even if he didn't, the one thing Lucas has taught me from day one you don't say hello to someone you love just to get a hello back. You don't do things for someone you love just to get a thank you. You do it because you love them. And the reason why Lucas taught me that I'm saying from the very beginning was because he was a baby when he first popped out. And with all babies we do that. You love your baby. Your baby doesn't even like look at you. You're like, oh, this kid doesn't. This baby is like freshly baked, doesn't even know what's going on, and you show them love. And Lucas got older and what was different about my son than, I guess, other children in that position was as he got older and he got to that age where kids start to kind of show it back and start to feel better. He still didn't do it and that's when I learned about myself.

James Guttman: 12:36

Oh, I just love my kid. I don't love my kids because they're there for me, they do stuff for me. I'll always love my kids. My daughter is the same way. I have a neurotypical daughter and she's a teenager and we have ups and we have downs and we go all over the place and I love my daughter with all my heart. I don't care what happens, because I just do. She doesn't have to necessarily show it. I'd like her to show it. She should show it Every once in a while. I go, hey, what are you doing? But they're my kids, that's what you do. It's a parent's job. I've always seen it that way. So, yeah, love my son. I love sharing him with you guys.

James Guttman: 13:10

I love writing about him in the blog, which I did this week, if you took a look, I wrote two blogs Monday, wednesday. I told you Every single week, hi blog, I'm dad. On Monday, I wrote about sitting with Lucas during meltdown so that he could stand on his own, and that's been a big thing for me from the beginning. I don't fight with him over a meltdown, I don't lecture hey, get up. What are you doing? It's a big boy thing to do. I mean, maybe your kid. It works on him. It doesn't work on him. What works on lucas is I sit down on the floor, supermarket, miniature, golf, bowling alleys. You sit down. What's the matter, buddy? You're all right. Rub his back, come on, man, let's get up. And I said in the in the blog and I hope you guys read it, you guys understand this, because I know a lot of parents get apprehensive about it no one has ever said, said anything to me Like why are you sitting on the floor? No one has ever once corrected me for sitting on the floor when my son was upset.

James Guttman: 14:00

People walk around you. They don't really interact with you. You know, months and a while you get like somebody, but like for the most part in a good way, but for the most part they leave you alone. They know you're doing something, you're handling your son, you're handling your kid, you're fixing it. Now, if I was ignoring, that's not what we do. Watch out for that lady. And he's banging into people. People don't like that. But if they see that you're working on it and you're trying your best to keep him from interfering with others, they're cool with it and they, you know, they understand, so it's nice. So I wrote about that and kind of my.

James Guttman: 14:31

And the second one was my son has never spoken, but I've learned to hear him loud and clear. And this is you know a lot of what I've talked about here today. That language isn't necessarily just verbal. There's so many ways to show somebody you care and you're there for them. He's shown it to me, I've shown it to him and it's been a great 14 years. So I'm really happy for him. 14 years, so I'm really happy for him. Wow, absolutely insane. My kids are old because you know I'm old. So there you go. Right, what are you gonna do? Thank you once again for checking out I said it before, I'll say it again more announcements about this book coming out.

James Guttman: 15:06

I'm really excited. I want to thank you guys who jumped on. I've heard from so many of you have pre-ordered already. Um, this book is really. This is just a crown. That was don't want to say the crown jewel. I don't get overdramatic with this, but it really is Like for those who don't know, you know, for years I used to have my books just in like kind of a cupboard somewhere, and then, you know, I was divorced a couple of years ago. I have my own place now, so my bedroom. I have the books on the wall. I've written three other books for different publishers on the wall and little shadow boxes. This is the fourth one and this one is truly just the centerpiece. This is everything I ever wanted to do. I'm so grateful for getting to do it and I want to thank you guys for all your help and all your support through the years that have gotten us to where we are. And I'm telling you there is one other big announcement about this book on the way, so I'm excited to share that with you and I'll let you know when it happens, but do me a favor, check it out.

James Guttman: 16:00

Hi World, I'm Dad. How Fathers Can Journey to Autism Awareness, acceptance and appreciation. That's available for pre-order everywhere. Check out this podcast every single Friday Hi pod, I'm dadcom. Hi blog, I'm dadcom. Hi blog, I'm dadcom. Monday, wednesday new blogs and follow me on social media Hi James Gutman. Hi, hi, James Gutman, until next time. This is Hi James Gutman saying be well, bye, pod, I'm dad, we'll see you next time.