James Guttman: 0:15

I want apples. It is a digital book. It's available everywhere. It's a long time coming. I'm very excited and for those of you who are listening to this on Spotify, I need a place for you to find your podcast. Thank you. But also, he's not just Ty Dad, he's my dad. You can see James Gutman.

James Guttman: 0:40

This is the first week recording video of the podcast. Apparently, people do this, so I decided to do it. Yeah, I got to make a few notes. Make sure I don't grab my microphone with my hands nervously for some bizarre reason. But yeah, you can find this on YouTube. I'm trying to figure out all the ways we can do this.

James Guttman: 1:02

But one of the things that I liked the most about it was that I got the opportunity now to share videos and share clips of some of the things that we talk about here. I got Lucas running around all behind me. There's a lot going on. It's an exciting, exciting week. I want to do more video. That's probably one of the big reasons. Here is because I've talked about it before and I'll talk about it again, especially with this book coming out.

James Guttman: 1:25

The whole idea of what I do here and what I write about is autism appreciation, and the idea is that there are parts of my son's personality that are beautiful because of, and not despite, autism, and I know it sounds crazy every time I say that, but that's the way it's always portrayed when you watch it in media. Right, lookie, come here. It's portrayed that like this kid right here is going to. He handed me his cup, he wants some water, and now you can see it. It's always portrayed in a way that a boy like my son has to do something in the end that makes everyone proud in this world, whether he catches a touchdown, whether he's prom king, whether he does something amazing. He knows math, he knows science, he knows something that makes everyone clap and applaud and at the end of the day, I feel like my son doesn't have to do anything. Lucas is Lucas. Lucas is quintessentially Lucas. He's himself 100%. He feels, he believes in the things that he believes. He feels things. His emotions are stronger than anybody I've ever met. They burn brighter than anyone I've ever met in my life. And that's not an exaggeration, that's not anything. That's real. Lucas doesn't mask anything.

James Guttman: 2:39

I wrote a blog last year called my Nonverbal Son Can't Fake a Smile, and it's so true. Even now I'm like look, smile, smile, smile. I mean don't smile, smile. And he's like I'm like okay, no, smile. And when he was little I used to get upset about that. I used to be like, oh, I can't get any pictures of this kid. I used to tell people all of our pictures are candid and they kind of are. To take one smiling picture of Lucas, you either have to get him in a happy state, and even then sometimes it's picture, picture, picture, picture, picture. To get the one, you know, there'll be a picture of him with a big glowing smile. And what people don't realize is that we have to go through all these different shots of his head moving and him looking around.

James Guttman: 3:20

Lucas doesn't fake anything, which to me is one of the most beautiful aspects of his personality. I know what he's feeling. I know how he is. If he's happy, he smiles. If he's sad, he cries. And when he cries he cries real tears. He doesn't cry to manipulate. He doesn't cry to get something. He doesn't want anything, nothing. He just wants to be him. He's never asked for a food he didn't want. He doesn't want anything, nothing, he just wants to be him. He's never asked for a food he didn't want. He's never asked for pizza, and then when I give him the pizza, he doesn't eat it and he goes well, you wanted me to have this pizza. No, he wants what he wants. He doesn't ask for anything else. He doesn't understand it. He doesn't understand manipulation. He doesn't understand ego. He doesn't bully. I don't know man. My kid is just the purest soul I've ever met and one of the reasons I want to have him on video and kind of show people a little bit more.

James Guttman: 4:10

I talked about this before when I wrote the Huffington Post article about two months ago now, almost two a month and a half ago. I wrote about not wanting a cure for his autism, and that's 100%. I still feel that way. I mean it, and I got a lot of positive feedback. But I did get some feedback from people who seemed to assume that my son's autism was high functioning or different than it was, because in the minds of many I couldn't possibly say I don't want to cure for my son's autism unless it required little to no work on my part. It does require a lot of work on my part. In fact, people would come back to me with this laundry list of things. Have you ever met a family who had a kid who did this, this, this, this, and I'm like, yeah, me, me, me, me, me. I do all of those things for my son and I still don't want to cure for my son's autism. I want him to be him. Lucas is him. Lucas is himself. Lucas is perfect the way he is. So my goal in doing some of these videos and showing you the family a little bit more, so people can get an idea of who he is and the reality of our situation and how you can have a situation where for a lot of people this would be kind of a worst case scenario and for us it's perfect, it's who we are, it's what we have in our life. Lucas has been like this since we met him and we love him. So I don't want to change him. I don't want a different kid. I don't want your kid, you know, I want my own kid.

James Guttman: 5:36

So I write this book and I tell you the stories about him and I'm going to hold it up here for the camera If you're not watching it. That's where it is. High World, I'm Dad, is our story right? So I talk about the discovery of him having autism, coming to grips with it, accepting it, understanding it. I talk about my own personal heart surgery, which it was always amazing to me.

James Guttman: 6:00

Whenever I tell the story to people, that's always the big part of it is that I obsessed about his diagnosis. I obsessed with the concern and the worry of you know, what's this going to mean for our family? What's it going to mean for Lucas? What happens if he never speaks? How are we ever going to get through it?

James Guttman: 6:14

And I thought about it nonstop, day in, day out, over and over again, until the day I had a heart attack. Or I should say, the day that I had the heart attack, that I actually went to the walk-in center, for I had been having heart attacks for years, not even realizing it, fred Stanford, just walking around, like you know, it's the big one. And I went to the walk-in center and I found out I had a having quintuple bypass and it completely rocked my world. I was 35. I wasn't morbidly obese, I was not obese, I was just a guy. And I was told by the doctor those guys who walk around totally healthy and then they drop dead at 40, that was going to be you. Well, now I'm years removed from 40 and I'm alive.

James Guttman: 6:59

But the thing that I realized when I went into the hospital, for that was that, this obsession that I had about my son and will he speak and will he do these things that thing that I couldn't stop thinking about. I stopped thinking about and I focused entirely on my heart and I focused entirely on seeing my kids again, olivia and Lucas, and getting back to them and getting back to the life that I was convinced was over. I mean, I was convinced it was over. That's not even. That's not one of those things where, like I was worried about it being, you know, I thought when I was told quintuple bypass that chances are I was going to die, I didn't know anything about it.

James Guttman: 7:33

Like you have to remember, this was brand new. This was not something I had been dealing with, something that I was concerned about, something that anyone ever even talked to me about. This was new. This was a shocking moment for me to wrap my head around and when I came out, I had a new lease on life and a new desire to just be a part of my kids' lives, wholeheartedly, no matter what. I didn't care if Lucas could talk or not, I didn't care what anybody could do, I just wanted my kids. And it was that first day of really, instead of correcting the way he played with his toys and instead going and sitting with him and showing him that I wanted to play with him the way he did, I wanted to understand why was he looking at a glare in the mirror, why was he looking in the windows, why was he doing the clap, why was he doing these different things he was doing? And that was the day that he came over and he gave me a hug and I don't know just changed, changed everything. So that's what this book is about. This book is about discovering that.

James Guttman: 8:29

This book is about what autism appreciation means. I've talked about it before. How blessed I am that I had a chance to do this now. Had I written this book when I first pitched it back in 2017, when this blog first began this would have been a different book. It would not have been as concrete about autism appreciation as it is. It would have been a lot more, I think, standing against people. Don't pity me. That was the big one. Don't pity me. I don't want your pity. I get very upset about not having people pity me. It's very similar to autism appreciation, but it's different in so many ways and I'm glad that I had the opportunity to write the book now, when I feel this way and share it with you guys.

James Guttman: 9:08

And I got to tell you the response, even just in the weeks leading up to this or just in the years of writing this blog, has been overwhelming. You know, I came from a different world. I came from a world where I wrote about pro wrestling. I've written about all different things and I'm used to an audience that sometimes can be a little aggressive and abrasive. And if you I said it before, I'll say it a million times man, try writing a wrestling article and accidentally saying that Rick Martel fought Jake the Snake at WrestleMania 6 instead of 7, and someone will write you an email telling you you are the stupidest person that ever existed. So I was waiting for these crazy emails of people you're a kid, this and that I was like what am I going to do? What am I going to do if somebody says that about my kid? And just like when he was born, just like when he was little, and I was worried about somebody saying something to us in public and am I going to have to fight everybody in this restaurant and preparing myself for these battles that never happened. Those battles never happened either. Nobody really did that. Sure, I've had trolls here and there say this or that.

James Guttman: 10:11

By and large, 99.9% of the feedback to this blog has made me smile and it's made me proud, and it's made me realize that we really made the right choice and putting our story out there and sharing it with everybody. It's done good for the people reading. It's done good, I think, for Lucas, it's done good for me, it's done good for everybody. And when I came out of that hospital after my surgery, that was my goal. My goal was to do right by everyone, to put more good into the world than I was taking out. And I'll tell you, in the last 13 years of my life, I feel like I've strived to do that and hopefully I have, and at the end of the day, I could be proud. I feel like this is my legacy. This is something that I can leave behind for those to see, for people to understand my son, understand our story.

James Guttman: 11:09

Keep in mind too, this is not a guide to how to raise a kid with autism. Here you go, buddy. This is a dead iPad. Oh no, hang on one second, buddy. We're going to finish up. This is a dead iPad. Oh no, hang on one second, buddy. We're going to finish up. This is just our story. So, right here, this is just our story and this is what we do and the stories that I share here. They may relate to you, they may not relate to you. They might be great. They might not be great At the end of the day, though, hang on Now. Normally that would be one of those moments where I just kind of edited it out. But now, you know, dead iPad, you get another iPad. So I'm back, though. We're back with a new iPad, this collection of stories I tell here.

James Guttman: 11:50

I've said from the beginning I'm not an autism parenting expert. I don't know anything about parenting your kid, I know my kid. You might have a different kid. You do have a different kid. I tell you how pure my son's soul is, how wonderful he is, and every once in a while I'll get a parent going my kid isn't like that and I go. That's sad. I don't know, maybe your kid isn't like that. I don't know your kid, I know my kid. So my stories about my kid, these are the stories that I tell. Hopefully you can get some things out of there that you can relate to people all the time. This is just like my grandson, this is just like my son Puts a smile on my face, lets me know that people could take a little bit of our life and apply it to their own.

James Guttman: 12:33

But also, by the same token, it's a collection of stories, and you could read what I've gone through. I don't know, just understand that journey, and I think the journey is different for every single person. But I think, at the end of the day, the one constant and the one thing that I wanted to put out there when I wrote this, and the one thing that I've always talked about, is that it's important to just know your kid and accept your kid, believe in your kid. Not try to change your kid, you know. Granted, teach them, help them, make them the best version of them they can be, but at the end of the day, you know that's who you have. You love them. I love my boy so much.

James Guttman: 13:04

He's um, I don't know. He's just one of the, the two greatest people in my life and I've been so lucky to have that opportunity to have these two kids who you know one is neurotypical, um, one is non-verbal, with autism, and being able to have those separate relationships with the two of them and understand how special it can really be to have that type of a relationship with someone. I mean Lucas and I. There's no words that are needed, I just kind of you know, you make a face, you make a look, you do a hand signal more, or you know, want to eat, you know give me. I mean, I could do these all day long, just keep tapping myself, but we have so many gestures that we use and so many different things that we use that nonverbal has not been an issue for a long time. I mean, granted, don't get me wrong, there's definitely things that I wish we could relate a little bit more, and thankfully we have the communication device and things like that.

James Guttman: 13:58

But it's not the end of the world, and that's what this book was. This, that, but it's not the end of the world and that's what this book was. This book was written by a person who at one point thought it was the end of the world and discovered that it wasn't the end of the world. In fact, him and his sister, they're the center of my world and I'm incredibly lucky to have them. So thank you. Thank you for reading Hi World I'm Dad. Thanks for picking it up, whether you got it on audiobook, digital print, however you found it, please do me a favor, rate it, send me over your thoughts, give a review. Do all that good stuff too. And while you're here, also do me a favor Like subscribe, tell your friends, tell your enemies, tell anybody you've ever met who might want to know something about someone with autism Maybe it's a relative or something like that. Tell them about this book, check it out.

James Guttman: 14:50

I want to do my part to really just share my son with the world and help everyone understand how wonderful this kid is, because I don't know. For a long time it felt like our big secret of how great this kid was. People would look at me and be like, oh, that was Lucas, and I'd be like he's freaking great. You know you can't say that. People are like, oh, he's talking. I go no, he's not talking, he's great, I love that kid. So, yeah, so this is my chance to tell the world that. Thank you. That does it for me. Guys, I'm going to be back. Do me a favor.

James Guttman: 15:16

Highblogomdadcom Monday, wednesdays new blogs. Go there, read them every single week. It's on there, not just on Facebook and Instagram. It is on highblogomdadcom. It is also on highpodomdadcom Every single Friday. This podcast on Spotify, on every single place you find podcasts and, of course, high World Om Dad. This is everywhere Amazon, spotify, audible, you name it. They have High World Om Dad. That's there too. I am on social media at Hi James Gutman Hi James Gutman, h-i, not Hi James Gutman. And yeah, and let's take this journey together. There's so much more to come and so many things I'm excited about. Until next time, james Gutman saying be well, bye-bye, I'm Dad, thank you, I'll see you next time.