James Guttman: 0:14

Hi Pod, I am Dad. He's not just Hi Dad, he's my dad, james Gutman. Folks, it's James Gutman, hi Pod, I I'm dad. Welcome back to another edition of the podcast. I appreciate you, uh, checking us out on audible, spotify, anywhere you find podcasts. This is where you find this highpodondadcom all the archives dating back to 2019. Maybe you found me on youtube. You can see see me at HiBlogI'mDad. Tons of great content, tons of great stuff to share with you, thank you. Thank you so much for all your support. Thank you for I don't know man just making life grand, and it's been really good. So I appreciate all the support.

James Guttman: 0:57

I hesitate to say perfect, and there's a reason why. And if you read highblogomdadcom, where all the blogs have been going up Monday, wednesday, every week since February of 2017. This week I wrote a blog about it. That it's kind of funny because at first I wasn't even expecting to write a blog this week. I had kind of a busy week. I'm like, should I write something? I don't know? And it's getting closer and closer on Tuesday kind of a you know, burning the midnight oil, as they say getting closer and closer to the release date of the blog and I'm like you know what I'm going to write. Whatever's in my head, we'll see what happens and take you behind the scenes a little bit.

James Guttman: 1:35

Whenever I write these blogs, I always do them either the day before or maybe two days before. At most. It's very rare that I write something in advance. So when I do these blogs, I sit down, I start writing about whatever's in my head and in some cases it's a struggle. The goal is to do 900 words. That's the idea. Sometimes a little less, sometimes a little more. You don't want to be too stringent on how many words there are, but when I used to write for Cameo come here, bud, say hi. Who are you voting for? Vote for Pedro. Guys, it's Lucas. Come down and say hi, come down, look, look. Can you see Hi? All right, if you're on YouTube, you can see Lucas right now, which is fantastic. So get on YouTube.

James Guttman: 2:18

But what I'm saying is I sit down. My goal is to write 900 words. Right, when I used to write for magazines I wrote for Pro Wrestling, illustrated different wrestling magazines the goal was always 900 words. That was considered an article. So when I first started doing the blog, that was the idea 900 words. So if I sit down and I start writing and I get to like 400 and I feel done, I throw it out, which I think sounds insane.

James Guttman: 2:44

And if you knew how many things I've deleted, that I've written like almost the full thing of, you would be surprised, because I know that it's a topic that maybe I don't have enough for. Maybe it's something that could be useful elsewhere, in another topic I'm talking about. But every once in a while I'll sit down, I'll start writing and I'll be surprised by how quickly I'm like like just the words come out and just the things I have to say come out. And that's what happened this week. It was Tuesday. I sat down, I said, let me see if I'm going to write something, and I started writing about Lucas, and a lot of the writing that I do is kind of stream of consciousness Whatever's in my head, get it out, get it on the keyboard. And as I was writing about him, my goal was to write about an angle on being a dad with my son, and that's fine. I don't even remember what the original angle was, but it wasn't this, and what it turned into was an idea of what perfect means. Lucas is perfect Kid you just met is perfect.

James Guttman: 4:05

No-transcript he get. I don't know, I didn't get grades Okay. Well, what sports is he in? Doesn't really do sports, although yesterday I tried to record it too he and I started playing the basketball game. Downstairs in my basement I have one of those arcade basketball things and that was sweet. It was funny. At first he was just kind of like he just drops it. I'm like, oh, buddy, take his hand, kind of throw it up there getting him to do it, but I'm not doing it to get him to win a basketball tournament. We're not doing Teen Wolf or whatever. Basketball thing is more apropos now it's Air Bud or whatever. I don't know what basketball movies are anymore and a lot of my references are from the 80s. So forgive me, but we did it, we played basketball, we did that. But that's not what makes him perfect. He's not the perfect basketball player and, to be honest with you, I don't think he likes it at all. So we're not jumping on that.

James Guttman: 5:06

Perfect is not a thing that everyone decides, right, and that's the whole idea. Nobody's perfect. I get it and I get why people say it, because to them perfect means flawless. It means every single box is checked. Everything wonderful about their lives is wonderful, but to me, perfect is a case to case basis. It's what I personally view as perfection, or somebody who perfectly fits into my life, and in that respect Lucas is perfect. Lucas is perfect because the most important things to me he does. You know, it's not really important to me if you could sing or if you could do math or if you can write something. I don't care about any of that stuff. To me, what makes you perfect is being a good person, it's treating others well, it's to be loving and caring and understanding and just somebody who brings light into my life. That's what is perfect to me. That you start thinking like, yeah, no, I get it, I feel the same way, but it's really what else is there? Because, if not for my definition of perfect, nothing is perfect. I agree with you Nobody is perfect.

James Guttman: 6:09

When I was a kid, I had a book called Nobody is Perfect, right, and it was purposely spelled wrong and it was cute and it was tongue in cheek and it's to combat that idea that I think a lot of kids have and a lot of people have. That kind of keeps you chasing this idea of perfection for so long. So they go nobody's perfect, don't worry about it. Just do you, do you? What I'm saying is everybody's perfect to somebody. Everybody's perfect to somebody who cares about them and loves them. I love my son and I care about Lucas, and to me, lucas is perfect. He fits perfectly into my life. He plays the perfect role of a son. The things that make him special and beautiful make him perfect to me.

James Guttman: 6:57

So I wrote about it and it feels good to write about it. It feels good to write about autism appreciation, like I did in High World I'm Dad book available on Amazon. I do not oversell this to you, so forgive me, I forget about it. Sometimes I'm like, oh, I should sell this book. It's on Amazon, it's everywhere, it's an audio book, it's all across the world. If you get a chance to listen to it, to read it, you will hear what I have to say Autism appreciation, which is what I write about and what the blog is about. What the podcast is about and what the book is about is the idea that there are beautiful things about this kid's personality.

James Guttman: 7:31

Come here, buddy, I'm talking about you. You're going to tell me everything that show everybody how to use this. What do you want? This is when he asked me, for I bet you it's food. Let's see if it's food. I bet you it's food. Go ahead, bud, do it. What do you got here? What is it? Watch, this fake food. I want pizza. You can't let me do he. Just, he just ate. He just ate. Um, yeah, but you'll get, you'll, okay. Um, we'll give him pizza after we're done. We're just a few minutes. Hey, just wait one second, bud. We'll be all done in a second, I promise. Um, I'm probably not gonna give him pizza. It's getting ridiculous.

James Guttman: 8:10

Um, but the idea is, uh, there are parts of of Lucas's personality that are beautiful because of autism, the fact that he doesn't have an ego, the fact that he doesn't try to talk me in circles, the fact that he doesn't try to hide anything, and when he does, it's so obvious what he's doing. He doesn't even try to hide it at all. I'll walk into a room and he's trying to get a cookie he's not supposed to be getting, and he'll just stop there holding it. I go room and he's trying to get a cookie he's not supposed to be getting and he'll just stop there holding it. I go what are you doing, bud? And he goes. That's what he's done. If you're listening. You missed it. I was just doing a slow motion movement of a cookie to his mouth. Yeah, lucas does not. He's not a bs-er, if that's the right term. I'm not gonna curse needlessly, but he's not. With lucas, what you see is what you get and what. What you see is fantastic. He's a great kid.

James Guttman: 8:54

So I write about autism appreciation. I write about how he's perfect and I know that there are people out there that think I'm just kidding myself. You know, oh, this is a dad who ended up with a nonverbal kid and he's just trying to make the best of it and he's got all these things to worry. And people will come back to me too and they'll be like you just think it because you don't have to do this for him and you don't have to worry about that for him. I worry about everything with Lucas A lot of the missteps, a lot of the missed milestones that people associate with profound and severe autism.

James Guttman: 9:28

That's in our life. There's a lot of things I do for my son that by 14, people have long since abandoned doing for their kids. Lucas requires work on my part as his dad to help him, to show him, to teach him. Buddy, I've saved your life, like five times today, and he'll actively be crying and fighting me to run back into the street back then. It was a tough, tough upbringing, but you get the idea. So all these things happen, all these things are a part of our lives and yet still I appreciate and I tell you how perfect he is and it's not kidding myself and it's not making up a story and it's not a silver lining. My son is perfect because I get him.

James Guttman: 10:22

What you see is what you get with Lucas.

James Guttman: 10:25

You know he is who he is. He's not duplicitous, he doesn't hide his intentions. I mean it's complicitous. He doesn't hide his intentions. I mean he is a breath of fresh air in a world of smog. I can't even begin to explain it. And that's my goal and that's why I do these podcasts and that's why I do the blog and that's why I wrote the book available on Spotify, audiobook, all that stuff. I want to share it with the world. I don't feel like enough people really know it. I feel like people get it, they think they get it and then sometimes they don't. And I understand that sometimes and I'll write a blog about him, but I, wonderfully, is how. I wouldn't change him for anything.

James Guttman: 11:08

And some of the comments are like, oh, praying for you, they'll find a cure. And it sucks because I don't want to get offended by it and I don't. And you want to tell yourself this person's coming from a good place. I get it. But there's a voice in my head when I read that that goes you got more work to do, you got to help people understand. Because if you knew this kid, I mean you'd get it. You'd be like, oh, there's a lot to deal with. But I feel like everybody is a lot to deal with. I've been around people who are a lot to deal with, who don't have the loving and just, kind and beautiful nature that my son does. So, yeah, lucas is perfect in every possible way. He's a perfect kid for me and I don't know, I hesitate to say it but I feel like I'm the perfect dad for him and because of that we've been lucky and I have the exact same situation with his sister Perfect, perfect Everywhere.

James Guttman: 12:04

It's been such a pleasure to be able to tell you guys that and show you that and write about it and talk about it, and I can't thank you enough for allowing me to do that. So thank you for checking us out. Thank you for subscribing. Do me a favor, tell your friends, tell everybody you know about this blog whether they have a child who's on the spectrum, whether they don't. Maybe they have a special needs kid. Maybe they have a kid his age. They have a kid older. I love when I hear from people with children like Lucas who are older than him. I heard from a woman this week on Facebook her daughter's 42. And I flashed forward ahead in my brain and imagine what's he going to be like at that age and it helps me the same way I hope I help others. So share it, tell people about it and come back each and every week Monday, wednesday, highblogomdadcom. Brand new blogs, highpodomdadcom and every streaming service YouTube at highblogomdadcom. Brand new blogs, highpodomdadcom and every streaming service YouTube at highblogomdad every Friday.

James Guttman: 13:00

Social media hijamesgutman HI. Come on, not hijamesgutman, hijamesgutman. That's on TikTok, it's on Instagram, it's on. You know you name it, it's there. We're everywhere except for X. I appreciate all the support you guys are shown and, if you get a chance, hi World, I'm Dad. Available on audio, digital paperback book. Anywhere you find books, anywhere you stream audio books, it's there too. This has been a wonderful journey, guys. Thank you so much for checking me out this week. I will see you next week. Until then, this is James Guttman saying be well, bye-bye, I'm done. I'll see you next time.