My first Autism Birthday party

Autism Daddy

As I've written before I was partly inspired to start this blog by Autism Daddy. I like his brash honesty, his ability to give voice to my thoughts and give me new perspectives on Autism. He wrote about Autism only birthday parties (.http://autism-daddy.blogspot.com/2012/04/why-autism-only-birthday-parties-are.html). Even though my son is six and will shortly be turning seven I've never been to an Autism only birthday party. Today we attended our first.




A republican, a hippie and some older gay women enter
the bar, and suddenly I was "left behind".

 

I can't truthfully say that it was an Autism exclusive birthday party but out of the six primary caregivers/couples at the party, five had at least one child on the spectrum. The intros were fun, hi this _____ her son has/is _____ (funny enough, I liked that, you never had to have the awkward who is going to share where their child is at first moment). There were quite a few siblings and a few kids that were with a babysitter so I'm not sure about their diagnosis or lack off. I had a good time. The parents and caregivers literally seem to come from every walk of life. There was a young mom with four kids, two on the spectrum, an older gay female couple who are adopting her autistic nephew, a conservative middle income couple, myself, the mid-age liberal hippie and another more nondescript mom. The only reason I could fathom this group of people connecting otherwise is the Apocalypse. Yet everyone seemed to chat at some point or another, and everyone was friendly.

I was a bit of a novelty, since we had packed our own food. Surprisingly, my kids were the only GF (let along SCD) kids at the party. Most of the parents were casually curious about what we fed the boys, how we went out to eat, etc, etc. At one point, after all the kids were set up for lunch one of the other mom's approached me and said "now what is the sauce you have them dipping the apples in"? We all had a good laugh when I answered "peanut butter".



"Yeah I saw that crack a few miles back". "What's your dash count"?



Its pretty interesting how people will react to each other when they know you are trudging the same gravel they've been looking at for a few years. The nondescript mom and I talked about schools, classrooms and the all time favorite for ASD mommies, IEP meetings. The older gay women and I talked about their son's honesty and happiness in a northern climate with more personal freedom. The younger mom and I talked about  wanting to have more children and the bone crushing reality of having more children on the spectrum.


 I don't remember their names, yet over the course of three to four hours I openly discussed subjects with those people, that I haven't discussed with nuclear relatives. Who need support groups when you've got Autism birthday parties? All I can say is Luck, Love and hope to my fellow travelers.