Logan (5), my son, a twin brother of Luke has never siesed to amaze me, sometimes to a freakish level. An adorable child who will melt you in an instant lives in another place we cannot relate to. He is not affected by outside stimulus, pier pressure nor is he bothered by any adverse comments or gestures made by others in public while he is out and about with us. He is always happy and full of joy, he is entertained by simple pleasures and never asks for anything materialistic. During Christmas he opened his gifts and played all day in one of the cardboard boxes used to package a gift. He does not experience humiliation or embarrassment and you can not hurt his feelings. Logan has a twin Brither Luke who has physical disabilities with his kidneys (hydronephrosis) and his throat and voicebox is soft containing no cartlidge (laryngomalacia). This makes it hard for Luke to breath at times as the voicebox collapses on itself when he breaths. He might outgrow this condition (we pray) as most do, but there is always a chance. Luke's kidney condition requires regular testing to see if the kidneys are draining any better but so far no luck. Everytime he gets a fever, he needs to go to ER for tests to make sure that there is no infection coming from the kidneys. Luke attends regular Kindygarten and Logan is enrolled in an ASD Kindygarten class where he has aids to help him and several types of therapy each day. We also have daughter Skylar who is 8 and she loves her brothers and watches out for them at school. Skylar helps Logan during school if needed as she is quite caringand this makes me proud of her.
Logan was diagnosed at 18 months and has been in constant therapy and school ever since with no breaks for summer. He has come so far that it litteraly blows my mind. At 18 months he never had made eye contact with me or even acknowledged me. No reponse to requested actions by others and lots of repetitive play by himself for hours. Well, 4 years later he makes great eye contact with all of us, he can count higher than most adults, speaks english, spanish, some german, french and his own cluttered jibberish.
He can recite an entire tv show after watching it one time and has better handwriting than most adults I know. His six sence is truly a human superpower as he know things that would not be possible to know by a "normal" (non-autistic) human. He is a stacker (of objects) and builder with amazing innovation.
Once his teacher sent home anote saying he failed to stack more than 6 blocks with no assistance. I laughed and broke out hte Digital Video Camera and supplied Logan with a bunch of blocks and an open space. He stacked and I filmed. Logan stacked all the blocks as far as he could reach. When he could reach no higher, he wondered off only to return with a mini-step ladder and some other odd materials. Logan climbed the ladder finished thstack until it was 2" from the ceiling. "Done" I thought, great job Logan. But not Logan, he took the wood scraps he found and carried over and proceded to fit the remaining gap between the blocks and the ceiling with wood wedges until it was a solid colum and nice and tight to the touch or even push by me. At this point I am amazed and full of goose bumbs. I praised him and he laughed and immediately took to wrecking his engineering feet as fast as he put it up. This is typical for Logy, he will write on a dry erase board in very neat penmanship some complex words that my eight year old cant spell, but he usually erases them with a cloth before anyone can see. He has no ego or need to show off, he is as pure as the driven snow and uncorrupted by society, crime, schools, bus rides and general interaction with people. I am convinced Logan was brought to us as a gift. Who is to say that he is not the normal one? I wonder if we should be in the ASD class learning to be like him so we can see and appreciate everything under the sun as he does.
We love you Logan, forever and ever.
Love Dad
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