Resolved: Keep on Listening and Hold the Pickles

I’m back in my office off of Kennedy Boulevard in Jersey City for the first time in 2008 and the numerous stacks of paper on my desk, side table, and the floor are telling me that a good resolution for the year would be to find some other way to organize them, or at least sort through them and relegate as many as possible to the recycle bin. But for the moment I’ll let a pile of old Greek and Latin quizzes stay put: 2008 is starting out with all kinds of things happening—the new study showing that thimerosal is not a primary cause of autism (and here’s another analysis on yet another very bad for antivacctionists from Orac)—-the start of Karen McCarron’s trial—-the New Jersey legislature “barely” approving a new school funding bill, whose effect on special education is unclear—-a brand new bike for Charlie—and Barack Obama coming to my own college campus tomorrow afternoon.

(Now I know why the parking attendant said “Secret Service” when I tried to park in the parking garage this morning—–the college where I teach is a small place, in terms of its student population and the block(s) it occupies, so Obama holding a rally in our gym is a big, big deal.) (No, I can’t go—-I have to meet Charlie’s bus!)

All of this, plus various other matters, have been distracting me from writing about my New Year’s Resolution for the b5media science and health theme day on New Years resolutions. And I’m glad to take the moment to focus because focusing, listening, paying special attention, is precisely what the “Autism Vox 2008 Resolution” is about: It is to listen to and open our eyes, ears, and senses, to what our kids (if your child is autistic) and to what someone who is in someway different is communicating, without words, or in words that we are not expecting to hear.

For instance. Charlie was troubled this weekend by a bad stomachache. Jim and I tried to figure out, is he catching something? Did he eat anything unusual? By Sunday afternoon—-I suppose the new bike may have had a little to do with this—-Charlie was “peaceful easy-feeling” and looking ahead to school on Monday. He had a good day and, after a meeting with his ABA therapists, we went to the grocery store, where he filled up a shopping basket with the usual things. He hovered by one shelf and looked, and walked away, and looked, and walked away, and was on the verge of wandering back to the bakery section when I said (noting what was on the shelf): “Do you want some pickles? You can get some.”

“No pickles,” said Charlie.

I was very surprised. Last week he had eagerly put a big jar of dill pickles into the basket and, once home, would have eaten every pickle in one sitting, if I had not rationed them out. But it did occur to me that maybe Charlie had taken a few more than a few at a time and they smelled of spices and herbs and vinegar and……stomachache.

Charlie, I think, was connecting the reason for his stomach trouble to what he had eaten and—even though he saw the desired item—saying no to it, having, as it were, learned a lesson about the effect of pickles on him.

So I’ll have my ears (and eyes, and senses) wide open in 2008.

As for my personal resolution, it is very simple: Write the book.