I spent the past few days in Seattle; I attended a social media conference that a few years ago was fantastic.   This year, not so much.  I think the ‘what’s next’ for social media is unclear, and it is ill defined how to talk about the future.
It seemed most of the discussions were around the individual contributor and how he/she is impacting the Web in some sort of  ‘hyper’ format, and that impact was a wide ranging discussion from raising awareness of causes, to philanthropy, to trying to duplicate what I’ll call ‘virality’ of a the small Web site or personality.  I was hoping to hear and find best practices about what’s working to grow that awareness from a business point-of-view.  One of the viral discussion dived into a talk, literally, about how the numbers for a site jumped off the page when you record yourself farting naked on video.

Yea, this isn’t a strategy that we’ll be undertaking at the office.

So I think this proved a theory I’ve been swilling in my brain that we are at an inflection point that is moving beyond the emergence of social media. There really isn’t the fundamental need to listen to the self-made social media experts, regardless of genre anymore and how they are innovating – this is all now too well known and understood.  What’s now needed for the business community is a best practices on using these tools and applications to move all these small niche audiences.  The ‘how to’ is known but the measurement of moving the needle is less so, and can it be done holistically to improve aspects of a company’s brand or customer satisfaction?  A conference like that is where I now need to go to learn. The take away is I think, still, is I was lucky to be at this show to have this epiphany. You have to be in the moment to see the shift, don’t you? Of course, the shift is pretty clear when one of the presenters is discussing growing your passion about knitting online.

She has a huge following in a very small niche, and presenting in genres of knitting makes sense, but again, can she be juxtaposed with someone from a Fortune 1000 company using her strategy on a mass scale, and can that presenter match the knitter’s success? That’s what I was hoping to hear and discuss.

Ah well.  We have another show upcoming other employees are attending, maybe they’ll find a bit of what I’m seeking and report back on it.

While I was disappointed professionally, I was fulfilled personally, as I reconnected with a number of good friends from our years out in the Pacific Northwest.  I’ve seen these friends on and off over the past few years (as getting to Seattle is not an easy trip to regularly make) and I’ve met their kids, but most have not met mine (not since Demetrius was literally ‘months’ old), and none have had the pleasure of meeting Ms. Maya.  Last night I had dinner and I watched their kids run and play, and I watched my friends’ ‘parent’.  What a hoot.  It was a dramatic shift for me as I have been around them a lot since their pride-and-joys have entered the world.  That said, you see which child works which parent, and the tone of voice that is subtly used with the apple of one’s eye.  It’s fun to see that I’m not the only one wrapped by their child.

Even though we stay in touch, it is hard for me not to fall to the frame of mind that we are all still 29 years old, taking on the world, enthused about what’s next, and drinking wine until 1am.  That’s when we left, just after we turned 30 and Kim was expecting Super D.  So when I see these friends, this is often where they are in my mind’s eye.  And I know better, but is still a juxtaposition when the 40 year old discussions take place, talking about job security and fulfillment, time management between work and family, concerns about public versus private education, etc…  These little worries do hide behind the smiles, chuckles and gentle barbs in the catching up conversations.

I wouldn’t say anyone isn’t happy or disillusioned.  It is just so obvious that the definition of happy is different.  Mostly, a job is a job, the literal and figurative big trips in life have been taken at some level, and the next ones for each of us, lets face it, involve the little voices and their discoveries – but right now that big discovery probably needs to get to bed or he/she’ll be really grumpy tomorrow.  So we need to wrap up by 9:30 because we’ll be up at 6am.  So much for discussions over claret and pinot noir at 1am, eh? Another inflection point, no?
So I laid in bed in my hotel room, feeling the red wine that I drank a sip or two too many of, lining up a week of inflection points, I’m perplexed about the maturation of social media professionally and soaking in the maturation of my life and my friends lives personally – all in the course of a week.

Heavy stuff, then I said, “What the hell Jerry, you have a 6am flight, be deep some other time.” So I turned off and thought about what a great friggin’ movie Inglorious Basterds was.

Gluten free really works for us, we hear it all the time. Click here for a gluten-free story.

Your mom told you not to stare, right?  We tell Maya this, alot (in fact, a few years ago, at Whole Foods, we were behind a guy missing an arm, and we told her not to stare, and she got real confused and asked why not, because he doesn’t have an arm and he’s interesting to watch.  Interesting take on staring, no?).

However, when you have an autistic spectrum child, you recognize the small signs in others, right?  I figure this is very much fun for psychologists - that guy has OCD, she has four personalities, etc….

But this morning, I saw a Mom with her 13-14 year old daughter in a lobby of the hotel.  The daughter held tightly to her mother, stared up to the left, and held a little stuffed purple monkey in her hand.  The Mom was getting some coffee, while pouring she whispered to her daughter, and the girl smiled, and giggled, but she never looked down.  But when the seniors group collected and the ladies let out a big laugh before they got on their bus (and the laughter reverberated loudly in the atrium/lobby), she squeezed her monkey and the mom whispered to her quickly.

The mom and I caught each others eyes. I nodded in the best way I possibly could that I knew what was going on with her daughter.  She understood.  Brief smile.  The nod back.

Insiders Nod?  I think so.  The signs are subtle that her daughter has autism, and its not obvious to others, but we had the parents who know moment, the nod…

Anyone else experience this?  With the severe cases it is easily detectible, no? But for the rest, you give the nod that I get it and I get the small things. I get the small monkey and the stare off to the left.

Do you?

Yea, thought that headline might get your attention, for all the bad joke reasons.

Kim tells me on the phone this morning that she was going to have a few hours of ‘Kim time today’ to explore Lexington before she’s got to go and get into car pool line to pick up the wee-ones.  As she pulls out, the FedEx lady pulls up.  Big box from Seattle. Perishable.  39 lbs of salmon. Kim tells her to leave it on the step. The lady tells her that this says its perishable, she can’t and Kim signs for it.

She opens it and finds the treausre.  Tens of lbs. of wild white king salmon.  Fileted in easily grillable filets? Of course not.  Large filets she must cut up and bag and freeze.

So long to the afternoon to yourself, Kim.  I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for universes to collide here, but irony in life can be funny.

At least Buddy is going to really, really, really love to be around you the next few hours.

When the boy was diagnosed seven years ago, I used to offer up to everyone as much as I could about him, autism, and us.  This vein of thought, of course, led to this blog (along with what the marketing team at blog.com calls, the ‘itch to write).  I didn’t lead conversations with, “let me tell you about our autistic son.” But I didn’t hold back either.
It isn’t that I hold back or have changed my tune about the sharing of info, in fact, I suspect and hope, as all of us make this journey and have more experience, its just not that defining a factor in conversation.
If you get to know me, over time, you are just going to know. Its as much a part of me as my love handles, dashing looks, witty personality, 26-inch inseam, moxie and machismo.    I find that as I look over my blog postings the last year or so, they are becoming less emotional.  I don’t feel the need to spill out over the rim of the cup with words expressing my frustrations or misfortunes as I used to.  Its not that it is smooth sailing in front of us by any sense, it is just that I’ve come to expect the choppy waters.

But now that I’ve been in the new town for the better part of nine months (making that turn into a year now), and we’ve gotten to know a few folks (me both personally and professionally), and I’ve gotten the almost whisper question by a handful – they ask so seriously and quietly, as if the question will be seen as bad manners or I’m going to get up out of my chair and get my keys and drive off “What’s it like?”

Hmmm, an excellent question that can’t be answered simply, or without a nice glass of Pinot Grigio or Cabernet Franc!  But it can be written, I suspect, more easily.

What’s it like?

Liberating, because as I’ve said, I know exactly what my last thoughts will be on my deathbed, “Is he cared for, and did we give him a good life?”  Such epiphanies will set you on a certain path to make certain choices. As we look back at the short time we were here, I’ll look back at only few things, overwhelmingly.

It’s like Super Glue for me.  Once you get that special needs diagnosis with a child, it is stuck to you. It isn’t going away.  I suspect this is the same realization families fighting cancer and other diseases and afflictions have.  It is here, with you, and you either deal with it, with you when you look left or right or you try to pull it off, and it doesn’t go away.

Humbling.  I am no way in control or master of my universe.  His bad days and his ticks, like chewing through a tee shirt or squealing at the top of his lungs, TV talk, the whole enchilada, reminds me of the randomness of life.  It is human nature to try to control our environment, and some of us do it better than others, but to know that at the end of the day, ‘this’ has happened, well, keeps you grounded.  The highs aren’t too high anymore and the lows aren’t too low.

Lonely. God, at times is it lonely.  Watch some other boys play soccer and you ache to see Demetrius do the same and interact in a certain way with his peers, to experience what others are experiencing…and you just feel very alone.  Or when he just wants to turn off and decompress and turns off from you.  The TV talk can be deafening.  This is less an issue each passing day, but it is still there.

Tiring.  The cycle of maturation trickles rather than flows.  Here’s the explanation of what I mean: remember when you took your toddler-five year old to the park. You had to watch everything, you couldn’t not pay attention.  High alert at all times.  As your child matures much of this just naturally ‘dissipates’ through lessons and swats on the butt. Look both ways when crossing the street, don’t wander off following whatever catches your eye. Ask if you can leave one playground to go over to another (some kids catch on quicker than others).  With Demetrius, we still have to hover like over anxious type A new parents at the city park for the first time.  Thus, why I can legitimately say that I’ve never been more mentally tired than when we came back from Disney World (that and the weather and the fact that I was the family pack mule).  Will we ever outgrow this? I don’t know.  But I suspect we’ll be too old to go play at the park before we actually do.

Lower bullshit tolerance.  I think this one is pretty much self-evident.  Get over your &#(@&@ self.  Once you have kids it stops being about you any way.  Add the special needs issues all over it and you’ve got to tell yourself at times, “His or her worries are just as important to him/her as yours are to you in regards to Demetrius.”  That’s the first free pass.  After that, solve your problem and quit bitching about it.

Living in the moment.  As much as tiring is an issue, you do live much more in the moment.  Note my posting on diving into the pool from the high dive last week.  Look what he did.  Now just don’t do it again or you are going to give your mother a heart attack, boy.  See also, humbling above. You gotta plan for some things, and you gotta let other things (mostly things tied to your personal ego), go.

Rereading this, I can accurately say it hasn’t improved my patience or tolerance for stupid mistakes. But hey, even if I can identify a few things insightfully, I’m still human and have character flaws.

Maybe this is just a realization at 40 I am who I am, but maybe this too, is something I can attribute to autism. It’s made me better in a lot ways. Or, at least, made me aware of a few things.

Over the past few years I hadn’t noticed how filled my weekends were with kid events until I lived without the fam for that extended period with the relo.  It kicked up again this weekend when Demetrius had his first ‘soccer get together’ (Maya’s starts on Tuesday night).  The soccer league D is playing in is a lot like the Miracle League he played baseball in a few years ago.  How this will play out remains to be seen as soccer is very different from the base paths, but we are giving it a go.
As is always the case with Super D, he is giving it the gallant effort we are asking of him, but he isn’t enthused.  Soccer was not something he enjoyed, he felt the pressure of both his teammates and the parents, and as Kim says so aptly, “Demetrius does not want any attention at all on him, if possible.”  His shy nature works against him here.

What we didn’t do with soccer in the past, that worked brilliantly with Miracle League, was to make each game a complete outing. We’d go to Miracle League, and then go to different ‘Demetrius friendly’ restaurants that he really liked afterwards.  Combining the experiences.  With 8am games for soccer on Saturday mornings (no cartoons, wake up and immediately insert him into a stressful situation) and then not be able to enjoy an experience afterward (either Maya has a game or the line to wait for breakfast at IHOP is :45 long at 9:15/9:30am) didn’t play well with him.  We’ll (Kim and I) will have to be better this time around. What this means is, post-game:
•    Take him to eat a tasty treat, post-game, at a location he enjoys with video games and food he likes/can eat
•    Celebrate practices with a trip to Sonic for a grape slushy afterwards
•    If waiting for a ‘Maya game’, let him watch a movie in the van (portable DVD player/min-van DVD player) and play some Nintendo DS
•    Maybe after a great game where he plays hard and pays attention…make a post-game trip to Target (this may be too much and become the ‘expected’)

Soccer is much more than just a game, a snack, and a juicebox for Demetrius.  The game is what he does to ‘earn’ the quarters for video games and the French fries.  He likes to know that he’s getting something he enjoys for doing something that’s stressful.  It is a total experience for him, and once he gets used to the games (his buddy, the cheering, etc…) he’ll have fun.

I hope. ☺

All that nervous energy that comes with the first day of school came crashing down yesterday with Maya Marie, as she threw a few fits, last worded and back talked, apparently all afternoon, and until the minute she crashed asleep last night at 8:15 pm.  Again, none of this seemed to affect Demetrius in the slightest.

Kim and I were talking on the couch, while doing a dual Buddy petting session, when Demetrius wandered downstairs at about 9:00pm.

Mommy, I need just one more snuggle before I go to sleep.

How can Kim turn that down, so she goes upstairs with him, and he is SERENADING her on the way:

“Mommy, she is my favorite Mommy.  I like to snuggle with her.”

I truly do not know where he gets his skills from.  I have no idea whatsoever.  We’ve never discussed singing to chicks, I can state for a fact we’ve never watched a movie together where that would have taken place, did this just seem natural for him?

If so, I’m thinking, we may need to change his name to Don Juan Grasso from Demetrius

As Grandpa so aptly put it on the phone yesterday, you could have cut the nervous energy in the house with a knife the past few days.
Why? Well, we started school this morning.  New school. New teachers. New kids.  New fears and concerns.

Maya, will any girls like me? Will I make friends? Will I be the lonliest child in the history of lonely children? (Yes, quite dramatic, but we are good at that.)

Kim, IEP, IEP, IEP…what do the teachers need to know that I haven’t told them? What if…fill in the blank.

Demetrius? Well nothing really from him.

Me? Shit, I just wanted to stay out of trouble with Kim and Maya, mostly. But I was nervous if it wasn’t going to go well, what the ‘spillage’ might look like with the Grassos and the school.

So I bought some special ice cream, cherry pie, and other comfort foods to help…but that’s enjoyed, and then the worrying sets back in.

This morning, after I ran the dog, Kim popped out of bed at 5:45, very determined and very worried.  Maya popped up not long thereafter, chatting non-stop. Nervous chatting.  Filling the quiet space, and quiet space allows concerns and worries to crop into it….

Demetrius came downstairs with a comic book, singing a song from Willy Wonka.
As we got ready to leave for school, Super D turned to me and said, “Daddy, you don’t need to come, I’m fine.”

Okay, to not ruffle feathers, I stayed home. Gave some kisses and hugs, and the van pulled out of the driveway.

Surprisingly, Kim was home soon after? They kicked her out already? ☺ No, in fact, when Demetrius got to his classroom he turned to his Mom and said, “Mom, you can go now. I am fine.” And waltzed right into 3rd grade.  Maya was a bit more complicated…a bit.

So that nervous energy has floated out of the house….

Hopefully not to return any time soon.

Hope your first days were as uneventful as ours.

BTW – had dinner at restaurant called AP Roots tonight, very tasty.  D had two plates of French fries, so clearly school did not affect his appetite….