February 14, 2025 • 16 mins
This episode beautifully captures the joys and challenges of parenting a child with autism (and one without), highlighting the spontaneous love and honest nature of Lucas. Through anecdotes and reflections, the discussion emphasizes the importance of embracing inconvenient moments and fostering open lines of communication in family dynamics.
• Exploring the unique ways a non-verbal kid can irk his dad
• Celebrating the unique quirks and personality traits of Lucas
• Emphasizing the beauty of spontaneous gestures of affection
• Discussing the significance of honesty in Lucas's character
• Highlights from writings on hiblogondad.com about parenting experiences
• Updates and excitement surrounding the upcoming book release
Preorder James Guttman’s new book – “Hi World, I’m Dad: How Fathers Can Journey to Autism Awareness, Acceptance, and Appreciation”
Follow Us On Facebook and Follow James Guttman on Instagram.
Also, be sure to read the blog that started it all - Hi Blog! I'm Dad.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
James Guttman (00:00):
I want apple juice.
Lucas wants apple juice.
I know I heard him say that.
Can I have apple juice?
Yeah, you can have apple juice.
Can I have soda?
Yes, you can have soda.
Can I press that button?
No, you can't press that button.
Why?
Because that's going to playthe theme song.
I'm not ready to start the.
.
.
(00:30):
Hi Pod, I am Dad.
He's not just Hi Dad, he's mydad.
James Guttman! Folks, JamesGuttman - Hi Pod, I'm Dad.
Welcome back to another editionof the podcast's Valentine's
Day.
It's 2025.
Thank you so much for finding meon.
.
.
Any streaming service means alot to me.
(00:52):
Uh, maybe hipodimdad.
com, if you found me there aswell.
Like subscribe, tell yourfriends, tell your enemies, tell
anybody who will listen to you.
Tune in and check it out.
Thank you it.
It has been a long week, man.
We had snow and we had likethis craziness my head hurts.
You ever have that?
Your head just hurts.
And what's funny is that Iforget that a lot of this is
(01:16):
because I guess I'm old.
I turned to my daughter one day.
We were in the car and I justhad a pain like in my arm and I
was like ugh, my arm is killingme.
I'm like you ever just havelike a, like an ache, and you
don't even know why.
And she looked at me and she'slike no.
And I'm like oh, yeah, you're16.
And then I kicked her out ofthe car and I just kept driving
and cried inside, so that's whathappened.
So one of those days, man, I'mjust like oh, and I got to tell
(01:39):
you, man, the kids they don'thelp.
It's funny because I I read alot about autism appreciation,
about the positivity, but at theend of the day, my kid, lucas,
is still a kid, right, so hestill does kid things that drive
you a little nuts, and eventhen it sometimes is um,
definitely specialized for anon-verbal boy.
(01:59):
And he's got this new thing.
And I feel bad because before Ilook at him like no, and he
knows that I'm getting upsetabout it, and he doesn't.
I don't know if he can't stophimself, doesn't want to stop
himself.
Hear me out, let me just.
Let me just vent to you alittle bit, okay, because I love
him.
I love he's so sweet and he hassweet faces when he does these
things, so it's hard to even bemad at him.
It's like you want him to be ajerk, you want to be like I want
(02:21):
you to be a jerk as you'redoing this thing.
That annoys me, so I don't feelbad being annoyed by it, but it
makes me feel bad while I'mannoyed as well.
So lucas has his ipad, he has a.
An amazon fire is his favoritething and what he does is he
goes on youtube and he goesthrough videos and he watches
all his videos and his wholelife there have been different
times where he's put on videosthat sometimes will drive you
(02:42):
crazy.
He'll watch a video that's notin his language or like.
For example, he likes the showFlying Fairy School, right, so
he'll watch a Flying FairySchool episode straight from
Sesame Street ripped right ontoYouTube.
But every once in a while he'llfind one that somebody, for
(03:02):
whatever reason, recorded off ofthe television and as they're
watching it off the television.
When I say recorded off thetelevision, I mean holding the
iPhone up to their TV andrecording a show that he has on
YouTube already that he can see.
It's just a different versionof it and as he's watching this
second hand video, there'ssomebody in the background kind
of making noises and that's thething that he'll like.
Go back and rewind and watchagain you'll hear somebody in
(03:23):
the background be like hey, andI'm like, is that what you're
watching?
So things like that have beenkind of like.
Well, lately he's been drivingme kind of nuts where for the
longest time he would come to mewith his iPad when he would get
lost on YouTube.
Right, so he'll start watchingvideos and then from there he'll
go to the recommended videosand then he'll watch one of
(03:44):
those and then we'll go toanother recommended video.
Before you know it he's down arabbit hole on YouTube and he's
all over the place.
Well, lucas only likes whatLucas likes.
He's not really big ondiscovering new things.
It's very rare Lucas will cometo you with a nursery rhyme you
haven't heard of or a video thatyou didn't know existed.
It's always something he's seenalready, or a Sesame Street or
a Wiggles.
So what he does is he comes tome with his iPad and he will
(04:07):
have me go to the search bar.
Right, and I learned a longtime ago the search bar should
be Flying Fairy School.
That is what he wants.
He wants to watch it.
It's from Sesame Street, abbyCadabby, flying Fairy School.
It's almost like a claymationstyle.
I think it's claymation really.
Pixar, I think I'm datingmyself with that uh video.
And so I'll go and I'll searchfor flying fairy school and he
goes through them and he watchesthem.
(04:29):
Well, lately he's been almostimmediately.
He'll start watching them and ifhe can't find, what he'll do is
scroll through them.
Right, you put on flying fairyschool and he starts scrolling
through the videos, looking fora recommendation out of those
that he wants to watch.
So he'll come and find me andhave me put on Flying Fairy
School and scroll through, andif he does not find the video
that he wants, he will press thesearch button again and hand it
(04:51):
back to me.
Now, once he presses the searchbutton, he can't do anything
because he can't spell, right,so he's not typing anything in.
And it will happen repeatedly,over and over again, and I'm
getting mad.
I over and over again, and I'mgetting mad.
I'm like dude, stop, you haveto stop doing this, stop.
I'm doing no, no, no.
And then he'll do no, no, no,back to you and hand me the iPad
and stand there sad, and if Ileave he'll bang on his gate.
If he's in his room or if I'msomewhere else, he'll chase me
(05:13):
around and as he's doing it, itdrives you crazy.
But yeah, and I got to tell youyou're talking about autism
appreciation.
Somebody hears that story andthey go oh, that's hard, is it?
He's 13.
It could be a lot harder,couldn't it?
It is a lot harder for somepeople out there.
(05:33):
So in that respect, man, Icount my blessings.
I have a great kid.
If this is the most annoyingthing that he does, then hooray.
I mean most annoying thing thathe does, but it's definitely
one of the most persistentthings he does and at the end of
(05:54):
the day he makes up for it andall of his other actions.
And what am I talking about?
I'm talking about literally thetwo things I wrote about this
week on HiBlogImDad.
com.
I started on Monday and I wroteabout why I never push away my
son with autism's inconvenienthugs.
This is something I've talkedabout before, kind of as an
aside, as part of a story, but Ihaven't really focused on it
which is that Lucas is one ofthe most loving people I've ever
met in my life.
And Lucas also doesn't really Idon't say register, but he
(06:18):
doesn't focus on the thingsgoing on around us if they're
negative especially so he mightspill an entire box of cereal
down the stairs and, as I'mcleaning them up, come over and
give me hugs and kisses as I'mdoing it.
There's no sense in his head oflike, oh, wow, I just knocked
all the cereal on the floor.
My dad has to clean it up.
This must be hard for him.
No, he's just like I would liketo give this man a hug right
(06:40):
now.
Just gives me a hug.
Now some people hear that andthey go oh, is he hugging you
because you're cleaning up thecereal?
No, he's just hugging me.
That's what he does.
Lucas is a loving sweet boy andthe reason why he's a loving
sweet boy is because when hecomes over to give me the hug as
I'm cleaning up the cereal thathe spilled down the stairs, I
don't push him away, I don't getmad at him, I don't go.
No, no, we don't hug.
(07:01):
You know there's people whowill definitely do that kind of
stuff to people.
I'm not one of them and I'malso aware of the fact that if I
do that he's not gonna huganymore.
It's gonna slowly be somethinghe doesn't do.
So I kind of share that witheverybody and I can't tell you
for sure how your kid is,whether your kid has autism or
not doesn't even make adifference.
Lucas is unlike anybody else,whether they're on the spectrum
(07:24):
or not.
I wrote about this a few weeksago.
Lucas is himself.
He's unique.
But what I learned with him isthat if you encourage him to be
the person you want him to be,he will make an effort to be
that person right.
So Lucas is a sweet boy.
If I stopped him, if I try toteach him every day, don't do
the hey, this is, we don't hugnow.
It's not appropriate right now.
We don't hug now, it's notappropriate right now.
(07:45):
We don't hug, he wouldn't do itanymore.
He'll just stop.
Now I do teach him that if youdon't want to hug, like if it's
an inconvenient time, if I'mdriving the car, let's say like
I'm driving and he's in thefront seat and he wants to like,
grab me or hug me, he knows notto do that and that's something
that took a little while toteach him how to do.
As we hit a light, I put my armaround him, I give him a hug,
(08:05):
kiss him on the top of the head,tell him he's a good kid.
I encourage it.
I want him to be that person.
I want him to be this beacon ofsunlight in the world, because
there's not a lot of that.
Man, people are a little.
Eh, people can be what they areand that's a lesson that I've
taught throughout man, mydaughter the other day we were
(08:25):
talking about, she's on thiskick now.
She wants to find another job.
She worked briefly last year,which is crazy because I don't
know, she's a baby, right, she'sa little baby.
She's a 16 year old baby andshe wanted to get a job.
And I told her, I said you haveto call these places and ask
them if they're hiring.
She didn't.
(08:47):
You know, my friends say thejob they're at.
If somebody calls for a job,they don't even take the message
or they'll throw away theresume.
And I looked, I said, yeah,probably.
I'm like that happens, dude.
I'm like, but you can't alwaysexpect it to happen Like.
I'm going to be honest with youIn the world people can be
pretty crappy, but if you assumethat the world is full of
crappy people, you're going tomiss out on a lot of
opportunities.
You got to take the risk, yougot to put yourself out there
(09:08):
and she did, and we ended upcalling a place and the person
on the phone was nice to her andtook her name and number and it
was, it was legit.
So that made me happy.
So the same thing with her,same thing with him.
I encourage them to be thepeople I want to be, be the
change you want to be in we do.
And then on Wednesday, just toshow you I'm not just
exaggerating, I wrote about asecondary thing about Lucas,
(09:28):
again, autism.
That makes him a sweet boy.
Lucas doesn't lie.
Lucas can't lie, and I knowwhen I say that people will be
like, well, he's nonverbal, ofcourse he can't lie.
And yeah, I get it.
Smart guy, I understand whatyou're saying.
Not just verbally.
Lucas doesn't make any attemptto deceive at all, right, not
(09:49):
just verbally.
Lucas doesn't make any attemptto deceive at all, right.
And the example I gave wassomething that literally
happened last week.
I was downstairs in like theden in the basement of my house
and I heard stomping on the mainfloor and I'm like what is
happening up there?
I thought it was my daughter, Ithought she was getting food
and I come up the stairs andthere's lucas with pasta roni on
the floor, a handful, handfulof pastaroni.
He ate most of it.
He had gone into the fridge.
(10:09):
He had taken pastaroni out ofTupperware.
He had eaten it with his hands.
Some was on the floor, a lot ofthe remnants of it was on his
face and the rest, I guess, wasin his body.
He was done devouring it and heturned and he saw me and his
eyes kind of got wide and helooked at me and he slowly
handed me his iPad because thebattery had died.
(10:29):
And I sighed and I went come on,buddy, and I brought him
upstairs, got him ready for bed.
He went right to bed.
That's what he wanted the wholetime anyway.
But I didn't get mad at him.
And one of the reasons why Ididn't get mad at him, at least
in that moment moment, isbecause he not only did he show
me, he did the no, no, no withhis hands, but there was really
(10:50):
no point to it.
At the end of the day he made amistake.
He did something he knew hewasn't supposed to do.
We've already hammered home thewhole don't take food out of
the fridge and run around thehouse with it lesson.
But Lucas didn't lie.
Lucas doesn't try to hide it.
He didn't cover up the food onthe floor.
He didn't try to push me out ofthe room so I didn't see it.
(11:10):
Lucas is just Lucas.
He's not deceitful, he doesn'tknow how to be deceitful and
that is, honest to God, one ofthe most beautiful and wonderful
things about his personality.
It's something people don'ttalk about, something people
don't think about.
It's something they don't tellyou when they start to lecture
you about vaccinations and allthese things to be afraid of
(11:32):
when you have a baby, oh, becareful with him.
He'll get autism.
He'll be the sweetest, you know, most honest boy in the world.
That's what I got.
I have the sweetest, mosthonest boy in the world.
And again, autism appreciation.
It's not despite autism, it'sbecause of autism.
That's what makes him who he is.
It's such a major part of hispersonality.
(11:53):
It's something that sounds sobeautiful and so wonderful, and
I think the fact that mostpeople can't understand it
speaks volumes aboutneurotypical people.
We don't get it.
We don't understand how does,how, do you live a life and not
deceive people?
It's possible.
My kid doesn't.
It's a beautiful thing.
So I wrote about that on Monday.
I really like getting to dothat too.
(12:15):
This is the greatest thingthat's ever happened in my life.
I'm going to be honest with youNot just having Lucas as my son
, not having kids and being afather, but getting the
opportunity to write about ithas been I don't know.
Sometimes I still expect to wakeup.
I had a doctor's appointmenttoday new doctor we sat, we
talked a little bit about theautism writing.
(12:37):
He was asking questions andthen, all of a sudden, I
mentioned that I used to writeabout wrestling and I always
forget if I ever mentioned thatI used to write about wrestling.
I either find out that theydon't like wrestling at all,
which is rare, or they knoweverything about wrestling and
there's a million questions andstories and I met Scott Hall one
day and just like a lot ofthings to talk about and even
(12:59):
just going back and talkingabout wrestling.
I love wrestling, I love thework that I did, I love the job
that I got to do for years, butnothing, nothing compares to
what I do today.
Nothing compares to the writingthat I get to do for years, but
nothing, nothing compares towhat I do today.
Nothing compares to the writingthat I get to do.
Nothing compares to the way Ifeel when I create one of these
posts where I get to share myson with the world where I get
to help people who maybe aredealing with a struggle that
(13:19):
they're not really understanding.
My goal ever since December 13th2012, when I had my quintuple
bypass, was to leave more goodinto this world than I take out
of it, and I feel like I've donethat.
I've done that kind of with andwith humility too.
I'm going to admit to you.
I do this every day and I nevereven think about anybody
(13:43):
reading it.
I do it because I need to do it.
I like to do it.
I like to talk about my kid.
I feel like most people won'tunderstand, lucas, if I just sit
there and start talking aboutit like I'm doing now, like if
you were sitting in front of meand you don't know anything
about autism, you would stop meand be like oh, he didn't.
Oh, he ate all the pasta roni,and then I feel bad and then I
(14:05):
don't want to talk about itanymore.
I feel weird.
Getting to write about him,getting to do these podcasts,
getting to have a one-sidedconversation where I tell
everyone the wonderful thingsabout my son, is a dream come
true for me, and if nobody everreads it, it's therapeutic in a
sense that I just get to getthese stories out, share them,
tell people, explain it.
The fact that people read itand the fact that people can get
(14:27):
people read it, and the factthat people can get something
from it, the fact that theycould share it with their
friends who maybe don'tunderstand autism.
Maybe they could share it withtheir spouses, who are
struggling with it and they'retrying to get past it, and all
this stuff that makes it evenlike 10 times more.
So, yeah, it's a big deal, guys.
It's a very big deal.
So I'm excited.
I'm excited to share so muchmore of it.
(14:49):
Um, I think I think the finalcover for the book came in this
week.
I will give you guys more.
Again, I keep saying I'll giveyou more information and I hope
you don't think that I'm justpushing it off.
Pushing it off, but I don'tknow.
I feel uneasy about it.
I'm not really ready, untilthey're ready to release the
cover, to tell everybodyeverything, but let me assure
you to tell everybody everything, but let me assure you, things
are fantastic.
They're moving along.
I'm excited.
(15:10):
I've been talking to people allweek about this and uh and yeah
, 2025 is gonna, it's gonna be agreat year.
So do me a HiBlogImDad.
com, go to .
Follow along with the blogsthere.
Please let me know if you readit.
Drop me a line.
Go to the contact page.
Follow me on social media.
@HiJames Guttman, let me know.
(15:30):
I'd love to know what you thinkabout it.
It's uh, it's really.
This is my, my life's work anduh, and I don't know like I, I
hesitate to say it's mymasterpiece, because I consider
my, my kids, to truly be mymasterpiece, but sharing them
with you is is beyond a dreamcome true for me.
So thank you, thank you forlistening, thank you for reading
, thank you for paying attentionand thank you so much for the
(15:51):
last eight years on Going Strong.
So thank you.
That does it for me, guys,until next time.
This is James Guttman saying bewell, bye pod, I'm dad, thank
you, I'll see you next time.
I want apple juice.
Lucas wants apple juice.
I know I heard him say that.
Can I have apple juice?
Yeah, you can have apple juice.
Can I have soda?
Yes, you can have soda.
Can I press that button?
No, you can't press that button.
Why?
Because that's going to playthe theme song.
I'm not ready to start the.
.
.
(00:30):
Hi Pod, I am Dad.
He's not just Hi Dad, he's mydad.
James Guttman! Folks, JamesGuttman - Hi Pod, I'm Dad.
Welcome back to another editionof the podcast's Valentine's
Day.
It's 2025.
Thank you so much for finding meon.
.
.
Any streaming service means alot to me.
(00:52):
Uh, maybe hipodimdad.
com, if you found me there aswell.
Like subscribe, tell yourfriends, tell your enemies, tell
anybody who will listen to you.
Tune in and check it out.
Thank you it.
It has been a long week, man.
We had snow and we had likethis craziness my head hurts.
You ever have that?
Your head just hurts.
And what's funny is that Iforget that a lot of this is
(01:16):
because I guess I'm old.
I turned to my daughter one day.
We were in the car and I justhad a pain like in my arm and I
was like ugh, my arm is killingme.
I'm like you ever just havelike a, like an ache, and you
don't even know why.
And she looked at me and she'slike no.
And I'm like oh, yeah, you're16.
And then I kicked her out ofthe car and I just kept driving
and cried inside, so that's whathappened.
So one of those days, man, I'mjust like oh, and I got to tell
(01:39):
you, man, the kids they don'thelp.
It's funny because I I read alot about autism appreciation,
about the positivity, but at theend of the day, my kid, lucas,
is still a kid, right, so hestill does kid things that drive
you a little nuts, and eventhen it sometimes is um,
definitely specialized for anon-verbal boy.
(01:59):
And he's got this new thing.
And I feel bad because before Ilook at him like no, and he
knows that I'm getting upsetabout it, and he doesn't.
I don't know if he can't stophimself, doesn't want to stop
himself.
Hear me out, let me just.
Let me just vent to you alittle bit, okay, because I love
him.
I love he's so sweet and he hassweet faces when he does these
things, so it's hard to even bemad at him.
It's like you want him to be ajerk, you want to be like I want
(02:21):
you to be a jerk as you'redoing this thing.
That annoys me, so I don't feelbad being annoyed by it, but it
makes me feel bad while I'mannoyed as well.
So lucas has his ipad, he has a.
An amazon fire is his favoritething and what he does is he
goes on youtube and he goesthrough videos and he watches
all his videos and his wholelife there have been different
times where he's put on videosthat sometimes will drive you
(02:42):
crazy.
He'll watch a video that's notin his language or like.
For example, he likes the showFlying Fairy School, right, so
he'll watch a Flying FairySchool episode straight from
Sesame Street ripped right ontoYouTube.
But every once in a while he'llfind one that somebody, for
(03:02):
whatever reason, recorded off ofthe television and as they're
watching it off the television.
When I say recorded off thetelevision, I mean holding the
iPhone up to their TV andrecording a show that he has on
YouTube already that he can see.
It's just a different versionof it and as he's watching this
second hand video, there'ssomebody in the background kind
of making noises and that's thething that he'll like.
Go back and rewind and watchagain you'll hear somebody in
(03:23):
the background be like hey, andI'm like, is that what you're
watching?
So things like that have beenkind of like.
Well, lately he's been drivingme kind of nuts where for the
longest time he would come to mewith his iPad when he would get
lost on YouTube.
Right, so he'll start watchingvideos and then from there he'll
go to the recommended videosand then he'll watch one of
(03:44):
those and then we'll go toanother recommended video.
Before you know it he's down arabbit hole on YouTube and he's
all over the place.
Well, lucas only likes whatLucas likes.
He's not really big ondiscovering new things.
It's very rare Lucas will cometo you with a nursery rhyme you
haven't heard of or a video thatyou didn't know existed.
It's always something he's seenalready, or a Sesame Street or
a Wiggles.
So what he does is he comes tome with his iPad and he will
(04:07):
have me go to the search bar.
Right, and I learned a longtime ago the search bar should
be Flying Fairy School.
That is what he wants.
He wants to watch it.
It's from Sesame Street, abbyCadabby, flying Fairy School.
It's almost like a claymationstyle.
I think it's claymation really.
Pixar, I think I'm datingmyself with that uh video.
And so I'll go and I'll searchfor flying fairy school and he
goes through them and he watchesthem.
(04:29):
Well, lately he's been almostimmediately.
He'll start watching them and ifhe can't find, what he'll do is
scroll through them.
Right, you put on flying fairyschool and he starts scrolling
through the videos, looking fora recommendation out of those
that he wants to watch.
So he'll come and find me andhave me put on Flying Fairy
School and scroll through, andif he does not find the video
that he wants, he will press thesearch button again and hand it
(04:51):
back to me.
Now, once he presses the searchbutton, he can't do anything
because he can't spell, right,so he's not typing anything in.
And it will happen repeatedly,over and over again, and I'm
getting mad.
I over and over again, and I'mgetting mad.
I'm like dude, stop, you haveto stop doing this, stop.
I'm doing no, no, no.
And then he'll do no, no, no,back to you and hand me the iPad
and stand there sad, and if Ileave he'll bang on his gate.
If he's in his room or if I'msomewhere else, he'll chase me
(05:13):
around and as he's doing it, itdrives you crazy.
But yeah, and I got to tell youyou're talking about autism
appreciation.
Somebody hears that story andthey go oh, that's hard, is it?
He's 13.
It could be a lot harder,couldn't it?
It is a lot harder for somepeople out there.
(05:33):
So in that respect, man, Icount my blessings.
I have a great kid.
If this is the most annoyingthing that he does, then hooray.
I mean most annoying thing thathe does, but it's definitely
one of the most persistentthings he does and at the end of
(05:54):
the day he makes up for it andall of his other actions.
And what am I talking about?
I'm talking about literally thetwo things I wrote about this
week on HiBlogImDad.
com.
I started on Monday and I wroteabout why I never push away my
son with autism's inconvenienthugs.
This is something I've talkedabout before, kind of as an
aside, as part of a story, but Ihaven't really focused on it
which is that Lucas is one ofthe most loving people I've ever
met in my life.
And Lucas also doesn't really Idon't say register, but he
(06:18):
doesn't focus on the thingsgoing on around us if they're
negative especially so he mightspill an entire box of cereal
down the stairs and, as I'mcleaning them up, come over and
give me hugs and kisses as I'mdoing it.
There's no sense in his head oflike, oh, wow, I just knocked
all the cereal on the floor.
My dad has to clean it up.
This must be hard for him.
No, he's just like I would liketo give this man a hug right
(06:40):
now.
Just gives me a hug.
Now some people hear that andthey go oh, is he hugging you
because you're cleaning up thecereal?
No, he's just hugging me.
That's what he does.
Lucas is a loving sweet boy andthe reason why he's a loving
sweet boy is because when hecomes over to give me the hug as
I'm cleaning up the cereal thathe spilled down the stairs, I
don't push him away, I don't getmad at him, I don't go.
No, no, we don't hug.
(07:01):
You know there's people whowill definitely do that kind of
stuff to people.
I'm not one of them and I'malso aware of the fact that if I
do that he's not gonna huganymore.
It's gonna slowly be somethinghe doesn't do.
So I kind of share that witheverybody and I can't tell you
for sure how your kid is,whether your kid has autism or
not doesn't even make adifference.
Lucas is unlike anybody else,whether they're on the spectrum
(07:24):
or not.
I wrote about this a few weeksago.
Lucas is himself.
He's unique.
But what I learned with him isthat if you encourage him to be
the person you want him to be,he will make an effort to be
that person right.
So Lucas is a sweet boy.
If I stopped him, if I try toteach him every day, don't do
the hey, this is, we don't hugnow.
It's not appropriate right now.
We don't hug now, it's notappropriate right now.
(07:45):
We don't hug, he wouldn't do itanymore.
He'll just stop.
Now I do teach him that if youdon't want to hug, like if it's
an inconvenient time, if I'mdriving the car, let's say like
I'm driving and he's in thefront seat and he wants to like,
grab me or hug me, he knows notto do that and that's something
that took a little while toteach him how to do.
As we hit a light, I put my armaround him, I give him a hug,
(08:05):
kiss him on the top of the head,tell him he's a good kid.
I encourage it.
I want him to be that person.
I want him to be this beacon ofsunlight in the world, because
there's not a lot of that.
Man, people are a little.
Eh, people can be what they areand that's a lesson that I've
taught throughout man, mydaughter the other day we were
(08:25):
talking about, she's on thiskick now.
She wants to find another job.
She worked briefly last year,which is crazy because I don't
know, she's a baby, right, she'sa little baby.
She's a 16 year old baby andshe wanted to get a job.
And I told her, I said you haveto call these places and ask
them if they're hiring.
She didn't.
(08:47):
You know, my friends say thejob they're at.
If somebody calls for a job,they don't even take the message
or they'll throw away theresume.
And I looked, I said, yeah,probably.
I'm like that happens, dude.
I'm like, but you can't alwaysexpect it to happen Like.
I'm going to be honest with youIn the world people can be
pretty crappy, but if you assumethat the world is full of
crappy people, you're going tomiss out on a lot of
opportunities.
You got to take the risk, yougot to put yourself out there
(09:08):
and she did, and we ended upcalling a place and the person
on the phone was nice to her andtook her name and number and it
was, it was legit.
So that made me happy.
So the same thing with her,same thing with him.
I encourage them to be thepeople I want to be, be the
change you want to be in we do.
And then on Wednesday, just toshow you I'm not just
exaggerating, I wrote about asecondary thing about Lucas,
(09:28):
again, autism.
That makes him a sweet boy.
Lucas doesn't lie.
Lucas can't lie, and I knowwhen I say that people will be
like, well, he's nonverbal, ofcourse he can't lie.
And yeah, I get it.
Smart guy, I understand whatyou're saying.
Not just verbally.
Lucas doesn't make any attemptto deceive at all, right, not
(09:49):
just verbally.
Lucas doesn't make any attemptto deceive at all, right.
And the example I gave wassomething that literally
happened last week.
I was downstairs in like theden in the basement of my house
and I heard stomping on the mainfloor and I'm like what is
happening up there?
I thought it was my daughter, Ithought she was getting food
and I come up the stairs andthere's lucas with pasta roni on
the floor, a handful, handfulof pastaroni.
He ate most of it.
He had gone into the fridge.
(10:09):
He had taken pastaroni out ofTupperware.
He had eaten it with his hands.
Some was on the floor, a lot ofthe remnants of it was on his
face and the rest, I guess, wasin his body.
He was done devouring it and heturned and he saw me and his
eyes kind of got wide and helooked at me and he slowly
handed me his iPad because thebattery had died.
(10:29):
And I sighed and I went come on,buddy, and I brought him
upstairs, got him ready for bed.
He went right to bed.
That's what he wanted the wholetime anyway.
But I didn't get mad at him.
And one of the reasons why Ididn't get mad at him, at least
in that moment moment, isbecause he not only did he show
me, he did the no, no, no withhis hands, but there was really
(10:50):
no point to it.
At the end of the day he made amistake.
He did something he knew hewasn't supposed to do.
We've already hammered home thewhole don't take food out of
the fridge and run around thehouse with it lesson.
But Lucas didn't lie.
Lucas doesn't try to hide it.
He didn't cover up the food onthe floor.
He didn't try to push me out ofthe room so I didn't see it.
(11:10):
Lucas is just Lucas.
He's not deceitful, he doesn'tknow how to be deceitful and
that is, honest to God, one ofthe most beautiful and wonderful
things about his personality.
It's something people don'ttalk about, something people
don't think about.
It's something they don't tellyou when they start to lecture
you about vaccinations and allthese things to be afraid of
(11:32):
when you have a baby, oh, becareful with him.
He'll get autism.
He'll be the sweetest, you know, most honest boy in the world.
That's what I got.
I have the sweetest, mosthonest boy in the world.
And again, autism appreciation.
It's not despite autism, it'sbecause of autism.
That's what makes him who he is.
It's such a major part of hispersonality.
(11:53):
It's something that sounds sobeautiful and so wonderful, and
I think the fact that mostpeople can't understand it
speaks volumes aboutneurotypical people.
We don't get it.
We don't understand how does,how, do you live a life and not
deceive people?
It's possible.
My kid doesn't.
It's a beautiful thing.
So I wrote about that on Monday.
I really like getting to dothat too.
(12:15):
This is the greatest thingthat's ever happened in my life.
I'm going to be honest with youNot just having Lucas as my son
, not having kids and being afather, but getting the
opportunity to write about ithas been I don't know.
Sometimes I still expect to wakeup.
I had a doctor's appointmenttoday new doctor we sat, we
talked a little bit about theautism writing.
(12:37):
He was asking questions andthen, all of a sudden, I
mentioned that I used to writeabout wrestling and I always
forget if I ever mentioned thatI used to write about wrestling.
I either find out that theydon't like wrestling at all,
which is rare, or they knoweverything about wrestling and
there's a million questions andstories and I met Scott Hall one
day and just like a lot ofthings to talk about and even
(12:59):
just going back and talkingabout wrestling.
I love wrestling, I love thework that I did, I love the job
that I got to do for years, butnothing, nothing compares to
what I do today.
Nothing compares to the writingthat I get to do for years, but
nothing, nothing compares towhat I do today.
Nothing compares to the writingthat I get to do.
Nothing compares to the way Ifeel when I create one of these
posts where I get to share myson with the world where I get
to help people who maybe aredealing with a struggle that
(13:19):
they're not really understanding.
My goal ever since December 13th2012, when I had my quintuple
bypass, was to leave more goodinto this world than I take out
of it, and I feel like I've donethat.
I've done that kind of with andwith humility too.
I'm going to admit to you.
I do this every day and I nevereven think about anybody
(13:43):
reading it.
I do it because I need to do it.
I like to do it.
I like to talk about my kid.
I feel like most people won'tunderstand, lucas, if I just sit
there and start talking aboutit like I'm doing now, like if
you were sitting in front of meand you don't know anything
about autism, you would stop meand be like oh, he didn't.
Oh, he ate all the pasta roni,and then I feel bad and then I
(14:05):
don't want to talk about itanymore.
I feel weird.
Getting to write about him,getting to do these podcasts,
getting to have a one-sidedconversation where I tell
everyone the wonderful thingsabout my son, is a dream come
true for me, and if nobody everreads it, it's therapeutic in a
sense that I just get to getthese stories out, share them,
tell people, explain it.
The fact that people read itand the fact that people can get
(14:27):
people read it, and the factthat people can get something
from it, the fact that theycould share it with their
friends who maybe don'tunderstand autism.
Maybe they could share it withtheir spouses, who are
struggling with it and they'retrying to get past it, and all
this stuff that makes it evenlike 10 times more.
So, yeah, it's a big deal, guys.
It's a very big deal.
So I'm excited.
I'm excited to share so muchmore of it.
(14:49):
Um, I think I think the finalcover for the book came in this
week.
I will give you guys more.
Again, I keep saying I'll giveyou more information and I hope
you don't think that I'm justpushing it off.
Pushing it off, but I don'tknow.
I feel uneasy about it.
I'm not really ready, untilthey're ready to release the
cover, to tell everybodyeverything, but let me assure
you to tell everybody everything, but let me assure you, things
are fantastic.
They're moving along.
I'm excited.
(15:10):
I've been talking to people allweek about this and uh and yeah
, 2025 is gonna, it's gonna be agreat year.
So do me a HiBlogImDad.
com, go to .
Follow along with the blogsthere.
Please let me know if you readit.
Drop me a line.
Go to the contact page.
Follow me on social media.
@HiJames Guttman, let me know.
(15:30):
I'd love to know what you thinkabout it.
It's uh, it's really.
This is my, my life's work anduh, and I don't know like I, I
hesitate to say it's mymasterpiece, because I consider
my, my kids, to truly be mymasterpiece, but sharing them
with you is is beyond a dreamcome true for me.
So thank you, thank you forlistening, thank you for reading
, thank you for paying attentionand thank you so much for the
(15:51):
last eight years on Going Strong.
So thank you.
That does it for me, guys,until next time.
This is James Guttman saying bewell, bye pod, I'm dad, thank
you, I'll see you next time.
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