It's easy to say that Curtis is inspiring and leave it at that but there are any number of specific examples which articulate the point. Yesterday, Curtis and I were walking down my parents driveway and started walking towards the "rivers" his cousing Jayden was creating with the hose. Curtis stopped in his tracks and asked me if we had any chalk. He then searched the box for a white piece of chalk, returned to the rivers, and started drawing white dashes in them to create a series of highways. He insisted on putting in at least 15 minutes on this project before we could attempt some wiffle ball.

Last week on the way to play basketball, Curtis insisted on holding the two cups of uncapped water we were bringing to the hoop "to stay hydrated", in Curtis' words. When we reached the street, he stepped on a horizontal soda can so he could loge it in his sneaker and create that crunching noise as he walked. So now he's holding two cups of water which he's trying not to spill and crunching this can underfoot and his mission is to see if he can make it to the hoop with all three items. I asked him why it was necessary to turn a 5 minute walk into a 20 minute walk but all he repeatedly said was "There's no rush, dad. Are you going to wait for me?" Naturally I did and he was proud of himself 20 minutes later when he accomplished his mission. I bit my lip and took the walk on the chin.

A couple weeks ago, Curtis was at a cupcake shop, heard Michael Jackson and immediately started dancing. The girl working then played more Michael Jackson and so he just kept dancing through 4 or 5 of his MJ favorites. The store clerk asked with permission to mention Curtis' visit on their facebook page.


East End Cupcakes Our Vanilla w/ Vanilla had seven-year-old Curtis dancing to Micheal Jackson for 20 minutes. It's been a great morning.


Curtis will seize any opportunity he is presented with and does not care what anyone thinks of him dancing in a cupcake store, or carrying a Smurfette doll around the Farmer's Market (as he did yesterday). He certainly didn't care what anyone thought of his attempts to dart behind every cash register or his attempts to get into employee only areas at every business he visited between ages 4-6. His curiosities often present challenges for his parents and caregivers to say the least, but he always finds a way to teach you a lesson in the work. Like Miyagi making Daniel paint the fence or wax his cars.

Greg, Dad

When I take Curtis out to do chalk I generally pick a place that's non-crowded but where his work will eventually be seen. The back of a school, an open area inside a park early in the morning, but anywhere that doesn't involve moving traffic or a gazebo will work. Today Curtis did these roads at the entrance to a public playground presenting more foot traffic than he's used to while he works. I rigged the setting so I could watch a baseball game on an adjacent field. I've watched the scene unfold many times where people politely pass by as he starts, but end up fixated after he's been given some time to start fleshing out his drawing.
      When Curtis "does roads" he generally shuts out the outside world. The main reason it's easier to pick a non-crowded place is because Curtis typically won't respond to inquiries about what he's drawing while it's in progress. My favorite reaction today was a girl about 10 years old who just stood there with her mouth open for a minute as me and Curtis exchanged smiles. She never said anything. It's difficult at first for people to interpret what they are viewing at first, especially other kids.
      The first thing most adults do when they see the roads is ask me or Curtis if he had help. Then they look at it when we say no and it's fairly obvious only one person worked on it. Sometimes Curtis will explain it's the Maine Turnpike. Other times it's 1-95, to 495, to I-90, to I-84. Some kids tug at their parents to look at what Curt's doing and they either look or don't, but the kids almost always stare in amazement or curiosity. Another common reaction is "Oh, so  YOU'RE the one who does these!" Many others take in the drawing smiling for a while and just wish Curtis a good day. Once Curtis starts getting compliments on his art, he expects them from everyone. Should someone look at his work and not comment, he typically looks at me and says, "Well, I guess no compliments that time". He has to be reminded that he does not need a 100% public approval rate.
      Curtis is not especially aware of the passing time while he works, which is really the most impressive piece of it to me. These are "projects" that if you assigned them to a typically developing child, I imagine they would likely abandon the work in a matter of minutes. With Curtis, there is usually not enough chalk or time to complete the picture in his head. I am careful not to let it go on for too long, but I see nothing wrong with the temporary relaxing escape this sidewalk chalk affords to him. He breaks only to go to the bathroom or request water or Capri Sun. Then he always emerges refreshed, relaxed, and ready to eat, run, or move on to something else. It's therapeutic for him and visually impressive for the rest of us. He also gets asked a lot if he will be an engineer or architect to which he always replies, "No, I'm an artist."

**more pics from today on his autism artwork page

Greg, Dad

I’m not going to claim to have coined the phrase, “I’m having a weird thought about that,” nor am I going to claim it’s the best way I could have said Curtis was doing something that by any social norms is unusual, but it works for Curtis.  Anyone who knows or meets Curtis immediately falls in love with him.  He is charming and hilarious to say the least.  Because I care about Curtis, I have the responsibility of telling him if he is doing something that other people are going to think are weird to spare him possible embarrassment in school or other social settings in the future.  Curtis gets just as embarrassed as the next kid if something embarrassing happens to him.  He has come to a point where he no longer resists interacting with other kids to participate in solo activities.  Curtis wants to be liked just like everyone else so to help him with this myself and others around him let him know when he is doing something that others may not like or may find strange.  It all started when Curtis was going through an obsession with collecting coins.  He would stop at almost nothing to get coins.  I let a lot of these behaviors go because like many other activities he once was “obsessed” with I assumed this would pass.  One day we were in a convenience store when suddenly he was on the floor, completely flat trying to get coins from under a chip display island.  Needless to say the floor was less that spotless and I was horrified that he had his entire body pressed into it trying to get some pennies.  I had heard the term “I’m having a weird thought,” from another educator and it rolled out of my mouth at that moment.  Curtis was so caught off guard that he jumped up and immediately questioned what I meant.  While the idea of someone having a “weird thought” was challenging for me to explain and for Curtis to understand, it has been worth it.  Curtis has insisted from the get go that certain people in his life will never have weird thoughts about him and I have agreed with him on this point.  He also insisted that he doesn’t have weird thoughts about others.  After a few months of using the phrase we were on a playground where he saw one of his friends from school.  After several attempts to say hello to this child with no response Curtis looked at me and said, “Jamie I’m trying to say hi to him but he’s not answering.”  Seeing that the child was clearly not interested in the interaction today I responded with, “Well yes now isn’t that interesting?” “That’s not interesting, it’s weird,” he exclaimed!  I quickly took this opportunity to pull him aside and explain he just had a weird thought.  Since that day he has not questioned what one is or how it makes you feel.  We also have developed hand signals to use in public so that I could reinforce him when he was playing nicely with others or reassure him other children are behaving in unusual ways when they stray from the social norms he understands.  Finding a simple way to explain the complex thoughts we take for granted about social norms has been really important for Curtis.

Jamie, In-Home Support

I don't believe Curtis did anything particularly embarrassing on this Fryeburg Fair trip where he lost a tooth but I love the picture. I was on a parent panel at The Southern Maine Autism Conference earlier this year and one of the questions posed to the parents was what to do in the publicly embarrassing situations. Unfortunately there is no one size fits all answer for this one. While eyebrow raising outbursts are much more infrequent now we aren't too far removed from the days uncontrollable sobs in the grocery store or a refusal to leave the Thomas the Train table display at Toys R' Us without being carried out of the store.

I was always more prone to removing him from a situation and Laura was more intent on having him learn right from wrong. I got used to front loading my exits from stores. For example, finding the shortest line or pacing the area until something opened up. When Curtis was 3, 4, 5 years old it was barely realistic to expect him to wait in a line when his body was always telling him to move. While we both never intend to give in to him on a situation of expected behavior we are also careful not to disrupt the lives of those around us. That said, there are people who are going to glare no matter what. Your kid is acting up you must be a lousy parent, glare, feeling of superiority. I say let them have it. Curtis never cared what they thought and after a while neither did I. And "they" are the minority. Most people with common sense are going to realize there may be something a little extra going on here and express sympathy if anything.  My feeling is there is a time to stick it out and there is a time to carry them out of the store. I'm just glad I've always been a lot bigger than him.

Greg, Dad