Every family has good days and bad days in life.  Some of them will be known by a kind of memory jogger - that day we saw the deer, that night when the car died, that great dinner we had that one time and (for those of you with newborns or, like us, kids who fight sleep and cats who wake early) that night we got to sleep seven hours straight.  A few of them that stand out more don't need any details - when we met, when your child was born.
     Only a few need just one word to describe and remember.
     Given last Sunday, Father's Day, was kind of a mess - literally AND figuratively - I kind of got a redo.  So Saturday, we went up to Jacksonville to visit two of our favorite places - Wake and Bake Pizza and Recollected Books.  Eat some pizza, buy some books, have a time.
     We decided to eat first, since Xan's always hungry.  When we went in, I started to wonder if things were going to get interesting.  They had a band playing on the stage in the back, and they were tuning up and playing around, and Xan immediately covered his ears.  Loud noises, high noises, odd echoes and deep noises can bug him, so I was a little nervous.
     Tracy and I talked and decided to go on and try to eat, guessing if things really began to bother him we could go outside and finish.  Xan still had his fingers in his ears, so I made sure to tell one of the guys in the band - the keyboardist and lead singer - to please not take it personal, explained he was autistic and the loud noise was bothering him.  It wasn't a comment on their music, which was very good.
     The guy was super cool about it, said it was no problem.  Soon after, they stopped playing.  It took me a while to connect the dots, but when I did (I would be the first to admit I'm not a fast thinker...actually, I'd be the fortieth or so.)  (ps - that line comes from Terry Pratchett, an author you really should be reading) I went up to the stage.  The lead singer and the drummer were goofing around very quietly and I asked if they had stopped because of Xan.  They said yes, they were just being considerate.
     I thanked them then, and I thank them now.  I hope somewhere they all have something very nice coming to them for this good deed.
     I also told them to go ahead and play.  Xan has to get used to this kind of stuff.  The whole world won't be as kind as this band was, and sometimes he's just gonna have to accept and adjust.  They got back on stage and started to play some of their songs.
    And...
    Xander would take his hands down, bob his head a bit, put them back in his ears.  He began to laugh. He began to LOUDLY laugh, smile, giggle, wave his hands in that 'I'm excited' flap of his, and emit peals of his happy cry: 'Deeeeeeeee!'
     We got done eating and were getting ready to leave.  Xan got up, ran to the stage and began jumping and laughing and twirling and spinning and having one of best times I can remember him having.  The owner of the store knows us - we're probably not one of her regulars, being kind of far away, but Xan makes an impression and she remembered us - and let him do all that.  I stayed close to the stage in case he decided to try and jump on there with them - I could see that - and watched him.  The singer, the one I had talked to, asked his name from the stage, gave him a shout-out.
     They played three or songs, all excellent,  and the singer even gave us a warning when he was going to hit some high notes in case it bothered Xan.  It didn't.
     I asked the owner for their name.  Turns out it was members of two or three bands getting together for a kind of jam session.  From what I heard, they could do this a lot more.
     I bought them all some cookies (which are excellent) as a very tiny payment for one of the best days I can remember.  Xan keened and sang in his own way to himself the rest of the day.
     We will always remember this day as Music Day.

     I've always loved to read.  I taught myself to read when I was two and never stopped.  Mom and dad saw my love for it and pretty much cut me loose, to where I read the Lord of the Rings trilogy when I was, I think, four and was buying Stephen King books when I was 10 or so.  I very much remember an incident in 3rd grade when I tried to buy 1984 from Scholastic Reader (they passed out the 8th grade forms to us by accident) and the teacher called my parents to inform them they had made a mistake letting me order it.  Her bad luck had dad answering the phone.
     For anyone who knows my dad, I give you a few minutes to imagine and enjoy his reaction to the call.  It was...multi-syllabic, shall we say.
     This addiction, one of my few, has never stopped.  We have about close to six thousand books and I've read many to most of them.  We've got eight bookcases filled to overflowing; books in straight rows and stacked in piles everywhere there's space.  Books in stacks on the floor downstairs, lining the hall, piled in the front of the nonworking chimney.
     If someone offered me one tenth of a cent per page for all my books...well, they'd really regret it quickly.
     Xan likes books too.  He's often carrying one, or two, or three around and almost always grabs some whenever we get in the car.  Given his druthers, he tends to go for easy ones with big pictures, and we steer him to more challenging ones.  We're pretty sure he reads and understands them to some extent - he's been quizzed in school on books he's read and can name characters, situations and basic things like that. 
     But lots of times he uses them to bang his elbows or knees with - which seems to help him kind of reset his own body; that being a stranger in your own skin feeling I've written about before.  It's hard to get answers from him about less picture-filled books, which may be a lack of understanding the book, the question, or from us in understanding his answers either due to verbal troubles or intellect.  After all, he may be answering more than what we ask, giving us a 10 when we expect a 2.  He reads.  We just don't know how well.
     But how does he read other people?
     This is usually a big problem with autistic people, where they're busy inside their own heads and skin dealing with their own flood of sensory input to understand, or perhaps even notice, what other people are thinking and feeling.  If you have on headphones screaming heavy metal in your ears you aren't be able to catch that whispered question from a person next to you.  Other people may see rudeness where it's more overload.  At best, even with understanding, you'll be tolerated, not accepted.
     He seems to get some things.  When we had to put Casper and Ziggy to sleep, he was kind to mommy, giving her little kisses on the top of her head.  And, sadly, he's very good at noticing when I'm mad at him, which may or may not mean I'm that too much.  But those were and are extremes, clear differences, a boiling ocean or stuttering waterfall where before things were placid and smooth.  Other things...
     I think he gets when I'm in a good mood, because he wants me to play with him when I'm like that, when I'm likely to really get down and tickle him and wrestle him and all that stuff he likes.  Then again, there's been times I've been clearly sick, either with pneumonia or a migraine, and he's either wanted to play or wanted me to do things I pretty clearly wasn't capable of doing.  Was that the usual selfishness kids can show, or was it him not seeing I was in pain?  How well can he read us, the people he's closest to?  (I assume - I can just see me typing out this blog and finding out from his school he's the combination analyst and counselor to his class...)
     This is important to get, of course, because reading other people will at the least let you fit in society a bit better - maybe your particular puzzle piece will have to be pushed in a bit, or maybe there'll be a gap at one segment or another, but you'll still be in the whole.  But if you can't see when some people are happy, sad, mad, sick - you won't fit.  You'll be that square peg in the round hold, or that picture of a cherry in the puzzle of clouds, or that odd checker on the chess board that's meant to be a pawn. 
     It's hard to teach too.  People tend to be separate in their emotions.  Books with the same color cover can be millions of differences inside.  Only way to know is to be able to read them.  Which we don't know how well he can do yet.