Autism talk

This morning is our town's Autism Walk. We didn't put together Team Charlie because we were supposed to be camping with the Cub Scouts. Due to a series of unfortunate events surrounding, primarily, my inability to be organized with paperwork and registration, we are now doing laundry instead of walking OR camping.

Eh.

Instead, we had some spontaneous Autism Talk instead of an Autism Walk. Charlie brought up the subject like this:

C: I am one of the smartest people in the world.
G: I agree. You are one of the top seven billion minds on the planet.
C: That number is too big. God is the smartest person on the planet, then people with autism come next.

After Charlie left the room, the girls were talking about how they have the best little brother possible.

In the last year, he has figured out that he has autism. We never sat down and told him, but he picked up on the idea somewhere. I asked him what he thought it meant and his logic was something like this:

C: I am awesome. And I have autism. So autism must be another word for awesome.

He's also made comments like, "I have trouble controlling my anger, because I have autism. It means it is hard for me to not explode and be really mad."

Earlier in the year, his teacher had the 2nd graders write an autobiography. His went something like this:

I was born. I really don't remember much after that. When I was three, I learned to talk. I have autism. Now I am seven, and I am writing my autobiography.