Read Raising Cubby for Free Online Page B

just being companionable.
    I had loved the taste of wooden Tinker Toys when I was a kid. Wood is nice and chewy, with a definite flavor. Beavers love it. Cubby loved wood too. He found his in the form of Brio wooden trains and wooden track sections. They were perfect for a toddler—tasty enough to provide hours of enjoyment, yet tough enough to remain basically unmarked by his emerging baby teeth.
    He grew pretty fast and learned new tricks every day. I watched him follow objects with his eyes and make noises and expressions in response to what he saw or heard. He smiled at his mom and me, and reached out his little paws to be picked up. It was remarkable how quickly he learned to manipulate us to do his bidding without saying a single word. He did that better than any cat or dog.
    We set about feeding him, changing diapers, and watching him grow. We both took to the task with gusto and enthusiasm. More so his mom than me, when it came to diapers. As I saw it, my job was to entertain him, make him think, and help him understand the world. I began pondering ways to do that.

Excited as we were with our newborn baby, we could not help but see that Cubby had some challenges. We noticed the first one before he was even old enough to walk. It started with a triumph—the realization that he was doing something I could seldom do when I was young.
    Cubby mirrored our expressions.
    If I smiled at him, he would smile back. It was automatic. When I came in the door, we smiled at each other every time. I don’t know that I’ve ever felt a connection like that with anyone else in my life.
    Some people might have taken that for granted. Not me. I remembered my early days very clearly, when my parents and their friends picked me up and made faces at me. Now I know the adults were expecting me to smile back when they made those big smiley faces, but at the time I was just scared and confused. I had no idea what was happening; for all I knew, those big toothy mouths meant that I was about to be eaten. When I didn’t respond as expected, they turned away as if I had something wrong with me. Even now I remember the sting of that rejection.
    The inability to automatically mirror other people’s expressionsis very common in people with autism, and I’m still that way to some extent today. My mother certainly remembers my lack of response to her smiles. When I was older, she said my serious demeanor made her worry that I didn’t like her. I liked her fine, but I don’t think I ever smiled about it.
    My maternal grandmother had the hardest time with my lack of response. She would pick me up and make faces at me while holding me at arm’s length. After a moment, when I didn’t do what she wanted, she plopped me on the floor. “You’re just a mean little boy,” she would tell me, waddling off down the hall. Luckily for me, my other grandmother liked me better.
    Cubby was totally different. He smiled all the time. I can see the difference instantly when I compare pictures of us. Old photos of me show a stern, serious tyke. Images of Cubby show a happy, grinning toddler. Smiles were one way Cubby had me beat, and it delighted me to see that.
    But although Cubby mirrored smiles right away, he was not so quick to imitate behavior. Little Bear found that out when she tried to play patty-cake with him. I never did stuff like that, because I thought it was foolish, but Little Bear was very enamored of such inane baby entertainments. She’d spend hours on the floor with Cubby, touching her palms to his while reciting the patty-cake rhyme. The idea, of course, was for him to follow her lead. He never did. He just sat there on the floor, giggled, and let his mom touch her paws to his and sing to him. The idea that he was supposed to do the same thing just didn’t seem to sink in.
    The problem was not lack of interest; she could see how much he liked having her arrange his little forelegs for the game. He grinned and babbled with delight whenever