Sometimes funny stories aren't funny until later, but they're still funny...

So...yesterday was Franklin's last day of school.  He had a field day with the general ed. kindergarteners.  I was hesitant to let him participate with the general ed kids because, although I know it would be fun for him, I felt like it would be a very overstimulating situation from which he would have a hard time recovering.  His teacher and I discussed it and I agreed to let him go, and as I suspected Franklin spent the remainder of the day in a state of overstimulation.  Nevertheless, I promised Franklin we would go get frozen yogurt after I picked him up from school, so, we went to the frozen yogurt shop.   Franklin was so overstimulated that he couldn't even focus on which kind of yogurt he wanted or what toppings he wanted.  Finally, we were able to get through the line and sit down with our yogurt.  Franklin ate his yogurt and decided he wanted more so, instead of asking me for more, he got up, walked over to another table where a bunch of teenagers were sitting, sat down without saying anything and tried to stick his spoon into one of the teenager's bowls!  The group looked over at me, completely bewildered! I apologized and explained that Franklin was Autistic.  Again, they looked at me with that "deer in the headlights" type look, like "What's that mean?"
I am sharing this story for a couple of reasons.  The first is because this happens a lot.   My son tends to problem solve in very creative and interesting ways.  Sometimes I ask myself how my son comes to the solutions he finds.  In this case he wanted more frozen yogurt, and he decided to go get some!  Simple as that.  He gets things in his head and once they are there, he can only focus on what he wants.
One time, Franklin walked out of the house while I was feeding the baby and right into the neighbor's house while she was sleeping.  He walked right into her bedroom and started flipping light switches (Franklin LOVES to flip light switches).  We had never met the neighbors as we had just moved into our house.  At the time I was horrified and embarrassed, but after explaining to the neighbors that Franklin was Autistic and apologizing, they were very nice and understanding.  When I asked him why he decided to go into the neighbor's house, he said simply, "I wanted to see what their bedrooms looked like."  This wasn't a new behavior for Franklin, several months earlier (at our old house), while playing outside, he decided he was hungry and instead of coming into our house, he went into the neighbor's kitchen and got an apple out of her refrigerator.  We've had conversations about asking people for what he wants, but he doesn't understand.  It can be really embarrassing, and aggravating constantly having to explain my child's strange behavior but slowly I am learning to just accept that he is who he is.   I am learning to accept that people are always going to be judgmental, but the majority of people tend to be understanding, especially when you explain.  Franklin is who he is, and he is always going to be this way.  As his mother, if I don't accept that and him, who will?  So I am slowly becoming less self conscious about it, and just explain the situation and move on.  I've even started getting snarky with people who are rude or judgmental.  Of course, there are always situations that arise that frazzle me, or make it hard for me to keep my cool, but I am learning and I am trying to move forward and that is the best I can do.  In addition, regular discipline doesn't work with children like mine, so you have to teach them in a different way, and that can be frustrating sometimes.
What is interesting to me is that Autism is SO prevalent these days, and yet SO many people still don't know what it even is!  I fully admit that before  having my son, I had NO CLUE what Autism was.  I have a masters degree in Elementary Education and yet I had one quarter of special ed training with about a day of that being on Autism.  There is so much that is unknown about Autism and yet families like mine are expected to navigate it virtually blind.  The lack of resources for Autism is a very long post for another time, but it's a huge issue.    And when things don't go smoothly, or when our children do strange things, people tend to judge.  What everyone needs to understand is that we, as Autism parents, are doing the very best we can with the very limited resources we have.
My point in writing this post was to share that a lot of times, the things my son does don't seem funny at the time, but I can see the humor in them later on.  I feel like I need to just take care of him, and work on not getting as frazzled.  I need to quit worrying so much what other people think because he's more important than anyone.  Enough said.