Answers to Questions about Autism

I stopped at the store and bought two potatoes yesterday, ready to come home and blog, complete with pictures, about my famous healthy French fries alternative. But when I got home, I discovered that my son Wayne had posted answers to his daughter's senior-project questions about autism on Facebook. Those answers, especially the last paragraph, made me so proud, I figured the potato recipe could wait. I want to share Wayne's posting with you.

Here's what Wayne said:

My daughter’s senior project is a paper on Autism. Autism is a subject that gets a lot of attention at our home. In preparation for the paper, she asked questions directed to all members of the family and to friends. My answers to her questions are as the father of an autistic child, for my five-year-old son, Wayne Jr., was diagnosed with autism when he was three.

I am listing the questions and my answers below:

1) Do you feel you had enough information on autism when your child was first diagnosed with autism?

I did not have nearly enough information when Way Jay was diagnosed. I did not know what autism was, or what, if any, the treatment was. There was a stigma about autism. It seemed to be some terrible diagnosis that, if it was applied to Wayne, would turn him into some lost cause. What I learned is that autism is a neurological disorder that affects a person’s ability to learn and process. There are also social challenges for people on the autism spectrum. Wayne Jr. is fairly high functioning: he is just beginning to develop verbal skills, and he is not nearly as socially challenged as many autistic children.

2) Was it difficult to find resources/services available in your area?

Yes and no. For the most part, we have had very good luck getting Wayne the services that he needs. The waiting list to get into the ASTAR clinic in Seattle was only 3 or 4 months (as compared to the UW program that had a year wait for the evaluation). Also, in Reno, we were able to get a grant from the state that got Wayne a lot of one-on-one therapy.

3) How old was the child when he/she was diagnosed?

We began to suspect something was wrong with Wayne when he was 18 months old. He displayed some repetitive behavior, he had limited eye contact, and he was not developing verbally. At two years of age, we spoke to our pediatrician and said we were worried about Wayne’s development, but we were told to be patient and see if he showed improvement in the next 6 months. The rest of the story would take some time to cover, but in a nutshell, we did get Wayne in to see a neurologist, and he was diagnosed as having autism when he was three years old.

4) What is your relationship with the child?

Wayne is my son.

5) What type of things do you wish you had known or are you still wondering about?

Of course I wish I had knows more about autism when Wayne was diagnosed. But that’s the challenge of being a parent. I could say something similar to that about each one of my children. Not that any of the older kids have presented me with a challenge as big as Way Jay’s, but with each of them, I could sit back with the luxury that hindsight gives us and say, gee I wish I had known more. I think that I was very blessed to have a wife that was so good at getting good information. She was tireless in her quest for information on autism.

As far as what do I still wonder about? I suppose my big wonder is what caused this? To look at Wayne, you would think that he is perfect in every way. He is a beautiful boy, yet somewhere in his brain there is a disconnect. I wish I knew why, and I wish I could do something to change that.

6) Do you wish there was something to inform you of what to expect and how to handle things when the child was first diagnosed?

In this area we were lucky. The ASTAR clinic has a wonderful follow-up program for the families of the children that are diagnosed at their clinic. We had lots of support from them, and they spent many hours working with us and educating us on what we could expect from Wayne. Of course, every child with autism is not the same, and so every outcome is different, but there are many things that are common to people with autism, and we were well informed by the people at ASTAR.

7) Would you have utilized such information had it been available to you?

We certainly did and would encourage anyone who has an autistic member of their family to get as much info as they can get their hands on.

8) Do you have any suggestions for anyone entering a situation with a newly diagnosed son/daughter, or for someone who is of any other relation to a newly-diagnosed child?

First off, don’t be afraid of the autism diagnosis. It does not change the child. Way Jay was still the same sweet boy both before and after we got the official diagnosis. What changed was that now, with this new information, my wife Shea and I, as parents, could start doing things with him that would be much more appropriate to help him learn.

Second, don’t blame yourself for your child’s autism. The fact is, no one has any idea WHAT causes autism, and it happens in families that are rich and poor. Spending a lot of time feeling guilty about your child’s disability is not productive, and it's time that would be better spent learning how to help your child learn.

Finally, autism is not the end of the world. Because of autism, Wayne cannot speak, but he is a very smart boy, and he has a well developed sense of humor. He is a pleasure to have around, and we spend hours playing and laughing. He is my companion on most of my errands, and really I can’t imagine life without him there. There are things about autism that are not pleasant, but having Wayne in our home has been a blessing, and I would not trade it for the world.

Liz here: You can see why I wanted to post this. Bravo to my granddaughter Lizzy for her senior project, and bravo to Wayne for his wonderful attitude. I've seen him parent that little boy, and it does my heart good.

Next week I'm going to give you a recipe for the perfect dessert for your Easter feast: Sour Cream Lemon Pie. Be sure you check back so you don't miss it! I'll do the Healthy Quasi-French Fries later in April.

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Plowed Ground or Rocks?

How many times have you heard the Parable of the Sower and the Seed?

This story appears in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke and tells of seeds planted in various places. One of the seeds is cast by the wayside where it is trodden down and eaten by birds. Another is cast upon stony ground where it can’t get root. A third is cast among thorns that spring up and choke it out. Finally, some of the seeds are cast on good ground and spring up and yield bounteous fruit.

How many times have you read or talked about that parable in your lifetime? I was trying to figure that out. I’ll bet fifty times is a conservative estimate for me. Add to that all the times I’ve sung Hymn #216 ("We are Sowing",) and the number is closer to a hundred.

You would think that I had that parable down cold, and that there would be nothing left to discover about it. But a month or so ago, we were discussing the Parable of the Sower in Relief Society, and I had a thought hit me so hard that I spoke it out loud without raising my hand.

You see, I’ve always listened to this parable from the vantage point of an active, believing Latter-day Saint who was given the gift of the Gospel in my life by my parents. In considering what the seeds represented, I would shake my head, remembering people I had known who were like the ones that fell on the wayside or on the rocks or among the thorns. If pressed, I could give names and describe situations.

Those things always happened to other people. I had never put myself in the parable until that day in Relief Society when it hit me that, though I wasn’t a seed, I may have been part of the rocky place, the place with no loamy soil to hold the moisture for the tender plant that sprang up.

I blogged once about an experience I had when we moved to another ward and I, a mainstay of my previous ward, became invisible. No one greeted me. No one even noticed me. Had I had a less hardy testimony, I might have withered away, too, and quit coming to church.

After that experience, I realize how important it is for me to reach out to the tender newcomer in my ward, doing my best to operate as moist peat moss instead of a brusque, stony presence.

For me, the Parable of the Sower is no longer about the Sower or the Seed. It’s about the ground, and I pray that the Lord will help me be plowed and thorn-free, ready to be a friend, be a faithful visiting teacher, be one who notices and offers a smile, a handshake, an introduction.

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A Good-bye to Gail Whitney

Yesterday morning I sat in the overflow section with a host of other people who had come to the stake center in Ferndale, Washington say good-bye to Gail Whitney and to wish her well, now that she has flown the prison of her physical body.

I know that each of us conjured different memories of Gail as we watched her family follow her flower-laden casket down the aisle, but I have an idea that there would be a common thread running through the narrative if we had all been called upon to share.

I haven’t been called upon, but I’m going to share a memory or two:

If I had to describe Gail in one word, it would be serene. She seemed unflappable, never ruffled or frantic. When she was Relief Society President of our ward, I often marveled at her, because I remembered my tenure in that position and the many times I had wide eyes, sweaty palms and a voice rising in decibels according to the caliber of disaster I was presiding over. Not Gail. That wasn’t her style. Just being around her was soothing.

I couldn’t tell you what color Gail’s eyes were, but I can tell you how it felt to have her look at you. You felt noticed, loved, cared about. I saw her last fall, and I remember telling her how good she looked, even though she was obviously frail. On the way home, I was thinking that was a gauche thing to do, but then I realized that she DID look good, because what I saw was her eyes. As she took my hand, she looked at me, and I was nurtured by that connection. It wasn’t until later reflection that I realized my comment wasn’t really accurate.

But, that’s just a lead-in to the story I wanted to tell about Gail.

When she was Relief Society President, she called one time when I was down with the flu, and in the conversation, she found out that I was an aspiring writer and that I had, in fact, just sold a story to True Romance. Now, when you write for True Romance, you don’t get a byline—because they’re ‘true’ stories, not supposed to be made-up—and it takes about six months from the time you get word your story has been accepted until it comes out in print.

Gail asked the name of the story and asked when it was coming out. I told her and thought no more of it. But she remembered, and six months later, she bought a copy from the magazine rack at the drug store and read my story.

That was huge to me, because True Romance was just a couple steps above the tabloids that have stories about alien abductions, and to buy the magazine in public where everyone can see you seemed to be very brave. If it had been me, I would have announced very loudly that I was buying the magazine for a friend. But she didn’t. She acted as if my being published there was a great thing. I think that’s when I finally began admitting to people that I wrote for True Romance.

I never told Gail how much that meant to me. Should have, but didn’t. Maybe that’s why I felt the need to tell it now.

Family History the Fat Sisters' Way

I was fourteen when we moved from Alaska to the tiny town of Fredonia, AZ and I enrolled in Fredonia High School. It was more like a large family than a student body—there were sixty-two students. I don’t know about the quality of education I got, but I felt loved and accepted by teachers and classmates alike.

One of my classmates was Joyce Whiting (now Joyce Packard). We lived across the street from her house, and I spent a lot of time in her kitchen and ate many meals with the Whiting family. We have stayed in touch during the fifty years since I graduated from Fredonia High, but it’s the kind of friendship that can take a year or two off and we can pick up the threads and not feel that we have drifted apart.

A couple years ago I got a bulky package in the mail from Joyce. When I opened it, it turned out to be a cookbook that Joyce and her sisters put together to honor their mom. Joyce’s sisters are Glenna Tingey, Myrna Borden, Deb Lewis and Terry Schnepf.

Besides their mother’s recipes, the book is full of anecdotes, tips and guides. Here’s an anecdote under the recipe for Macaroni and Cheese from Scratch:

Mom always made her macaroni from scratch. Often she baked it before serving it. Sometimes she would bake it in a round mold; when she unmolded it to serve, she would fill the hole in the middle with green peas. Great presentation!

This is a great way to chronicle family history. Through these anecdotes, recipes, and the pictures at the beginning of each section, you get to know the Fat Sisters’ mother, Aleen Whiting. She was hard-working, practical, and a great homemaker who welcomed visitors into her home. I remember her well, and the pictures show that my memory of her as a beautiful woman is correct.

I felt so blessed to have Joyce and her sisters—the Fat Sisters—say they would cater my publication party. They learned well from their mother that presentation is half the secret of delicious food, and the refreshment table was beautifully done. I was too busy with guests to do more than eat one Mexican Wedding Cookie. When I bit into it, I closed my eyes, and I was fifteen again, in Sister Whiting’s kitchen at Christmas time, and basking in the spirit of their home.

The Fat Sisters gave me permission to post the recipe for Mexican Wedding Cookies here:

This recipe makes about 4 dozen. Invite me over. I’ll help you eat them.

1 cup butter
½ cup powdered sugar
2 cups flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 to 2 cups chopped pecans

Mix all ingredients together. Roll in 1-inch balls. Use small cookie scoop. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes or at 400 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes until set but not brown. While still warm, roll in powdered sugar. Cool, then roll in powdered sugar again. If you are going to freeze them, you can wait and roll them the second time just before you serve them.

At the bottom of the Fat Sisters Cookbook is their slogan: Never trust a skinny cook. Well said.


I found this picture as I was going through my family photo trunk. It was taken just after my family moved away from Fredonia. This same picture is on the Sauces, Jams and Toppings divider page.



You can buy The Fat Sisters Cookbook at the Fat Sisters Cookbook web site.









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Publication Party for Counting the Cost

We had the publication party last Friday night for my newest book, Counting the Cost, published by Inglestone Publishing. You can read reviews on Amazon.com.

Set in Depression-era New Mexico, Counting the Cost is about a working cowboy and the socialite from back east who comes west and pulls his inner moral compass a few degrees off kilter. It’s a story of two people dealing with choices and consequences during hard times in a hard land, and only when tragedy strikes do they realize the price of redemption.

The publication party was held at the Rockin’ R Ranch, an old-timey, western-themed dinner theatre complex in Mesa, AZ. It was perfect for launching a book about a cowboy.

Members of my writing group, American Night Writers Association came out to lend their support, but there were also lots friends of my publisher, Cecily Markland, since she’s located here Phoenix. I had some old friends show up, too, which really made my day.

We had live music performed by Debbie Coon and friends.

At left is Debbie Coon, singer, and Cecily Markland, my publisher.

Refreshments were catered by the authors of the Fat Sisters Cookbook. They're old friends from waaaaaay back.

Thanks for all who made it happen. I’m going to blog next week about the Fat Sisters and introduce you to how they happened to write their cookbook, and I’ll tell you about Debbie Coon and her music, too.

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The Roots in Service for Eight

Once a week I blog on Service for yourLDSneighborhood. I’ve departed from the usual meaning of the word—compassionate acts done for our fellow man—on several occasions. I blogged about the advent of self service at gas stations and about the poet Robert Service. I’m going to depart once again and blog about dishes.



When I was a young woman the world was very different from what it is now. The interesting thing is that a lot of the social expectations that were in place at that time had been there for hundreds of years. One of those expectations was that, when a young woman reached puberty, she began working on acquiring linens and dishes to put in her hope chest, so when she married, she would be able to set up housekeeping. It was probably the American equivalent of a dowry, and it was still very much alive and well in the mid-fifties when I was a teenager.



One of the things that every young lady aspired to have in her hope chest was a set of china and a set of silver. My mother married during the depression. She came from a family so poor that they didn’t notice much of a change in the fall of 1929, and when she married, her mother gave her a set of sheets for a wedding present. That was the extent of her hope chest, and there were no other wedding presents.



The character Ruth in my latest book Counting the Cost is based on the lady who came from back east and fell in love with a cowboy, my uncle. Her family was urbane, and she was schooled in all the social niceties, and she taught my mother all the little unwritten social rules: how to set a table with proper china and silver, when you could wear white shoes, what colors could be worn together.

I remember my mother was determined to have a set of good dishes and silverware. The family budget wouldn’t stretch to accommodate the fine English bone china she set her heart on, so she went to work in the fields picking potatoes to earn the money. It took her two or three seasons of riding the potato digger to finally be able to afford service for twelve. The pattern of her china was Marlow (at left), made by Minton. Her sterling was Rondo, by Gorham.

Mother made sure that I had service for eight in china and sterling, too. During my own immediate family’s lean years, I would often serve elegant dinners on Family Home Evening, and we’d lay out salad fork, dessert fork, dinner fork, cocktail fork, soup spoon, teaspoon, case knife and butter spreader beside the Moss Rose china so the kids would be comfortable with a formal table setting and company manners, even though we couldn’t afford to eat out at a nice restaurant.

The remodeling of the dining room coincided with several other family crises, and the china that got packed away when we tore out the built-in china cupboard never got unpacked. I have to confess that life became so complicated that there were stretches of time that I couldn’t deal with dishes, and though what I cooked was good and nutritious, we ate it on paper plates.



A trip to east Texas changed that for me. I went to visit a distant cousin to document some family history, and we were invited to lunch at an old relative’s house. The gracious southern hospitality, the feel of the china, the linens and silverware were all like water to a thirsty soul, and I went home determined to change my ways.


I didn’t ever unpack the china, but I invested in a set of Corelle and made sure that the table was set properly for dinner every night. Paper plates are throwaway, but dishes last for centuries. They speak of roots and traditions and give children the sense of knowing who they are and how they fit into the scheme of things.



I found my mother’s china pattern on the internet. Just seeing it there made me sense her energy, feel her near, remember what she taught me. I guess using good dishes gives older ladies that same sense of roots and place.

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Cycling for Microloans to Bolivia and Kenya

Today’s blog is for all you cyclists out there.

SWAN, a local humanitarian organization that does microcredits to poor women in Kenya and Bolivia, is sponsoring a non-competitive century (100-mile) ride through some of the most beautiful (mostly flat) country you’ll ever see.

There is also a metric century (about 60 miles) for those who are less masochistic, and a family fun ride that is about 12 miles.

The ride takes place the first weekend in June in Sedro Woolley, Washington. Rhododendrons and lots of other things will be in bloom, and the ride takes you alongside the Skagit River and out to Padilla Bay which is on Puget Sound.

The ride coincides with Sedro Woolley's Blast from the Past which features a street fair and vintage car show, and it’s small town America at its Norman-Rockwell best.

Check out the web site for the century ride at http://www.blastfromthepastcentury.org/ , and please send the link to anyone you know who is into cycling or who would like to get into it. This is truly a worthy cause, and you can be sure that all the proceeds from the ride will go to funding microcredits.

To see SWAN (Serving Women Across Nations) in action, go to http://www.swanforhumanity.org/. You can also click here or here to read about some of the microloans that have been given out to women in Bolivia by SWAN.

If anyone would be willing to put the Century Ride logo and link on their blog to help publicize this worthy cause, email me at writer.lizadair@gmail.com.

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