My youngest son and I recently had the opportunity to visit a local television studio to record a piece about the Holiday shopping season. A reporter named Morgan Dean (who is also a Morning News anchor) provided some of the items on many of the “Top Toys” lists and we gave our feedback. For the Little Ninja this was a dream come true because, 1. Toys, and 2. He wants to be a media STAR. (He is obsessed with YouTube, and I’m pretty sure Thomas Sanders is his spirit animal).
My oldest son declined the opportunity to be interviewed on camera because he is more a behind-the-scenes kind of guy. I totally respect that, and think it’s cool that my boys have such interesting personalities that are so different from each other.
Here is a link to the article and interview on the WRIC website: http://wric.com/2015/11/24/hottest-toys-of-the-holiday-get-a-jump-on-black-friday/
Taping went pretty well, even though it involved a good bit of needing to wait quietly. That can be hard for any child, but especially one who is Autistic. I had initially been concerned about how my son would handle himself in studio and on-camera, but he did great. I was thankful that Autism didn’t get in the way of something he wanted to do, or make things extra hard that day (Don’t get me wrong, he is proud of his unique brain. He is also aware of the challenges that it can cause). The only hiccup was when he started playing with the electronic lightsaber toy, and the first thing he blurted out was, “IT SOUNDS LIKE A FART!” In all honesty, it did. You can see him giggling about it near the beginning of the clip. His “fart” comment surpirsed us all and got a good laugh, so he became stuck on the idea of farts for a while. I worried we wouldn’t get back on track. Thankfully the moment passed (see what I did there?), and he went back to being his typical exuberant self. The fart comments didn’t make it into the final edit, by the way.
Another cool thing was that Autism didn’t need to be a part of the dialogue that day, even though we have talked with WRIC before about Autism. In this instance we were simply people (and bloggers) talking about TOYS. Moving on…
Our friend Carissa Garabedian of Macaroni Kid Richmond and the special-needs website Know Different was also interviewed for the piece. She got to talk about the Girl Scout Cookie Oven among other things, and it looked yummy. Well, the cookies did. I always wanted an Easy Bake Oven as a kid and never got one. This looks similar and made my inner child VERY happy. I WANT ONE. Plus I want to be able to make Thin Mints on a whim.
Read the rest here, on Jen’s Blog, which, by the way, is SUPER Awesome!