Family

Notebooks & Stuffies – A Winning Combination

January 30, 2025Autism, Daily Life, Familychadwickbaldwin Leave a comment

I feel like I have been focusing on the struggles I have a lot lately. So today I wanted to focus on some of the quirks we have in our very neurodivergent home.

Notebooks: I have boxes of notebooks. My daughter has shelves of them. Most of them have like 2 pages written on them, then they get shelved away. This of course drives my wife nuts, but its our reality. My Novel Writing notebook is just for that. My D&D Teacher Campaign notebook, is just for that. My Video game ideas notebook cannot have notes on any other topic. My Diary, has daily notes and and observations. My Faith notebook, has notes on religion. Every Notebook has a very specific purpose, and no other.

At work I have my diary and my Teacher planner. My planner is work related only. My diary is more a of a scrapbook. It has refillable pages, but I tape in it collector cards my students give me, sketches my children have done. Feeling and stresses do in there. sometimes I will make notes about my students there. But I only feel it is allowed because the pages are removable, and refillable. Otherwise this feels wrong.

Stuffies: Another noticeable thing is the boxes of stuffed toys. My classroom has almost a dozen stuffed toys in it. My house has stuffed toys of many shapes and sizes in every room. On top of that we have several plastic crates filled with them. I no longer collect stuffed animals at home. I don’t because my 2 daughters have picked up the mantle, and I can always hug and cuddle with theirs.

Board Games: 2 Days ago My Daughter and I decided to Tidy up and reorganize my Board game collection. We took everything out and put them in the living room. It filled the room. I Love board games, and my youngest daughter does too. The rest of the family like some of the games. Which is why we were sorting them. Games that are easy and fun to play as a family, and games that are hard, and most wont play.

I remember about 8 years ago I had a coworker who also loved board games. But I discovered our interests did not overlap. He enjoyed the newer skill based games that you dominate your friends with. I enjoy games that are a lot more casual and relaxed. what he called “Old school games”. I enjoy games with dice, like Snakes and Ladders. I enjoy games with quirky cards like The Game of Life. Or games of interaction like Pictionary. I also love ancient games and games that would feel right at home with the ancient games. Many games are too “modern” for my tastes.

Art: I love art. Art made by people I know, or given by people I know. Our walls are covered with paintings made by my children. There are paper crafts, and home made fans, and sketches of family land. My family, all of my family tend to agree on this. Everything that is on our walls, or above our cabinets, like my pet dragon “Firegorn Cinderpuff” are all connected to important people in my life.

Pro Autie-dad tip: Any weird or odd special interests are perfectly fine if they are related to your children. I introduced my son to Final Fantasy, which is one of my obsessions from childhood (Only the first 1). Onlookers didn’t bat an eye at this because I was sharing with my son. He has helped me enjoy the rest of the series, and it is one of his special interests. I am still only obsessed with the story and background of the first one, but I enjoy the rest so far too.

When my children started enjoying My Little Pony, I became a fan and would sit and obsess over them too. I do not feel like I fit the concept of a Brony. But I do enjoy the story, characters, humor, etc.

When my children were around age 10, I shared my obsession with all things Power Rangers. I tried to introduce them earlier, but the monsters scared them until they were 10. I have tucked away many notebooks on my lore notes of Power Rangers. I also had stories written down. I have purchased the Power Rangers TTRPG, but have not tried to play it yet. Unfortunately, I feel like the gamers in my area might not be ready for MegaZord Battles. My children are unfortunately, a bit too busy with their own lives to fit in an RPG Campaign right now…

Anyways I hope you enjoyed a look into the quirky parts of my life.

I found a few Sketches I made in notebooks I would like to share too…

Beijing. Why Beijing?

January 23, 2025Daily Life, Familychadwickbaldwin Leave a comment

A Question we are asked often, is: Why Beijing?

I was explaining to one of my new co-workers about this today. I realized that it felt like the right thing to write about. Some of the topics below may come off as complaining. I want to assure you that is in no way the case. Most of the decisions we made, especially the family related ones, we would make again in a heartbeat. This is just to explain how we got where we are, and are in the position we are in.

When Irish and I got married, I was working in Korea. I have this dumb tendency to think things will just work out if you are patient enough. In this case it did not. Korea would not give my new wife a visa without a notarized marriage contract. The Philippine government takes around 6 months to do this.

So almost immediately after we got married, I had to leave my wife. I returned to work, and she stayed with her family.

Shortly after that I quit that job and moved to the Philippines. Together, we looked for work in a country that would take both of us. China agreed. We moved up to Harbin, a northern city in China. They had some beautiful old Russian architecture. We stayed there for a year. During that year 2 things happened: We lost Irish’s father to medical conditions, and Irish got pregnant.

The school at Harbin was not paying very much. This is especially true compared to what I get now. But, they had brought us over, and for that we appreciate them. Of our little savings, we sent money back to the Philippines for her father’s funeral and medical bills. Then we paid out of pocket for Irish to give birth in a Chinese hospital. The school did not offer insurance for us.

We then realized we would need to move to improve our lifestyle for our son. We also needed to earn more to increase our savings. I got a job offer from Beijing. We were supposed to stay for 2 years while working on paperwork for returning to Korea or Japan.

Again, nope. In Beijing, my first company had me teaching all around the city. My Harbin company had delayed paperwork. I was late arriving and would not get the position I was promised with them. As a result, I got all the odd-jobs. I worked in 2 different universities, 2 different language school campuses (Same school, different locations), and an elementary school. Each of these were on different corners of the city.

So I had little time to do paperwork for Japan, and Korea. And then we got pregnant with our first daughter.

So 2 years after We had my son, we were expecting our daughter. We went to an English speaking hospital downtown for our prenatal check ups. They rushed us through as fast as was possible. but when it came time, a few things happened. 1) The city center shut down for parade practice. That was China’s 60th anniversary, and we could not get to our hospital. 2) So we found an International hospital. We also discovered that the Chinese hospital had screwed up somehow. Irish’s C-section cut was reopening with this new pregnancy. We had to rush her into emergency to deliver our daughter, or we were told she would die. This cut still bothers her to this day periodically.

I had to borrow money from my boss to pay for this. Once again, I did not have insurance for my wife. It took me 5 years to pay that bill off. During that time, My mother-in-law passed away, and we had to deal with that. We paid for the funeral with the help of my family in Canada. But this left Irish and I as the financial sponsors for her two sisters, who became like our daughters. High-school, and university for one, High-school for the other, and living expenses.

We moved from the 2nd company to a 3rd, a school I was at for about 13 years in total. I had done work for them while working for the 2nd company, and moved over. They were very good to me for many years. I became management for a short while. Then politics happened, and I was replaced by a manipulative man, with many issues. I believe he used my autism against me, but I am not sure.

We were helping my brother out with a place to stay in Canada. We paid half his rent. We also paid the university fees for my sister-in-law and her survival fees.

Then we reached our point, My son was in middle school. School 3 had no High-school. We had to move.

We moved up to the school I’m at now. and not 2 months into my 1st year there, my mother was in a car accident that nearly killed her. When she recovered from that she was diagnosed with Cancer, and given 6 months to live. All our plans of paying for my further education to get me licensed over the last decade kept falling apart. I was stressed about family, We started sending mom money when we were able.

For years we kept saying we would move out of Beijing. It has been 15 years now, although it was supposed to be a 2-year trip. Now my son is graduating from Highschool, and I am determined to finally move out of this city.

Many good things happened here, but many harsh things happened while we were here as well. And many, many times we felt trapped like we would never get to leave. From the Harbin year to school 3, we only left Beijing three times. Each departure was due to a family crisis. Luckily, since moving to School 4, we have been able to spend some time visiting family, for actual visits.

So yeah, I have raised 3 kids, all 3 of them the hospital costs came out of pocket. same time financially cared for 4 family members and 2 funerals.

A fresh start somewhere might be nice.

Wrong World Syndrome: Changelings, Superman and Me.

January 9, 2025Autism, Familychadwickbaldwin View all 2 comments

I know this has many different names, but the concept is always the same. The idea is that many autists, or autistic people, have felt at some point like this world is far too alien to them. They feel like they may have been born on the wrong planet. Everyone else belongs here, but we do not.

As a child, for most of my youth in fact, I had this feeling. I don’t think I ever told anyone, but as a child I felt like I was not human. This of course was exasperated by older brothers. See I was born with 1 pointed ear. Not two, but 1. And so as a young child my older brothers used to compare me with Mr. Spock from Star Trek. I understood that I didn’t belong, but I kept being told I looked too much like my father. I couldn’t be an adopted alien, I was an exact copy of my father and grandfather when they were young. Yet, I felt disconnected from the rest of the neighborhood.

When I was 7 or 8 years old I came across the idea of changelings. I don’t remember where I saw or read about them. These Fairies, or elves were magically transformed to look like a human child. Then they were traded with the real child as a baby. The changeling would be raised by the human family, who were oblivious. For many years I was terrified that the real Chad would be returned. I would then be taken from my adopted human family. Of course I never spoke of this. If my family knew I was not their real child, they might abandon me. I had, and still do, have some serious abandonment issues.

I used to see elves watching me from the forests when I was stuck in a car for long trips. I would catch them spying on me from the forest edge near my father’s house when I would visit. I would see them at the edge of the school yard, or anywhere with a lot of greenery. Every time I tried to approach they would disappear. Nobody else could see them, which frustrated me.

In high school, I was a comic book nerd, among other things. I got into a conversation with a classmate about who I liked better: Peter Parker, or Clark Kent. I immediately chose Clark, and talked about being different and not being able to show his true self. They argued that Clark chose to hide himself, and he could have been the Football Quarterback if he wanted. But Peter was a real nerd, whose intelligence predates his powers. The argument was that Clark could have friends if he wanted, but chose not to. But to them Peter was unable to make friends because of his true authentic self.

My friend missed the point. Clark was not from here, and nothing was going to change that. And like me, even if he returned where he came from, he wouldn’t belong there either. He has to mask himself on Earth to be accepted (why Clark is so clumsy). On Krypton, he would be the odd duck who didn’t understand the society or the normal activity. Either way he would be the outsider, never truly belonging anywhere.

Just like me. I felt like I was stuck for many years, and sometimes I still do. If I want to be accepted by the other humans, I need to act like them. If I don’t act like them, and draw attention to myself, I will be outed and not accepted.

I no longer believe I am from another world. However, I do often feel like I still don’t belong. I have some good friends who I have been able to unmask around. To show my green-blooded Vulcan side to. My Elfish heritage. My true self. I have even started to unmask around select family members. This has helped, as I know they accept my true self, even if they don’t understand completely.

Some family is not ready yet for my authentic self, and just want to see the mask.