Blending Neurospicy Families: Real Stories of Autism, ADHD, and Love

This episode explores the joys and challenges of blending neurospicy families—where autism, ADHD, and authenticity are part of everyday life. Join us for honest conversations, laughter, and practical insights on parenting, partnership, and living life out loud.

Learn more about our guests and find resources at: https://www.letatapstyles.com

Want to be a guest on Leta's Tap Styles (And My Autistic Life)? Send Amanda Trisdale a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/letastapstylesguest

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Transcript

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Hi, it's editing Amanda from the future, which I'm pretty sure everyone loves hearing me come on early. before we get started on today's episode with the amazing Dr. Kristen Williamson and, her husband who she brought on the episode, I wanna make, something clear that didn't happen on our podcast, but it happened on Michelle Choairy's podcast Complex. Kids simple solutions. I may have been listening to, Michelle and Kristen's, conversation and, guys, you're both wrong. I have done the math and, you guys are even at this moment in time on who's been on the show the most. So just letting you both know that, you've both been on the show mode. though I would like to point out, I have been on Michelle's show more than Kristen has been on the show because Michelle did an emergency podcast for lead's, dance studio and our funding needs. So yeah, I'm one up on you on that one, Kristen. but. Just putting it out there that y'all are tied. I did not know this was a thing until after we'd had Kristen on and recorded this podcast. And then I'm like editing over the last couple weeks and I see she's on, Michelle's podcast and I hop on and go, what's going on? And I'm like, mm. I'm gonna have to, hop on and mention that. Before we have you back on again. Also, you both know how to get ahold of us, so you know, whoever wants to break the tie, just reach out and we will be, Willing to have you on as a guest again to do that. by the way, this is including Michelle's episode that is upcoming that, the audience hasn't heard yet. So you guys are tied in the behind the scenes count. So everyone else enjoy this episode with a friend of the show, Chris, Dr. Kristen Williamson. and stay tuned at the end. I've got a, another special thing from Leta and I that I wanna bring up to everyone. Thanks. This is Leta and this is me and my mommy's my mommy, and there's me and I'm just talking about this stuff. And there's me tap dancing because this is the tap Dancing Autism podcast and there's bunch animals and I'll be trying to in my hair and there's bunch saying, and. Dancing. Oh, also, they're my boots. My boots are amazing. Also, dance, me trying not to have a panic attack. Also, this is a podcast that we autism and kept dancing and blah, blah, blah. I'm A DHD. This thing also. This your adorable puppy. What we doing? Oh yeah. Podcast. I forgot 'cause of you people talking. I forgot. Okay. Yeah. Mommy. Dr. Kristen with Cat Science and Dr. Kristen from Las Cruces has the dogs. She's ly bringing on her whole family onto the podcast. So I would like half of our whole family onto the podcast. This, it's like half now. I was surprised. It's not the full family yet. Mm-hmm. We're getting there. We're getting there. In there, she is starting to talk more and more on these podcasts as we have you on, isn't she? She really is Now. She just doesn't hush up. No. You're like, where is that shut up button. not at all.'cause we have the autism and the ADHD family, so we know what jabbering looks like. I know. So Kristen, in case someone just stumbled on this podcast and has never seen one of your mini episodes before, would you like to introduce yourself and then introduce your special guest to everyone? Yes, I would. Hi world. I'm so grateful you're listening because listening is the best. My name is Dr. Kristen Williamson. I am a licensed professional counselor, and I have my doctorate in behavioral health management. I do therapy now with all neuros spicy adults because life is fun when you have the spice of life. I have been diagnosed ADHD and autism, but I did not get diagnosed till 39. I have a 15-year-old on the spectrum, a 12-year-old with ADHD, and I am married to my special guest who is a 20 year veteran of the submarine service, and did not get diagnosed with ADHD until he was 47 because the military did not allow it. Now I think it's a little bit of a different story. I could be wrong. Now everyone's popping Ritalin and Adderall that I can, what? I say that I took my Adderall today so I'm just laughing 'cause you're on military bases now. It's like you can be ADHD and openly serve and all the guys are taking drugs and I'm like, this is fun. well. I think military learned that autism makes a good soldier. They like rules, regulations, they like structure. And I mean, I think part of it was also we kind of, because you and I have spoken to this before, it's three out of five confirmed diagnoses of autism spectrum diagnoses outta military dependence. Let's just be honest, if it's three out five, I can't even imagine the number of active DPH. Which is funny because out of. Our combined kiddos, we have five, three of them have an active diagnosis. I am not sure the other two aren't just not being diagnosed 'cause they're just better than the rest. You know Kayla on mute? Oh yeah. One of 'em sure as heck is on the spicier side. She just hasn't gotten a diagnosis because getting a diagnosis after 18 is costly. Oh yeah. So what is this podcast episode about? Why are we talking? We are not, we're talking about military, no politics. But she kind of combines the two. Since I've worked, you know, I have you for a mom. I have dad. For a dad. You do politics. Dad does the military. I'm really a military autistic child who's also mixed. Wow, that's a lot. Someone's got feelings. Just a few. Just a few, and she's You said politics into everything in the government. So you can't tell me that and then tell me, us talking about, in the military, it's talking about nothing about the legal stuff because you said politics plays into everything, including everything we do. So therefore, you're either a liar, liar, lying about not lying. I don't ever remember a time Lita was quiet. We're talking about liar we're talking about politics. She did at like the very beginning when we started doing interviews. She was a lot quieter and there are some guests that it takes her a little bit of time to warm up to. Nope, don't remember that. But Leta today I wanted to bring Tim on because I have shared enough stories about him throughout my podcasting world. He is a bonus dad to my kiddos. So you met RI in our last podcast together, and so he has gotten to learn what being a bonus dead to autism looks like and what being a bonus dead to ADHD. Looks like, but I think the autism one really took you a little bit to get used. No, no. Not to get used to, to find the language. Yeah, for sure. Something. I mean, I, you should, she was just saying that she's the only person who will put up with me and, trying to speak my autistic language, before we hopped on. I'm just confused why every has child watch you for a pair with your autistic language is being politiced to every single language of every single morning, of every single day. I'm sorry, I'm just pretty sure I've only child is brain capable to. Up with that my whole entire life. I'm just confused why every has child watch you for a pair with your autistic language is being politiced to every single language of every single morning, of every single day. I'm sorry, I'm just pretty sure I've only child is brain capable to. Up with that my whole entire life. When you're little, can we get back to interviewing or are you taking over the podcast? Yeah. Interviewing we're special. I, that's where coloring is a coping skill that I use to stay off of electronics. Tim uses fun coping skills of making jewelry. but being a bonus dad of kids on the spectrum has got to be interesting yet hard. And I wanted to ask you one, uh, did you get a mental health checkup to make sure you're completely sane before you agreed to this? Just 'cause I know Kristen. Um, but, No. No. Don't be like your child. Okay, monkey. See monkey dos for the child. Not the parent. Not the parent. Not the parent. but no, I mean, I don't know that I would've wanted to jump into it. I know my parents struggled being my birth parents trying to put up with it. I can't imagine agreeing to do it. Without having to do it. Does that make any sense? coming into a teenager household, I, I've never been one to shy away from much of anything. I love a, a challenge I always have and. For better or for worse? A lot, sometimes worse. but I've, I've been fortunate a lot in my life in that there's very few challenges that I have not been able to overcome. very few. And so to me, it was a Tuesday, I, I'm like, I got this. I can do this all day. It is a eye-opening. I'll say. what was it like in the beginning? It was tough. It definitely was, tough with Braden a lot, because I would, I would misread his, his expressions, the way that he, he, I don't know what the word I'm looking for is, but he would, basically show, show his emotion, which he doesn't do a lot, that it's usually one of Maybe one face or two faces. That's about it. Usually an angry face. Yeah. His, his thinking face is an angry face. His, his arguing face is an angry face. His, confused face, mildly perturbed as an angry face. His confused face is an angry face, and so I'm, I'm very protective of, of Chris. And so he'd get the anger face and then I would get upset and I'm like, okay, buddy, we're gonna have to talk. And, This is gonna be more of the one-sided conversation. And, seeing that and, and trying, I, I'm pretty good at, trying the multiple different approaches and then figuring out what works. I found a lot, kind of with Edison. I found a lot of ways that did not, did not work, at all. I found some that were mildly use, useful. fear, fear is always when it's super useful. Not very, It doesn't have the longevity of a lot of other techniques, but it, it will work in a pinch. so that one worked, but I don't like it. Right. It's not, it's not fun, right. It doesn't, that doesn't build a relationship that, that, that's how dictators are created through fear. So I, that's not what I wanted to do. So, kind of had to go back to the drawing board and, I found that it was. It's kind of learning a new language and, and then going, okay, cool. Well, she's a therapist who talks to these people all the time. So I started to learn the language from her, So it was, it was, it was coming at it from a different perspective and, You're a lot of it was observation. Sit and watch. Sit and watch and figure out what. How, what makes him tick? What makes him laugh? What makes him confused? You know what? What makes him ponder?'cause that was always the best part. He loves to come out and kind of regurgitate things, but he didn't spend a ton of time pondering on it sometimes. And so I like to kind of turn that around and toss a question back at him, which made him kind of rethink his initial question. It was good. It really, I found, I found kind of the, the. Inroads to his, uh, his, his, his mentality and his mindset. And, uh, we've definitely just been growing. I mean, there's obviously setbacks sometimes, but for the most part, I mean, I think we've done tremendous in where we were when I first came out in, uh, October of 22, 23 to now, um, vastly different. I think it took him working on getting curious versus judgmental. Into learning what autism was, learning that alexithymia, where you struggle with connectivity between your emotions and your expressions, and if he has making a face, he may not know what's going on. And so instead of pre-planning it and like putting in the box of, oh, he's being defiant, you really started getting curious into the, you know what, maybe he's not. What else could this be? Which also says how far therapies have come since I was a child. Okay. When I was a child, my therapists were telling my parents, oh no, she's being, you know, aggressive. That's her angry face. So she's being aggressive and they weren't learning about the autism, so I got in trouble for things. I'm like, why are you mad at me? That's the question asked. So often, like, why are you mad? Why are you mad at me? Well, and I think it, it, it was one way that I, I learned to understand it more was I, myself, I have a really hard time understanding tones, body language. I can read all day. But for me, like my tone is is pretty always pretty flat. Like I don't, it doesn't change a whole lot. And, uh, so it is hard for, for Kristen sometimes because she'll be like, are you upset? I'm like, no, no. Hmm. This is where I can come in and say his tone. Maybe this, but the octave. Changes and if you hear him talk, you know that he's very commanding with his voice. We to read sometimes. it is. We were out today. And I couldn't tell Leta was being a teenager hangry, or if her hip was hurting her again 'cause she has one tone when she's upset. Mm-hmm. It's hard to figure that out. It's hard to figure that out. Having teenagers, it's hard to figure that out. Having a teenage girl who is just a ball of emotions and venom. And Lita will lie through her teeth about whether or not her hip is hurting her. Okay. Okay. Am I the defense you send the one easy to lie to. It's easy to lie to. It has too much trust. It gives full trust instead of half. Trust and trust. Human being too much like you. No offense by I love you, but you, you, you trust people too easily and you send no one who also trust people too easily. You too, addressing people too easily. How did you both make it in the world, in how Hawaii? You so powerful mother. Teenagers, they're amazing. But um. I don't know if your kids like you over the big things.'cause whether or not her hip is hurting enough, she needs to come off of, it seems like a big thing around here. not that big that. I don't know if it's kids who lie, but I can look at someone right now. Oh. I was like, no, I'm fine. I don't need to sit. I'm good. I'm good. It's fine. As he's like falling apart, as he's walking, his whole, everything is just crumbling into dust and he's still, I'm fine. It's fine. I can't, they have that style. I can't walk without limping. That was her today was, she was limping the whole what? So. So not that bad. Oh, leader. She's calling you out for the world to hear. She does that every day of my life. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But now she's telling it to a doctor. So I, last time I checked a, not that kinda doctor. That's not the point. That's not the point. You're not an orthopedic, so you don't you know, orthopedic now she was telling my orthopedic, I would just go, hello, yes, I know I'm gonna my grave before I go to my grave. So maybe she should have spent some time in the pediatric orthopedics. But you know, we had all the problems with the pediatric orthopedics. So her orthoped is at Beaumont Army Medical Center in the active duty side of things. So he's used to dealing with, you know, the old officers and sergeants. been used against people and I believe that. especially. Okay, so back. To the interview Elita. Um, not my fault. You guys never have that problem though with the kids though, do you that they lie about slightly important things. Our son. Yeah. He doesn't, he'll be like, yeah, I figured out I could throw up. Not on the ground, but in the total, I'm like, when are you throwing up? What? Uh, uh, I think it's, it is not necessarily the, like the bald face lying, but it's more of the omission. Right. Omission. True, which is still a lie, but a lot of times it's like, well, if I don't say anything, I'm not really lying. Like, okay, that's not how this works, or the semantics of it, are you feeling okay? And it's like, yeah, I'm fine. You have to get in and specifically ask, are you having pain in this area for this long rated on this number? And even then they'd still be like, no, the number's not the same. It's, it's fine. How was that coming in as a bonus dad for having to deal with that type of situation? That was normal because that's a Tuesday for me. I'm the guy who gets hit by a school bus and, and goes to work the next day. Um, he was hit by a school bus. I, I don't, I don't, I, I've never been one to, to sit on an injury or anything like that. I just, I never had the option of, of. Waiting on it, right? You just have to just suck it up. You got stuff to do. A stapler. We have very different parenting strategies. I am like, oh, your tummy hurts. Let's get a doctor's appointment. He is like, maybe you should just go lay down. Have you pooped yet? Drink water. Drink water. water and two aspirin. Fix everything right. Motrin, 800 milligram Motrin. Best thing on the planet, You, you get, you get to say nothing. You just say EER, emergency room. Now for anything I do, even if I just say ouch, because I, you ask if I need to go to the emergency room. So help me, you. I can't, I can't say anything. I've done the same thing. Mm-hmm. I've done the same thing with him, with kids. I'm like, what? You have an ache? Maybe we should go to urgent care No, it's every day of my life. She's going through that growth spurt where she's at the point that she can't get off the couch some days, and I'm like, is it time to finally call the doctors into the situation This is a normal girl spurt. Also, before you say yes, I know I'm in denial. I will prefer to stay in denial. Hmm. Whoever uh, she's having one of those guy type growth spurts, not, you know, how girls are supposed to grow nice and easy. She's grown about seven inches since January. Ooh, that's painful. Ouch. Ed, it's It's not that it's not. Mm-hmm. You remind me of the cat sticker where the cat's all puffed out with the little statement that says, I'm fine, as he looks like he stuck his finger in an electrical socket. And she's learned from her dad and I who, you know, I still don't have that MCL in my left knee.'cause they're like, well, you know, you are allergic to painkillers. We're gonna have to give you all this Benadryl and stuff to fix it. And I'm like, do I need it? Or could we just PT the heck out of this thing? mm-hmm. Fair enough. And pcsd across country two weeks after tearing my MCL that way No. No happened. What's fun is getting older and having brittle or bones. Riley snapped his ulna in his arm last year, fractured it, playing in the pool. She rolled off his arm and her butt bone broke it, fractured it, fractured it. Yeah, and I'm right here and, and I'm sitting there going, you don't need to go to the doctor. Just drink it off. And then now it's like, honey, you can't stand. Do we need to call in? I'm not being, Your kids were older when they got diagnosed. When you get diagnosed younger, a lot of times they will put you on like a papoose prefer not to be tied. Same. I dunno. They both sound good. That's when you look away. The pediatric guys not as understanding as the guys who work with the active duty. Unbelievable enough. I believe that with, with y'all being you and your husband being married and then having Lita and getting to grow up, grow together and just like parent autism from the beginning. It's so different with Tim and I, because I was a single mom for 10 years, I didn't have to share my parenting with anybody. I didn't have to question my decisions or be challenged for them. Mm-hmm. How is that trying to merge two parenting styles with all this? It's been interesting with autism versus ADHD. Well, I mean, even apart from that, just very different. My, my three bio kids are raised very feral. Um, being that they were, they were moved all over the world. Um, me and the ex had 'em while I was in the military, so they had free Tricare. So I was never worried. I'm like, oh, jump out of the tree, dude. No worries. Fall out of the fall over. Big deal. Jump down the hill. Let's see what happens. You know, we got really fortunate, like we very, very, very rarely had broken bones and. A lot of cuts, a lot of scrapes, a lot of stitches. Um, they knew us by name in the er, um, in Washington because we were there all the time. I mean, when you have little ones, and I was, I was the guy who always loved hiking and, and climbing and camping. And I didn't care about getting dirty and like, jump, jump in trees, let's play on stuff. Let's do the things that freak most people out. And then he came into a household where we don't like dirt. Or bugs that makes me sad and he's having to learn on his feet She's over there going, what? Not liking bugs. You don't like cicadas or grasshoppers? I will point out those are bugs. Okay. It's not that I don't like them, it's just I get overwhelmed because they flappy. same. What about speaking fast? I know you fast moving object. You speak pretty quick. I think part of that was to annoy therapists, Krista. I'm here for it. Wait. He grabbed that one spider and then it jumps outta the cup That's bless you on, but They, they don't taste that great. Bugs and lizards or creepy crawlies. Anything that can touch me? No. Thank you. Dirt. No thank you. I don't want anything on my feet. I will not walk outside barefoot. No. And he's having to get used to a whole new family dynamic 'cause his kiddos are, are bigger and grown and out of the house. I, I grew up in Hawaii as a kid. Um, I moved back there in the military, so my youngest. Bio kid was born in Hawaii. Um, he never wore shoes for like three years ever. Like he may wear flip flops, but outside of that, he'd never put a pair of shoes on. My little brother had never worn shoes in his life until we moved back to California. It's just, I hate wearing shoes. I can't stand it. You had to learn to wear shoes'cause you grew up in a desert and sand gets hot in a hundred and. 10 degree weather. Yes it does. And now she wears tap shoes. Oh are in the, uh, prototype is in the country and is on its way to the house. She's excited. She has a shoe made for her. Oh, nice. A company made her her own shoe. Wow. It's pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. Well, customs before all my friends and hip hop person, Lily, and they're like 30, 40, so something that they've been saying that they want their own customs for a while, and they're 13-year-old to repeat them. Mm. It's a big deal to get your own shoe line. That's pretty cool to get your own shoe line. I am never gonna let them move this down. I'm just waiting. My husband has not informed the military of anything we're doing right now um, speaking of military and not military, I learned from our podcast last time about Dar. yet. Darpa my favorite, was less than thrilled at me saying, I could apply here. Let me do this. Woo. So in a segueing topic, look what I made a workbook. I was gonna say, she gets to hear her dad and I say that to each other on a regular basis. Shut up, you cry. Got too close to a line. Yep. That's, that's where I'm like, look it, I'm blocky, Tim. It's my workbooks are for autism and they're filled with cats, Lead not dogs.'cause I'm not the dog, Kristen. Mm-hmm. Cats li I am just always gonna let her aggressively know that I'm here for the cats, She loves the cats too. I would have a cat except for the anaphylactic shock around cats. You are living until I die. That means you're not gonna get a cat kinda like mangoes. What now? I'm around living with my parents eventually. Then they'll just get a farm cat. Um, Bobcat or a farm cat? we will be linking to the workbooks below. How has it been mixing the kiddos into Tricare and all that fun jazz. Not as big a deal. Um, my bio kids, my two here. Are still on insurance through their bio dad who is still active duty. And so we have been on tricare, they have been on tricare. They're their whole lives, which is a blessing and a curse at the same time. It's been interesting having him come in, retired with what retired TRICARE looks like versus active duty and. Not being close to a military base. That's actually been really hard with the kids because we need to get referrals for everything and not being close to a base. They don't like to refer out like they, they wanna go refer to a base if at all possible. That's Think y'all are a little far from, uh, Fort Sam Houston. Yeah, we are definitely a solid hour and a half to multiple hours away from any base. There's a couple like reserve bases like that are on the other side of Dallas. Mm. Fort Worth. Yeah. Like an hour and a half away though. There's a couple. Yeah. But even that, that's super hard to get into. Mm. Being military, it's wonderful when they're. It when they get out. It's a pain in the booty. Mm-hmm. I, I can either confirm nor deny, but cookies to the nurse who does all the authorization forms, what That's the way to go. I never thought about that. Genius Cookies. If you have never been on the side of looking at a Tri Prime form versus like Tri Standard, and it is different for Try Retiree, but for the two that still have the Tri Prime, it's an acquisitions project. It will make your head hurt. I believe that Cookies, fix everything. Oh wait, the other puppy came down. puppies usually come up here with us and join us. Okay. The, the other puppy you have never met is here. Kristen. Oh. This is my problem. Child. Vella, the vet has a deal saying how many days it's been since Vella has been to the vet. Would you like to say anything? Hmm. Bella Bella's like, no. No. And this one can't be in the anti Super Feeling program. I do not speak No, Bella. No, no, no, no, no. Don't, don't. No, don't get off of the couch. No, Bella says, I'm shy. I can't be on camera. Mm-hmm. Look at. put. Put your, she's not the good one. You know? Jack would just jump up there and stay there for the rest of the podcast. she'll. Yeah. You can't be in. This is a first Kristen. She has never shown up on a podcast before. All right. It's all because of Tim. He gets, he is the snow white of Disney princesses. He will collect all of the animals. They all love him except Ninja. Can we just not bring up Snow White, please? Uh, Shasha. There, there's a whole thing in the theater and movie world right now about snow No, not that there's a reason. You know the reason why I can't write it. Watch the classic one.'cause it bringss up two many scars. Okay. Um, so like how has it been trying to deal with school systems with a bonus dad? Actually not bad. I haven't had a ton of issues with it. I, I try my best to be as active as possible. I think school's really important and, and being involved with it as much as you can, uh, from the parental side is, is always beneficial for the kids and, not just for yours, but for everybody's, you know, you can, it's so funny, most of the time that I've been at the 'cause, at my last job I was like, work three days off, three days work, four days off, four days. So I was, off for usually Monday through Wednesday. I was always off. if the kids had anything going on, I would volunteer. And, the kids will avoid your, your own ones that you have will avoid you like the plague. but all of their friends, but everybody else is like, 'cause I'm, I'm pretty eclectic. I'm weird. I got a lot of tattoos. I dress weird. So I, I, I, I'm definitely not the, the dad standing around in cowboy boots and old jeans and. A, a corduroy shirt or a checkered shirt, that's not me. so I'm always the one that they're like, you dressed really cool, or you're weird. You have big holes in your ears. And so it's nice. It opens up conversations of, you know, you can be different and still be amazing at life. You know, just 'cause you're different doesn't, doesn't mean less, doesn't mean you, you work in a pot shop, you know, and that's, that's the only thing you've ever done. Or, you know, you don't, you don't think, or, or, or. Work hard in any, because I'm like, no. I was in the Navy for 20 years. I was on submarines. I was a nuclear mechanic, and my last job I worked on 30 to $300 million photolithography machines as a installation engineer, he definitely came in and said, I don't wanna be stepdad, I'm gonna be bonus like I'm going to be dad. And he very much signed up for choir concert trips. And to chaperone and for our school dances we got to do the tattoo table and all the little girls just loved putting temporary tattoos all over him. He had rainbow lips on top of his and like on the top of his head and he did it on his birthday. A a lot of it, it is also that I wasn't able to do this a lot with my kids being on submarines. You're gone. Half the year, if not more, most of the time deployed a lot. So, you know, if you're not deployed, you're working. And so it was rare when I was able to do these things. I would when I could, but for the most part I wasn't able to. And so I have the opportunity now, so I'm, I'm trying to do it every chance I get. So. I can understand that from the kid's perspective. My dad wasn't subs, but what he did, there were days that he would. Leave in the morning and not come back for a while Yeah, and that's hard. It's, it's so incredibly hard. That is something I, I fought against and stayed single for as long as I did. I didn't wanna be sharing parenting with a dad who didn't get to be there. And so it worked out really well. There's still so many bumps along the way. When I married Jacob, I told him he needed to get a job, but he could. Didn't go military that went well. Oh, lead up. Lita, there's a kitty cat. leave. Erickson says hello. that still looks like a plushy. I totally just grabbed the cat and knocked over Tim's drink, and now he has to go get a towel to clean it up. Plushy did warn Tim that lead is all about the animals, right? I did. I don't think he took into account how chaotic our podcast can get. You know when you have ADHD going wild with the autism, it gets fun. Yeah. Really? We screwing You can't see the cat then stole his seat. Aw, I am waiting for someone to put ADHD on the spectrum. Me too. I think they are so interconnected, but it's the same thing as it. Just because your brain is different, by no means is it less. And doing the podcast world I'm learning, there's still quite a stigma around autism. Less of a stigma around A DHD. And it's still like you can be ADHD, you can be autistic, you can be green, blue, tall, short, whatever. It doesn't mean that you're less unless you throw a cat off a chair. That's we can discuss things later about Nuke subs and how they work. I'm not the one who brought it up I. and now I'm concerned. We have, we have a couple, uh, airplanes in the Air Force that they suggest if you are working on them, you go get biomaterial, uh, frozen if you're planning on having children. Yeah. Because this isn't like Dan's superhero. Is that, is that the, um, due to the, maybe the radar or the, what they're using for that? Uh, it is due to the mechanics. Yeah, No. And everything. she was born, uh, just south of, um, my husband worked on White Sands Missile Range, and she was born west of there and just south of the testing facility South. interesting prevailing one that they still claim had no cause for all the cancers that showed up slightly thereafter. Kinda like the bikini ETLs, right? No Yeah, I like that. Um, and you know, 'cause it was world wari. They didn't tell anyone they were doing this and everyone's like, wait, did the sun just rise up again? That's, they did a lot of testing out there a And that's why there's of the explosion. do you have your PhDs in PhD in? uh, the PhD is in what used to be theoretical physics, and then now they've just tossed us in with the quantum guys. Nice. Tim knows how to do a lot of math and I don't know any of the math that has letters in it. I. I. I like to tell everyone I can do math, but do not ask me to do algebra or arithmetic. That's what they invented calculators for. I don't, some autism brains are phenomenal and they're able to pick up those patterns. My brain is not, I can pick up people patterns. Uh. Just don't ask me to te, they tried to get me to teach remedial math and I'm like, two plus two equals four. Unless you went to number theory and then we'll tell you equals five. Numbers theory. It's where you learn how to write the papers. is it? Is it like color theory? So it's where they teach you how to write all the proofs. You have an entire semester of how to write proofs. Meet her in Congress. Congress people. So help me. I rightfully mother for people. I don't wanna get on her bad side. I still find her delightful cookies. get on her bad side. She sends people cookies. are on her bad side. I have seen her bad side. It's scary. You, you know, you know a, now imagine that, but a hundred times worse. So I think that's a mom thing. I very much think that's a mom. It. Maybe not to your mom's level. It is calm. Calm down. Calm down. It is. Do not come after my interns or my junior staffers, or I will make your life a living nightmare. I thought that was a very easy thing to understand. They're my kids. They're babies. They may be in call. I'll let you write out, but they're babies, aren't they? That was you on? That was me with all my sailors. Yeah. You didn't come out my guys, you had to go through me first. You come to go around me, it was not pleasant. half That's you protect those, that you work, that work under you, you just protect 'em. Anybody, anybody that needs it. They're babies. They're baby babies in the hospital. But um, 'cause we are coming up at the hour mark and we know LTAs gonna start complaining about this. You've got the new workbooks. By time this goes out, those workbook books will have been out for a little bit. Yeah. We are going to have to have you back on the show just to talk about the workbooks. Nice. We have to talk about so many things. Mm-hmm. Like we just have the world to talk about. You know, that's the good thing about having the podcast is we can keep bringing you on and you know, people aren't turning off your episodes, so they definitely wanna hear you. woo hoo. That's exciting. It's fun to. Advocate and make autism normalized autism and moms and dads and kids in the world. Like it's just, it's just a Tuesday. It really is. And Tim, thanks for dealing with this insanity known as our podcast. always good to be here. Thank you. It's chasing rabbits. Yeah. We would love to have you come back on sometime if you want to. We'll have to get your husband in here eventually. I gotta do everything twice. We haven't been able to drag him on yet. I have been begging him. Yet we got your pup in here, so we know things happen. He keeps saying once he gets dragged on, he should probably go talk to PA and say, oh yeah, by the way, did I mention my daughter's doing stuff? Yeah. Fair. Um, the whole, yeah. But thank you guys so much. Go enjoy your fourth. I know this will be airing afterwards, but go enjoy your 4th of July. You have a great day. We'll see. We will see you later. Bye bye. Uh. Thank you so much for sticking around to, uh, hear this. Lita is upstairs, um, in her bedroom, trying to ignore the world exists as I am recording this. Um, if you've been around a while or if you listen to Tuesday's podcast, you know that Lita started a nonprofit dance studio in Colorado Springs, Colorado for autistic dancers, ages three to 99. And we are struggling like every other nonprofit for funding right now. Um, between when we recorded Tuesday's podcast and now we had an amazing donor step forward and give us enough money to get through. Most of September, um, and into October, and we still need help. Uh, if you can donate one time, if you can donate on a regular basis, uh, I did the math. If we can find 140 people willing to donate $20 a month. That would give us a breathing room to continue paying our rent and to bring in teachers to expand the program. Um, we're bring, we wanna bring in our first paid staff right now, and we're not paying them a lot. We're paying them roughly $20 an hour. So yeah, the going price for dance teachers here in our area is like 35 40, and they're willing to come work for $20 an hour. So it is barely, I think, paying for their gas. Um, autistic wings is an important part of this community. We are changing the way dance is done. You've heard us talk about how we're doing it throughout the podcast. We need your help. Uh. Whether or not that's donating once, donating monthly, finding a business to tag, finding an autistic creator to tag so we can get the word really out there. Um, we are also, you know, starting our capital fund, as we mentioned on Tuesday, due to the fact that we cannot grow anymore in our current space and we just. We need the community's help and it needs to be everyone.'cause it takes a village to help out, not just the kids. But autism doesn't stop at 18. You heard me say this over and over again. Autism does not stop at 18 and our dance classes do not as well. But in our current studio space, we can't have a lot of evening classes, which leaves us with one adult class per week. And there is way more than one adult class per week autistic people here in Colorado Springs. Donate if you can. If you can't, can you like, comment, share, subscribe, all that fun, jazz. Um, if you're listening to this on Spotify, on Apple, on Amazon, on, uh. Pod po, uh, all the streaming apps for podcasts. If you could share this on your social media, that would be helpful. Um, just kind of get the word out there. Thank you guys so much. Don't forget to follow, uh, lead us tap styles on Facebook, on Instagram, on TikTok, along with, you know, the YouTube channels and the podcasting networks, and. Thank you guys so much as always, for tuning in and listening to Lita and I and our guests. Just ramble on sometimes. See you for Tap Tuesday. Okay, well thank you for watching the PIT podcast and please subscribe and also look at the Adorable Don't Watch Subscribe for. And also please like and Don pick if you'll, if you'll miss any of our new podcast. And also if you see the Adorable Don, you Like It.