When Charlie Macuto Gebel was born on November 8, 2007, my family didn't know what to expect. I was almost 15 when he came into the world, so I was to be a very big brother to him. Little did my family know how difficult it would be to take care of him.
It started with a whimper. Then, some wild vocalizations. When Charlie was 2 years old, he was a very picky eater. His BMI was pretty low to the point of hospitalization where he had a feeding tube for four months. At this point, I was a budding YouTube personality, carrying around a Sony Handycam, recording things I like to do in every day life. Charlie REALLY liked my camcorder. In fact, I remember when Mom took us to the Philippines to see her family, and I recorded this one video where Charlie REALLY wanted to play with my video camera. He was still non-vocal at the time, and we started to notice that he really liked fans. Not fans as in an audience; fans as in the tools that help keep you cool. This fascination turned into a full-blown obsession with anything that could spin, from the wheel on "Wheel of Fortune" to the fan blades of a passenger airliner. He was obsessed.
It wasn't long that he figured out how to use the computer and began watching crazy Minecraft videos on Youtube. You could say it was partially my fault because I naively let him use my channel (don't ask). Then he started doing these repeated routines, actually acting out the videos he saw or just repeating what they're saying. When he said the sh-word, Mom tried to punish him, which brings me to another thing about Charlie.
As you may have guessed, Charlie is autistic, which means he interprets the world very differently than other people. My Mom is a kind but strict Filipino, so when she slaps Charlie in the butt, he misinterprets the slap as a playful hit like it's some sort of game to him. I know this because I'm autistic, too.
West Chester, PA