When Cameron was a baby, he loved being swaddled and insisted on snuggle time for a good 15 to 20 minutes every time he woke up, whether it was in the morning or after a nap. It was that way for the entire first year but eventually he grew out of that and instead had a need to be off on his own doing something.

For most of his life, we rarely ever got a hug out of him and certainly never got any kisses, unless he’d let us kiss his forehead or something. It was just something we had become accustomed to as have many parents that have children with Autism.

A couple of months ago, something was different in Cameron. He woke up one day and suddenly he was hugging us all the time. Believe me, we never denied him… it was great!

Recently though, in the last 2 weeks or so, he’s cut back on the hugs once again. He only really gives us hugs before bed except he’s added two bonuses along with the hugs. One is that he also gives us kisses on the cheek and the other is that he does the hugs and kisses in patterns.

It’s never the same pattern from night to night but it is always the same pattern between my wife and I.

What he’ll do is run over and speak out his actions as he does them, for example “I give you a hug, and a kiss and then a hug and a hug and then a kiss and a kiss and then a hug and then a kiss and a kiss and a kiss.”

Once he’s done his pattern, he goes to the other parent and repeats the pattern.

Now, I’m not sure if this is his Autism showing or if he’s just a 5 year old that’s fascinated with patterns, since he’s been learning them in school… but it really is quite cute. And it results in us getting hugs and kisses (on the cheek anyway), so we aren’t about to discourage him from doing it.