Beth Capodanno, hs art educator, artist, author, mom of a boy who's diagnosed PDDNOS

by Beth Capodanno
(Rocky Point, NY USA)

Hi my son was tested and placed into an early intervention program at 2 1/2 yrs. old. I noticed when he turned 2 that he began to act strangely. He was totally freaked out by the mechanical sounds of blow dryers, blenders, vacuums, etc. During this process he also began to show severe reactions to simple transitions. We couldn't just get up and go. We had to tell him where, when, what,etc...It also did not help that he could tell time by three years old, and read road signs and maps. Even when he "knew" what was going on, he would still melt down if the area was unfamiliar.

As a result of this, I was stressed out. I work full time and by the time I picked him up, I needed to find an enormous amount of patience to get through our nightly routine which involved many transitions.

He would really freak out with an all out melt-down about taking a bath. I would end up melting down too, and would always feel awful about my self and parenting skills. I finally decided to try to 'cook up some soup in the tub" and that my son and his ten smelly toes were one of the main ingredients. It worked!

That idea slowly formed into my first children's book that I self-illustrated, and published. My goal was originally to make me son a blurb book. But my mom died suddenly and with a small amount that I got from my mom's estate, I bought a family kayak, and self-published through CreateSpace, Amazon.com.

Stinky Feet Stew is a fictional story that was written about my "autistic" son, but if you read the book and didn't know the background, the character Stew, would seem like any young boy his age. I recommend you check it out since there is really no fictional stories that highlight our children's quirkiness.