The Thanksgiving I Realized My Son Saw the World Differently

Thanksgiving is supposed to be loud — clattering dishes, people talking over each other, that soft hum of family noise. Ours was exactly that. Everyone was downstairs after dinner, laughing, telling stories, the kind of normal chaos you expect in a full house on a holiday.

My son was upstairs napping. He was two.

I went up to get him when I heard him stir, scooped him into my arms, and carried him downstairs — warm, heavy, still half-asleep. We stepped into the living room and the noise wrapped around us.

And then, in the quietest little voice, he asked:
“Are you laughing at me?”

The room froze.

Because what two-year-old says that?
What toddler even thinks that?

He wasn’t talking about a joke.
He wasn’t confused.
He wasn’t trying to be silly.

He was worried.

At two years old, he felt the room before he understood it. He sensed emotion before he had words for it. He carried an awareness years ahead of his age — and a vulnerability no child should have to carry at all.

That moment lodged itself into me.

I didn’t have the language for it then — sensory processing, PDA traits, hypervigilance, trauma responses, masking — none of that was part of my vocabulary yet. All I knew was that my child was different. Sensitive in a way no one around us seemed to understand. Tuned into the world on a frequency I couldn’t explain.

Looking back now, I realize it was one of the first moments that should have told me everything.

Long before the specialists.
Long before the diagnoses.
Long before the red flags piled up.
Long before hospitals became our second home.

He was already showing me exactly who he was — a kid who felt deeply, noticed everything, and carried the weight of the world in his tiny chest.

And like so many moments in parenting a medically complex, neurodivergent child, I didn’t know then that this was one of the puzzle pieces. One of the things we’d look back on later and say, “Oh… it was right there. He was telling us.”

Thanksgiving comes around every year, but that memory always hits a little different.
It reminds me of how early the world can feel sharp for our kids.

How early they learn to scan rooms.
How early their nervous systems whisper clues we don’t yet know how to read.

And honestly?

It reminds me why I document everything now.
Why I write these stories.
Why I built K&K Studios at all.

Because our kids move through the world with layers most people never see — and caregivers live in the space between protecting them and translating them.

If this moment hits you the way it still hits me… you’re not alone in that.

Your child noticed early.
You did too.
And none of it was “just a phase.”

It was who they were becoming — long before anyone else understood.

If this hit you today, you can join me in the trenches — my weekly letter is where I share the moments between the moments.