You're silly!

Gotta figure out how to put a stop to this "you're silly" business to everyone. Today M. said "you're silly! you look silly!" to a man coming out of the elevator, in a wheelchair, with a messy pony tail, wearing big mirrored sunglasses, a bright purple outfit, and missing both his legs at the thighs. I couldn't see his reaction through his sunglasses, but I didn't even bother trying to explain to him that she says that to everyone, that it's one of her repetitive behaviors. We just ran the other way. Unfortunately, he lives in our building and we'll no doubt be seeing him all the time...

Flintstones vitamins were on sale...

Trying to remember how this hellish Tom & Jerry obsession began and then I remembered, because Flintstones vitamins were on sale. They were in the clearance cart for half price, and much cheaper than our regular brand. So I thought, they have all the same ingredients, so what the hell?

So what the hell???


Well, hell is what I got.

When we got the vitamins home, of course M. wanted to know who the Flintstones are. Realizing kids today have no freaking clue about Fred, Wilma, Barney, Betty, Pebbles, Bam Bam, Dino and elephants who stick their trunks through your window so you can wash dishes--I turned to YouTube for a little Flintstones introduction.

M. was mildly amused for a few clips, until she noticed other fun-looking cartoons in the side bar.

Tom & Jerry.

So I thought, what the hell?


.......


And now I have a kid who talks of nothing but Tom & Jerry, wants to BE Tom, and has to have special rules at school where she can only "be Tom" when outside, and who doesn't want to go anywhere else now, like church, or anywhere else where she cannot be Tom.

So what the hell???

WHY IS NO ONE TALKING TO ME!!!???

is the latest annoying social problem we are experiencing, whenever I try to say anything to anyone, or anyone tries to say something to me. Put that with the "Are you talking about me???" anxiety and you can forget any conversation. Just have a drink.

Only when she's been drinking

After the big haircut today we went to get the promised ice cream, because M. was good while the lady cut a foot off her hair, trimmed bangs, did extensive texturing all over, etc. Without her glasses on I don't think she could see that all of her hair was being cut off. But I don't think she minded. I could have had her head shaved and she wouldn't have cared as long as ice cream was involved.

At the Baskin Robbins two little girls came in behind us and M. immediately pounced on them, getting right into their faces and demanding to know names, why they were there, what kind of ice cream where they getting, etc. 

The two girls were stunned, but handled it well, only backing away slightly.

"Is she always this friendly?" their dad asked me.

I don't remember what I actually said, but it wasn't as good as what I should have said:

"Only when she's been drinking."

Today did not suck

Took M. to my work so she could have a visual of where I am when she's at school. So she introduced herself to all my coworkers, of course, and said her current stereotype "you're silly" to our admin lead which confused the woman a bit since she wasn't doing anything at all, and I didn't preface the visit with any autism labels so she was just momentarily puzzled then hopefully brushed it off... but it could have gone so much worse and I am grateful for a good day, which was pretty long and started with preschool end of the year party at Naydenov gymnastics, then class picnic at a park, then home for a bit, then visiting my work, then another park. The only crying fits today were at the second park when M. bumped her head like she usually does, and then when she was climbing down a jungle gym ladder and a child approached the ladder from the top, which set M. off screaming because one time someone came down the ladder behind her and stepped on her fingers, therefore irrational fear etched in permanent memory.

Don't say HI

A classmate at preschool said hi to M. as we got to school this morning.

"Um, I don't like that," was M.'s sharp reply.

"Oh, I'm sorry," said the girl.

So my plan for the ways of the typical kids to rub off on M. is failing, as M. is not learning social skills from them at all, but rather is simply enforcing her arbitrary, crazy, mad hatter rules--and they are clearly all conforming!

(and of course it has always been okay for anyone to say goodbye, but NOT "hi.")

The downside of the fun

Of course I love it when we have a good time and laugh, but the downside is that when M. thinks something is funny then I'm doomed to have to repeat it hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times so that what was once a good memory is now something I dread daily!

I'm big

"I'm big! I don't need help because I am BIG!" M. told me off as I was taking her to the bathroom at a church event and had tried to steer her around some obstacles. So she really told me, looking over her shoulder at me, as she swaggered along, and I reached out to steer her again, because she was walking straight into a wall.

...

The screaming crying freak out record for gymnastics has been broken. M. made it through a class without crying. All week we discussed self control, and how she can learn to stop herself before she cries, like she learned to stop herself from hitting her teacher at school, like she had been doing (not hitting in anger, but compulsive hitting to say hi, get her attention, etc). And that if she cried again at gymnastics we wouldn't be going back. It's very difficult for her to stop her compulsive behaviors and crying is one of them. The slightest frustration and her reaction is to cry--loudly, wailing, streaming tears, red face, choking, gagging, the works. Two or three times when she wanted the teacher to help but the teacher was busy with another kid, or she couldn't do something just right, she burst out briefly, then looked over at me with sudden fear, and stopped herself. I also helped by making sure she had a no-sugar snack before gymnastics, was dressed in very light clothing (she's easily overheated), and informed the teacher of possible triggers like being touched unexpectedly and feeling crowded.

Sarcasm

Now I know what I've missed about Facebook, all the opportunities to make snarky comments. Good to be back.

Being around M. most of the time makes me have sarcasm withdrawals. She's very literal. The closest I've heard her come to sarcasm was the other day when I was asking her to hold my hand across the street but she had one flower in each hand already. So she said, "I can't hold your hand. I only have two hands. I am not an octopus."

With the right sassy tone that could have been a beautiful sarcastic retort for a 4 year old. But M. really meant just what she said.

She-is-not-an-octopus.

Gymnastics - 4th session, Lesson 1

After 3 sessions of gymnastics, M. is already on track for a perfect record of screaming crying freak-outs in her 4th session. The first two sessions she attended was during her name phobia phase, so she flipped out any time the coach called her name. So that was miserable. For everyone. Then by her 3rd try she was over the name problem, but suddenly decided she was terrified to go upside down on the bars, which meant a lot of screaming crying freak-outs, since the coach pushed her to keep trying. So that was miserable too. For everyone. And now for her 4th try, M. has decided to take offense at being told what to do (which is kinda the coach's job) and to scream, cry, freak out and storm out of the class. So today was miserable also. For everyone.

"But you can't even tell any difference," the woman next to me replied when I told her M. is mildly autistic, which is what EVERYONE says and that's why I hate telling people. But I wanted to offer at least some explanation for M.'s lunatic behavior besides just that she's a bratty, out of control kid.

However, one of the kids in M.'s class could sure tell, though she didn't say anything. But I knew she knew something was off, the way she stood quietly beside me, looking up at me with wide curious eyes, then at M. (still crying and wailing), then back up at me to see my reaction, with the kind of searching eye contact I am not used to from my own kid. That right there is the difference.

Dog-gone

The sleepover only distracted M. from having to give our dog away for so long. Every few minutes she forgets and asks me to let him in, then we have to have the talk all over again that involves layers of reasoning behind the decision to give him away to some friends. The reasons are mostly financial, as well as less time at home to take care of a dog now that I just got hired at a job. M. mostly doesn't understand the financial reasons since she solves it by telling me to "just go buy some more money." What she understood the most was when I told her I don't think our dog liked it when she closed him in her room with them together and she would be loud and do things that scared him simply because it was fun for her and no regard to all the times I told her he doesn't like it. She said, "He didn't like it so he wanted to leave. " I almost told her that wasn't true, then decided maybe it's time for a lesson in consequences and how people don't want to be around us if we treat them badly. She wasn't cruel to him, but just way too exuberant and really annoying the hell out of him. I know he'll be happier where he is now with typically developing children who can understand how to treat animals. Happy trails Bentley! (from here forth to be called Bento by his new Japanese family--and no, even though that means box lunch in Japan, they do not plan to eat him)

Stranger Danger

All I could get from the library about stranger danger is one tired, outdated book from the 1980s with too many words and too few pictures. Still, I hoped at least SOME of the message might sink in.

But no.

In the end, all we came away with was this:

"Strangers are soooooo strangerly."

And the stock photo of the boy running through a field used to illustrate how kids should run from strangers was a particular highlight. While the boy is yelling, "Get away from me!" to the stranger, and, "You are not my mother!" and "You are not my father!", M. took this to mean that the boy is yelling to the stranger, "I am not your mother! I am not your father!" and even taking it further to add her own, "I am not your grandma! I am not your grandpa! I am not your teacher!" while laughing hysterically.

"I don't like to pray!"

At church this morning M.'s bff was out sick and the teachers tried to soothe her by suggesting she make a 'get well' card and pray for her friend, to which M. announced, "I don't like to pray!"

Okay then...

But today I guess she not only did not pray but didn't make a get well card either because all she brought home was a paper plate with streamers attached that says "Sing Praises To The Lord."

M. asked me what it says, so I read it. She repeated slowly, "Sing. praises. to. the. lord."

Then asked, "What does 'lord' means?'

I told her, "Lord means God."

She said it to herself but without a shred of understanding. And that's fine. For a black and white, concrete mind that doesn't understand concepts, God is just a word. Praying is even more vague and unsettling to her I'm sure.

So she doesn't like praying, that's okay. It's still better than last Easter when she announced to everyone as we were leaving church, "Mommy, I don't like Jesus!"

REALLY happy to see you

"So she's not waving at me?"

"No, that's flapping."

(after about a dozen times in 2 minutes and with enough intensity to take flight, no, that is not waving)

The last one

During another attempt to explain to M. why her latest irrational, delusional, crazy, nutcase, obsessive anxiety (that's been annoying everyone for months) over any situation where she perceives herself as being "the last one" is just plain silly, and while I was telling her it's okay to be the last one, and presenting her with a hypothetical situation of someone saying that whichever kid is the last one in line gets all the cookies (to which she insisted she still would NOT want to be "the last one"), I realized something that made me give up my efforts. Why give up? Well, because after all the convincing and role playing and maybe even hypnosis it will take to undo this particular fixation, there will surely come a day when some unsuspecting, well-intentioned, playful soul will stage a race among the children and yell: 

"Last one is a rotten egg!"

Happy St. Pat's! How do you corn a turkey?

Saturday afternoon at the folks'. Today's fine fare is pastrami and sauerkraut sandwiches. For St. Patrick's Day. We know this isn't exactly on par with corned beef and cabbage, except that sauerkraut IS made from cabbage. So it counts. What happened was being unable to find Jenny O brand Corned Turkey (because we don't eat red meat), for the "corned turkey and shredded cabbage sandwiches." Closest I could find was turkey pastrami (though I considered getting regular turkey and trying to "corn" it myself, but I don't even know what that means). The pastrami looked nice and peppery and tasty, though, so I got my mom dialed into the decision process right there in the aisle.

me: "Where is pastrami from anyway?"
her: "I think it's Jewish."
me: "Hhhmmm...I don't know. Does it go with cabbage?"
her: "I'm not crazy about the cabbage part.
me: "But you like sauerkraut."
her: "Ooooo, let's have sauerkraut!"
me: "Okay, I guess so..."
(Something didn't seem right about that but it's hard to think with M. always and forever flapping her hand in front of my face)
her: "Sure! We CAN'T have St. Patrick's Day without sauerkraut."
me:  "Um... (???) I think you're thinking of Octoberfest."
her: "Oh. Well, whatever. I want sauerkraut."

At that point M. became shrill in the cart with her "are you talking about me?" routine, then started pulling things off the shelves, so I was out of time.

me: "So then we just say 'screw the Irish' and have pastrami and sauerkraut?"
her: "Yep. Sounds good."

And that's how it came to be that we had pastrami and sauerkraut sandwiches on St. Patrick's Day today, with table discussion regarding where does pastrami come from, and of course, constant interruptions from M. demanding to know if we were talking about her.

M.: "Did you just talk about me?"
me: "Nope."
M.: "Do you say 'nope' lots of times?"
me: "Nope--hey! Look at the SHINY thing!"

M. looks at her shiny bracelet, as if for the first time, and leaves us alone for about one minute.

My dad says pastrami is italian, and my mom still insists it's jewish. But this is the woman with zero ethnic sensibilities when it comes to food. This is someone who stands in the soup aisle, and when most people might pick out one can of Tuscan White Bean with Pasta and another can of Southwestern Chicken Fiesta with Rice, thinking they will then have two separate meals of soup--she imagines how they might taste together! Then proudly serves the goulash to us as 'look at what good soup I made.' The original makers Progresso and Wolfgang Puck be damned!

Then later we were discussing our dreary weather here and how the end of winter, all of spring, and beginning of summer are really just one long season--of rain, cold, gray, etc. And I mentioned how the local weather forecasters must get bored and that is evidenced by the fact that one of our weather guys recently wrote an in depth analysis of the new Van Halen album on his weather blog, rather than discuss the weather. That led to the inevitable: my 81 year old dad asking, "Van-who?"

me: "Van Halen."
he shrugged
me: "You've never heard of Van Halen? From the 80s?"
him: "80s?"
me: "THE NINETEEN EIGHTIES."
he shrugged again
me: "Rock band? Big hair?"
(he can write LOL emails to me when he's making fun of my mom, he asks me how to post pictures to his fb page, relentlessly ask me "what is an app?", but he's never heard of Van Halen???)

him: "So what piece band is it?"

Of course I didn't know how many instruments are included in Van Halen's "ensemble" so I told him that I do not know the answer to that. (While of course at the same time reassuring M. we were not talking about her, and reminding her "LOOK AT THE SHINY THING.")

That's the highlights from St. Patrick's Day with the folks. Our next holiday meal will be the traditional Easter Egg Foo Young. Can't wait!