holiday recap

Night and day. On and off. Flip of a switch.

Saturday so mellow and "present" and reasonable. Going out of her way to be helpful and enjoying "being good." We had a calm and successful time building her Minecraft lego village together.

Then came Sunday with no self-control and outbursts and yelling and whining and crying and frantic behavior.

So unpredictable.

The triggers are pretty clear: other people. Specifically, other kids.

At Sunday School: Panicking, frantic reactions if she has to wait her turn to speak in a group. Goes berserk if anyone makes a comment that she claims was what she wanted to say. Flips out if another child wants to say something to the teacher when LS believes she has the floor (which is always). I was on desk duty near the kid's classes at church that day so I could hear LS's outbursts, averaging about every 2 minutes. Even with the reminders that we'd go to the library to play Minecraft if she was good, she just couldn't pull it off.

Minecraft is a trigger too because it's the current intense obsession. The peak of the intense interests seem to correspond with the worst behavior problems.

Lately she's frantic and consumed with her "Minecraft time" which she gets after school and after homework. She is also frantic and consumed by the red light on the tablet because it doesn't charge well and if it doesn't charge enough then that means her "night time" music on it won't play all night, which sends her into a full panic. Even though it's not a big deal because we can just plug it in by her bed....

Today there was no Minecraft time because she came at me after school crying and sobbing and wailing, claiming her friend was mean and spit at her. I saw this friend and asked what happened and the friend said that LS had said, "My dad will smack you" or something like that. LS had left out that part of course.

LS lies.

Just flat out lies.

So I never know what to believe.

At work all day I didn't feel stressed out at all, even though I was multitasking and busy. But the second I picked up LS my blood pressure was up and I was instantly so stressed and upset by her crying and sobbing and because I wanted to go inside to look for her lunch box she was demanding, "Will it waste my Minecraft time?!" repetitively and with increasing frenzy.

So the new rule is that if she comes out of school upset like that, then no Minecraft. And if she asks, "Will it waste my Minecraft time?", then no Minecraft time.

Winter break was long. So long. And we had to go to two different daycare sites due to low enrollment issues. That didn't help. The staff reported LS had a hard time with her emotions and with other kids.

She does okay at home when it's just us. But then she zones out playing Minecraft or watching it on youtube, and at least she's quiet, but I know it's not good for her to have so much screen time.

But if she's not playing Minecraft or watching it on youtube then she's following me around doing the monkey or squirrel perseveration that goes like (lately it's the monkey):

"The monkey wants a banana."
"The monkeys are staring at you."
"You are living with a monkey for the rest of your life."
"Look at this monkey." (demanding I look at her)
"Two little monkeys sitting in a tree, KISSING, first comes love..." (and the whole bit, over and over)

And during all of it she makes a monkey face and loud jungle sounds and pretends to climb the walls and I can't get through to her. She just goes into character and she's gone and I am sharing the house with a lunatic. That's what it's like in the mornings before school because there's no Minecraft weekday mornings.

So yeah, that's why I let her play Minecraft so much, for the quiet
and for my sanity.

Bloody math

The little twerp of an autism dr we visit just once a year, who doesn't even have kids, was actually scolding me about letting LS play and watch Minecraft. Meanwhile, he doesn't even know what Minecraft is.

"But what about the violence???" He lisped dramatically.

I tried to explain the game and that killing isn't really the objective. I didn't bother explaining the creative mode, the building, the fact that it helps her have something in common to talk about with other kids, that other kids are more tolerant of her behavior when they have something in common, etc.

Explaining the Stampy Cat Youtube channel was even harder--why I let her watch videos obsessively, videos of someone else playing Minecraft...

He gave a scolding, warning look and proceeded with the yearly evaluation of academics. After the reading and spelling evaluation, he gave LS the math worksheet.

"Oh, bloody math," LS muttered.

He turned to me with wide eyes, "Did she just say 'bloody' math???"

"Well yeah," I admitted. "That comes from watching Stampy Cat. He's british..."

"See...." he shooked his head shamefully. "They repeat what they hear...."

Of course I didn't tell him that Stampy actually used worse language in earlier videos, before he realized his audience was mostly kids. There was the day LS stumbled across one of these earlier videos and thankfully was fully immersed in building something in creative mode, while the video was chromecasting to the tv, so she didn't hear Stampy say "fucktard penis head."

Yep, that made my head whip around. For sure.

At least LS didn't say THAT at the dr appointment. Even though that would be the best place, of all places, to say it.

Maybe next time... : )

Obsessions and intense interests

It's normal for kids or adults to "get really into" something. The difference between them and an autistic person who "gets really into" something is that the typical people will still do other things and in the case of children, the interest will likely pass by more quickly. With an autistic child the interest is MORE intense, MORE consuming, and lasts LONGER than with a typical child. Every interest Little Squirrel has had has been this way. Her friends will get interested in My Little Pony, and LS does too, but the friends will also have interests in Princesses, Spiderman, or other characters. But not LS. It was all MLP, all the time, for a very long time. That one was over a year. Before MLP was Angry Birds. All Angry Birds, all the time. After MLP was Phineas and Ferb. All P&F, all the time. Now it is Minecraft. This one will last longer, I can tell. Because she's not just obsessed with playing it but also with watching others play it on youtube (Stampy Cat and Amy Lee and Squid are the only ones she's allowed to watch). She doesn't watch or play anything else but Minecraft.

Interests quickly become obsessions and obsessions ever more quickly become perseverations. Watching Stampy Cat again and again is familiar and predictable. Playing Minecraft brings the comfort of being in a familiar world where she can control everything.

Even the squirrel perseveration started as a joke at school over a year ago, where she made a face that looked like a squirrel, then everyone laughed, so she did it again. And again. And again. That spiraled into this whole 'schtick' about squirrels that got the whole class involved (poor teacher). But what was just casual fun for her friends, to say SQUIRREL! and make squirrel faces, was all-consuming for LS. So now that it's over a year later and her friends have long ago moved on to new things, and LS is still doing the squirrel act, but not as much at school anymore since even the word alone has been outlawed in the classroom and her friends have long since been tired of it. So she saves it all up for home. For me. All squirrel, all the time.

Except for when she is doing the newer 'schtick' that involves a monkey face and scripted repetitive speech about a monkey. She alternates between the monkey and squirrel acts pretty equally. I don't prefer either one. They both make for a very long weekend. So people probably wonder why I let her play and watch Minecraft so much, I just can't even explain that at least she's quiet and it keeps the squirrel and monkey away.

It manifests in Minecraft

Last year Little Squirrel had cognitive testing. She scored well above average overall, after averaging out her extreme high scores and low scores within same categories, which is where the "atypical" features of autism come into play. Her highest score was in the spatial category on the "copying" task where she was tasked with replicating block patterns after just a few seconds to view the model. She scored 99.5%. I asked her psychiatrist what this could mean about how her brain works, since I'm always hoping for a glimpse. But just like every other useless specialist we've encountered over the years, he said mostly nothing, except to say, "Well, she has a gift." Yes, duh. No one should score that high on an evaluation. A test, yes. Evaluation, no. So ever then since I've been wondering how this "gift" might ever manifest outside of the evaluation.

Then the Minecraft obsession began. Cue block-model-copying gift. It's the perfect utilization.

She is obsessed with Mr. Stampy Cat videos on YouTube, then I noticed she is now building exact replicas of parts of his worlds. Example: She sees his bank with a pig in it; she builds one just like it. She sees his "doggy hockey rink"; she builds one just like it. But what would take me an hour, she does in 5-10 minutes. And they are exact replicas, without referring back to Mr. Stampy Cat's models.