Kiss My Knits!

Em’s been saying today, “I do not want to watch Snow White. I watch it a lot.” A week ago, she’d had it in heavy rotation for about a week, with it playing all the time. That’s not an exaggeration, it was on every single moment she was awake that we grownups weren’t using the TV, and when we grownups were using the TV, she would stand next to it with the DVD in her hand, waiting for the all-clear. When I wasn’t in the room, she would frequently call me back in to watch some key point. If I left the room afterward, she’d call me back in.

Snow White is a great movie, don’t get me wrong, but not ALL THE TIME. Also, if she does something all the time, it dominates her thought and speech to the point where she can’t talk about anything else, which doesn’t make for great conversational opportunities with other kids. Finally I had to gently tell her, “You’ve been watching Snow White an awful lot. We need to turn it off for a while.” So today, a week later, her saying “I do not want to watch Snow White. I watch it a lot.” was her way of saying, “I really want to watch this, but I know I shouldn’t. So I won’t. But I really want to. But it’s wrong. But I still really want to. But I’m going to convince myself that I don’t. Although I still really do want to.”

It’s hard to know this sometimes, because on the face of it, “I do not want to watch Snow White” is a pretty simple statement. But because I do speak fluent Mom, I got it. Apparently just saying, “no, you can watch Snow White, it’s okay” wasn’t enough to reassure her. So today I sat down with her and said, “You know, sometimes you like to watch the same thing over and over, and I know you really like that. And that’s okay, I understand it. But sometimes I don’t like to see the same thing over and over. That’s why I asked you to turn it off. But we haven’t seen it in a while, so it’s fine to turn it on again. It isn’t going to bother me. It’s really okay to watch Snow White.” So she promptly got out the DVD and put it in, because as I say, she really did want to see it.

She really does want to be a good kid, even when she doesn’t understand the rules.

I started this post more than an hour ago. Em insisted that I come in and watch Snow White with her, so I stayed for the whole movie. She was giggling with glee through the whole thing, and discussing it in her fashion as the movie played. Then she’d look back at me for support as she talked. Love that eye contact. She’s such a sweet kid.

Tomorrow, Em and I are going to see Wall-E. This will be the first time she’s gone to a movie theater. When she was younger, we didn’t think she could sit still, and then lately she hasn’t wanted to go because it’s new and different and therefore to be shunned. But I’m not presenting it as a choice this time, I’ve just been calmly saying, “On Friday, we’re going to go see Wall-E” and telling her a little bit about what it’s about. She’ll go along with something that you tell her is going to happen. She seems interested.

Going to the movies is a good experience for a kid to have, in my opinion. It’ll be a good opportunity for me to help prevent another idiot cell-phone talking moviegoer from entering the world. You don’t know these things unless someone tells you, and I’d rather it be me who tells her than have someone turn around and lay the smack down when she starts kicking their seat in the middle of, say, a retro showing of Schindler’s List.

Interestingly, I’ve read on some autism boards that Wall-E is a particularly good movie to take children with autism to, since there’s not a lot of complex dialogue to confuse kids who have trouble with language. Em’s doing better in that regard, but I’ll still be interested to see if that seems to make a difference to her.

Green Jayne finished, orange Berrocco Jayne hat on the needles.