. . . where I talk about the big story that is overshadowing all the little stories and creating busy-ness in my schedule.
THIS is the one where I talk about how Lily has decided to latch onto the Wimpics (sic) and how in particular she has latched onto "cycling".
Cycling comes on over the main feed on NBC, and I swear I have no idea why, but it does. So while they cover cycling, they also slide over and cover Sport A and Event B, because the cycling race coverage lasts for. . . SIX HOURS!!!
This means that there's a sport that will occupy Lily's attention, a WIMPIC sport at that, that will occupy her attention for LONG periods of time. While it's going on, she'll mutter color commentary under her breath.
"Oh, she pedaling her bike." "She got stuck. Fall off her bike and get hurt. It's dangerous." "Red bike!"
And so on.
Unfortunately the lamp in my TV blew up a few days ago, so we can't capture her attention that way, but the iPad saved our collective asses with the NBC Olympic app that literally has all the video of every sport available for streaming. That means I can stream 6 hours of cycling to my daughter's delight!
NBC has kind of sucked during the Olympics, but this app (though it as its issues) has been a godsend for Lily. "I want watch Wimpics." Done!
And we (my wife and I) have our individual pet peeves about what Lily watches, but right now it's either that or "No No" (Which is Lily-speak for High School Musical), "No-No Summer" (High School Musical 2) or "No No 3" . . . and however much you may love Zac Efron. . . I'm so. sick. of those shows. I'd rather watch Barney, Wiggles, or Mother Goose Rhymes at this point.
So while my wife is all, "Cycling? Really??" I'm all, "CYCLING!! REALLY!!"
---------------
Yesterday I took Lily home from OT and she was thirsty. We had gone to McDonald's (therapy day is McDonald's Day in Lilyland) and she SHOULD have had some of her drink left, but I'd tossed it. Instead she asked for what her mother drinks. From the back seat:
"I want Diet Coke."
"Sorry baby, Diet Coke's all gone," I replied laughing (I'd never heard her ask for Diet Coke. I don't think I even realized she'd heard it referenced. She asks for my Pepsi when I'm drinking it at the table and I'll give her little sips, but that's about it).
"Oh no. Diet Coke is all gone. Can you email me Diet Coke?"
"What?"
"Can you email me Diet Coke?"
I couldn't help it, I laughed. I love how she absorbs new words, and I'm not sure where she picked up the context for this, but I think it's pretty cool usage. . . email defined as "send", or perhaps "give". She's not far off.
I've started introducing Lily to the iPad a little at a time. I'm not sure if I'm doing myself or my stress level any favors by not biting the bullet and purchasing some sort of case or cover to protect it from her rough affection (like an otter box). Her fine motor skills consist of a lot of slapping of the screen and whole-hand swipes of it, which either reveal the taskbar at the bottom or exit the app entirely to the home screen.
I'm not really sure what the remedy is, except to find apps that better understand my daughter doesn't "get it". She is captivated. . . and that's key, and she likes making it do stuff, but she is not gentle, and her movements are neither precise nor controlled, and if I can't find apps that ignore some of that extra movement then they're not a huge helper. I find myself hovering constantly, swooping in to remove the iPad, getting back into the application, then replacing it, while Lily grabs for it.
Unfortunately, while the iPad is playing pet mouse to her Lenny, my stress level, and recognition of how much we just blew invested in the thing becomes more and more focused, ratcheting up to the point where I finally give her the "three more minutes" schpiel along with promises of future play, though the iPad seems remarkably unfazed by it. Though perhaps Lenny's mouse was too. . . until the bitter end.
"I want more buttons!" Lily informs me.
"We'll get more buttons, later, baby."
Here is my iPad to do list:
1) Find some apps that appreciate Lily's relative skills at swiping, pointing, sweeping (or lack thereof)
2) Find a cover that protects it from her particular ministrations.
3) Adapt the cover to protect the "home" button. (I already have some ideas about this)
4) Get our new wrap to develop some iPad specific goals that they can work on with Lily (new wrap starts up in December, after Lily's 6th birthday)
We celebrated my birthday, or as it became, my birthday weekend, or as I would prefer to refer to it, my magical birthday week this past week. We had decided that an Ipad was in our future, and it became a question of 1) Birthday gift for me? or 2) Christmas gift for the whole family?
My thinking was as follows: 1) if it's a Christmas present for us from us then we will get absolutely no help from the rest of the family (and it's a spendy proposition). 2) if it's a gift for me, then I can decide who gets to use it and when, short circuiting the whole. . . "But it's the whole FAMILY'S present!" argument that Emma would no doubt employ to yoink it out from under me.
So, I was very excited to go to the Apple store and buy it. It was a bit of an anticlimax though. After dropping almost a thousand dollars on the thing, I didn't find the good people at the Apple store to be particularly helpful or accommodating. They had a "personal setup" guy who was responsible for me and another guy. The other guy was more clueless than I was, so he ended up spending the majority of his time helping him. As a result, when I encountered problems I didn't really get the understanding and helpful ear that I'd expected from a store supposedly known for their customer service. The problems I solved for myself snowballed into other problems and at one point the personal setup guy consulted another guy, and when neither knew the answer he said, "I don't really know what to do here," then turned back to the clueless guy, who was less inconvenient to help.
I eventually solved my own problem, but my personal setup guy took his lunch break. So I packaged up my ipad. . . went behind the counter, got my own Apple store bag, slipped it inside and left.
I was reminded of the South Park episode where it's Christmas, and all the kids in South Park are consumed with opening and playing with their presents and they show a cutaway of Jesus (who on South Park is an actual character (or used to be)) sitting all alone with a party hat on singing "Happy Birthday to Me" mournfully. Stupid Apple store. On top of that, they used my patch cord from my Ipad box (I've since learned this isn't SOP) and when I boxed everything up I forgot the patch cord in the stupid store.
The iPad is cool, and I'm still setting it up, so I need like THE coolest autism apps for it before I introduce it to Lily. Please leave your "THE COOLEST APP" suggestions in comments! Emma and I played Angry Birds on it yesterday as I was organizing apps and setting up email addresses, but she hasn't been pining for it the way I thought she might.
That night my wife and I went out to eat at a gastropub (not to be confused with a gastropod, stupid spell-check). She didn't know what a gastropub was, so I explained it, but I'm not sure I know what a gastropub is so I just winged it. I sorta do, but when I imply I'm an authority on gastropubs it seems pompous, so I'm going to downplay it. I like the place. I went there with my Dad a few weeks ago, and wanted her to get to try it. The plus side is, she really liked the food. I did too. . . sorta. They were out of a few things, but I decided pumpkin pierogies sounded sorta awesome and different. She got steak. . . rare. . . as usual. We got mussels for an appetizer and the sauce was fantastic! I always want to drink what's left as soup, but I didn't, cuz I'm klassy.
They brought out my wife's steak (cooked just the way she likes it, bleeding as if stabbed) and chose that moment to inform me that they were out of the pumpkin pierogies. Now I'm very easy going when I dine out. I'm mostly just excited to have someone cook and clean up and try new things. But if you're out of something the time to inform them is not as you bring the other person her supper. I stared blankly at the waiter (who seemed sort of "new") and said, "And you're telling me this now?"
I eventually settled for skillet-seared scallops with bacon on honey-siracha polenta. They were good, if somewhat sweet, and we were going to cap the evening with coffee. . . but they were out of it, so we settled for their version of a molten chocolate cake. After a few minutes they stopped over to the table to inform us they were out of that as well. So we said "FUCK YOU!!!" "we'll take our check now".
Although the owner, and both waiters came to the table to apologize for fucking up my dinner so spectacularly, when the final check came, there was no "hey, sorry about your dinner, we took one of your cocktails off the check" sort of gesture, and I admit I was thinking they would do that. Not that I expect it, or even ask for it when it's not given (unless it's a total debacle) but it's still something that a "good" gastropub should do.
I was mostly disappointed because I really wanted my wife to have a good experience there so I could convince her to go back, and it was my special magical birthday week dinner. . . and they botched it. . . so I tucked my birthday tail between my legs and we went home.
So, sort of a weird anticlimactic birthday celebration, but it remained "a night out with my wife". And the food was good and the company was great, so all in all it was a win.
Sunday everyone came over and we opened a couple more presents, watched football, and ate chinese food with the whole family. Lily 'helped' me open my present (which amounts to me handing her pieces of wrapping paper (she has no patience for unwrapping) and her ripping them to shreds and trying to put them in her mouth to the chorus of "NO LILY" coming from every corner of the room, which I think secretly made her laugh). That helped pick up my gloomy Grinch attitude. I called the Apple store and they told me to come in any time to pick up the cord.
Lily met her Kindergarten teachers yesterday at a morning meeting we had to go over this upcoming school year. She'll go about 50/50 typical Kindergarten (K. . . I'll call it K from here on out) and "special" or "adapted special" or whatever they call it K. Special K sounds so. . . morning breakfast.
Anyway, she spent most of the time outside on the playground with her grandfather while we discussed what her daily schedule would look like: where she'd start her day, who would greet her off the bus, would she participate in 'circle' or 'stations', would she have adapted music or attend the typical music class (the only class that I think she probably could participate in without having it specially adapted).
It was a good meeting. The K teacher asked if Lily might enjoy working on a laptop, and I had to reply, "She might enjoy working on a laptop, but YOU might not enjoy her working on a laptop." Later, Leslie thought we might parlay that into a iPad for Lily, since if you get those sorts of things incorporated into an IEP, then the School District is required to buy one for her. And I had to push down mounting excitement and differentiate between whether I wanted an iPad for Lily or I wanted Lily to have an iPad for me.
Honestly, Lily might benefit from an iPad; something that doesn't require the sort of fine motor skills to hit buttons that a laptop's keyboard requires. I downloaded a couple apps for her to try: a program that gives her pictures of three objects and asks her to select one. When she pushes it correctly, it cheers and the object multiplies and music plays as the object in question cascades across the screen. If she pushes it incorrectly it says, "uh oh" and she gets to try again. That one seems alright. Another one required that she push the item five times as it bounces slowly across the screen. Honestly, I failed to read the instructions and tried pushing it myself and got frustrated when nothing happened. I thought I just had to push the (in this case) star and i'd "win. I feel fairly certain the need to push this star five times will escape Lily's brief focus, so as an app, I'm tempted to judge it useless (for now), but I have to trot it out for Lily.
The iPhone's screen is so much smaller than the iPad's, if she can make the apps work, and is interested in it, she might get more success with the iPad, and we could treat it as "pre-writing" or "pre-typing" sort of training for her. And honestly, if she DOES have some success, she might be able to satisfy some of her page-turning obsessions graphically, sparing some paper books the ignominy of her less-than-gentle handling. You can't rip a touch screen. Although. . . if you CAN rip a touch screen, Lily will find a way to do it.
Unfortunately the lamp in my TV blew up a few days ago, so we can't capture her attention that way, but the iPad saved our collective asses with the NBC Olympic app that literally has all the video of every sport available for streaming. That means I can stream 6 hours of cycling to my daughter's delight! 
