Tonight NoveMber wanted me to sing lullabies. No problem but I only know two or three and not all the words for those!

I looked online and found a really cool site that has songs for kids and played a few which calmed her down enough to sleep.

Some have words and some don’t, but still relaxing and fun music.

 http://www.kididdles.com/lyrics/allsongs.html

Jenn Brockman

Our esteemed and highly exalted family therapist (who is going to kick me for that title) got onto me about playing with my kids. I don’t know how to relate to NoveMber, who is Autistic or something really similar. Actually, she probably doesn’t relate to me and that makes it difficult to know how to play.

She has tangental thinking. She might get an idea in her head but what ever is going on in front of her right now gets put into the story weather it makes any sense or not. That makes it hard to follow a story line if we play house or dolls or even structured games like Monopoly for kids.

His suggestions to me were “So What?!”Well, the suggestion was really to play however I wanted to play and if she “gets” it, then fine, and if not, then fine too.  This is going to be a new skill for me to learn because I’m used to interaction in play, and every other thing in life.

You see, with Nove, she tells the story of how you will play her game, even if it was your idea in the first place and even if there are clearly rules in place that she knows about because she has played before. For instance, she likes to pretend we are pirates and that we sail and plunder and find treasures all over the world. However, she tells me what to say as if there were a script that I didn’t get to read. If I don’t go along with it, well woe is me because all hell breaks loose.

She has actually come a long way in cooperating with shared play, but I may never get to be the captain of this ship.

Jenn Brockman Co-Host