shutting down the shut downs

Okay - enough of the dark moment already! There is much to celebrate:)

For starters, NBear now has TWO movies (two!) under her belt: Kung Fu Panda, and Wall-E. It took seven years, but was well worth the wait - these were the first movies she actually sat through and didn't "shut down" to. [shut down = fingers desperately jammed into her ears*, refusal to enter the movie theater, kicking, screaming, burying her face in our chests or on the nearest chair, closing her eyes the entire time, crying that she needs to go potty just to escape the experience] *she still does the ear thing, but it's not an act of desperation anymore - more like, an odd habit;)

Children with autism experience outside stimuli in a very different way. "Normal" people can take in multi-sensory experiences without feeling afraid or stifled, while people like my NBear end up feeling overwhelmed by them. When presented with an experience like the movies, she doesn't (or in this case, didn't) see the entertainment aspect of it at all because there were so many other things that made her uncomfortable: the loud sounds, the sudden darkness, the huge screen projecting larger-than-life images, the murmur of voices all around her, and her inability to shield her eyes and ears from ALL of that.

From what I have witnessed with her these past years, my best analogy for how she felt would be this - imagine sitting on a comfortable chair in your bedroom, blindfolded. You know the sounds, and smells and feel at ease. Then, you feel people pick you up (still on your chair) off the floor, and you can feel them taking you somewhere else, somewhere you're not familiar with. Then, you feel them put you on a roller coaster. Still blindfolded. Now - pretend you fear roller coasters more than life itself. You know what's coming, but you can't stop it, and you don't know how to keep yourself calm enough to endure the ordeal.......and that was how movies were to her.

Loud noises still bother her nowadays. Her last shut down episode was also the first time I ever cried because she was autistic (believe it or not). She freaked out because the DJ and host at the C-S Vegas wedding was too loud :( - at least for her liking. She was able to survive many "possible shut down" incidents by performing her trademark "I can't listen to this" pose. *I thought I could get her to stop doing that when I brought a set of headphones in my bag to prepare her for Kung-Fu Panda, but LM brought up the fact that she enjoys her own fingers because she can control the amount of pressure she decides to put on her ears.* (did you all get that mouthful?)

So - it was no surprise that when we went to watch Circus Vargas, she kept her fingers in her ears for most of the show - especially the parts with the clowns and the loud banging noises (what is it with clowns and cannons, anyway?). The clowns also scared her enough to make her close her eyes, which caused her defensive father to put in his own two cents: "Well, they DID look kinda weird!", and her mom following suit: "Yeah! Besides, even grown men are afraid of clowns, right? Aren't so-and-so also suffering from the 'IT' phobia? Hmph!" In the end, a good time was had by all. :)

- survive a movie {check}
- survive the circus {check}
- be able to watch at least 10 minutes of 4th of July fireworks {check} *thanks, K family!*

We're on a roll, baby!.........yeeeeee-hah!