Lunchbox head

So no one commented on Sophia wearing a lunch box on her head in my last post.  Hmmm.  She goes from looking totally mature for her age in one picture, posed and all, to putting Zach's Thomas the Train lunch box on her head - and note: it's the old fashioned metal type, very comfortable, not one of those new fangled fancy nylon ones that would be soft and pliable.

OK.  Sophie - how do I describe her?  There is only one of her, I assure you.  I have great joy and ultimate frustration from her all mixed together.  One of my therapists comments to me that she can tell that although Zach has the dx of autism, Sophia is likely my more challenging child.  And she is.

When Sophia was born 5 years ago, the delivery nurse made a comment to me: "They're going to tell you she has colic, I'm going to tell you it's her personality."  I was infuriated at the time.  The more I came to read on colic, the more I wondered about this.  Colic, for most babies, kicks in at 3 weeks.  Sophia was born screaming, even managed to get herself kicked out of the nursery in the hospital for waking the other babies!  She went straight into teething at 3 months which we blamed for the fussiness as it continued past 3 months.  Sophia had an occasional social smile, but not often.  Her lack of smile (a key to early autism dx BTW) made me call my sister-in-law while shopping at a department store one day after running into several other babies Sophie's age who appeared much more engaging.  My SIL assured me that she was likely fine, and dropped off a book on child development that she had.  Sophie met all her other milestones fine.

One day while attempting to cook dinner for my husband (which I rarely did since Sophie seemed to take up all my time and still does if I let her) I gave Sophie a pot and a wooden spoon to play with to keep her occupied.  After a few minutes, I looked over and noticed that she had taken all the lids of the pots out of the cupboard and had line them up, sorting them by size.  I remember thinking, she must be really smart to do that already, but also thought, this is a little odd.  Besides Steve, I didn't mention it to my other friends who had children Sophie's age, it felt a little weird.

I was lucky enough in our old neighborhood to have had 2 other first time mothers who also had "colicky" children.  It was great fun the first couple of years conferring with one another on our kids. They seemed to put my mind at ease, that there girls were colicky too, it's just what happens sometimes.  We had playdates as time went on, and Sophia was definitely the most active kid.  New neighbors who had a daughter Sophie's age would always comment things like: "that's Sophie", "and then there's Sophie" regarding her very active behavior. 

Sophie has currently made friends with just one girl in her class.  Sophia will not socialize with the other kids.  This little girl is new to the area, and doesn't have the preschool under her belt that Sophie does.  She also has been pretty isolated from other children.  I am really concerned that their friendship is not based on mutual interests, but rather, both feeling like the odd man out at school.  Sophie tells me that this little girl loves her.  The little girl has made remarks on how pretty Sophie is with her long blonde hair.  I am feeling a little uneasy about this remark, and others she has uttered regarding race.  They are a little strange.

I really want lots of positive influences in her life right now.  She needs a lot of opportunities to figure out how other kids play and relate.

But Sophie is still Sophie.  Her verbal ability has always been ahead of the curve.  She has a mix of rote, echolalia type phrases that she applies to situations as she sees fit:

Nothing like the countryside to light my fire.

And unique and highly applicable metaphors:

Daddy is the strong man in this circus.

Those of you who are on facebook have likely read some of the ones I have captured.  Anyone who has spent time with her has likely heard them for themselves.   Many children this age say terrific things - Sophia definitely has a knack, enough that I am trying to compile them and see what might come of them one day.

Sophia has never really played with toys "appropriately" according to the experts.  Parts and pieces were always cannibalized into something else.  Her one sitter said that she thought Sophia was fascinating because if you gave her a couple of cotton balls she would be engaged in activities the rest of the day.  Form and function as designed has sometimes little interest to her.  She will make it into something she sees as more formidable. 

Because of this adaptation of the rules to Sophie's rules, game playing is particularly difficult for her.  She rarely likes to play board games (Chutes and Ladders, Candyland., etc.) and we have to force her through them.  We recently played Trouble, and she just wanted to take the little board pieces and stack them and Lord knows what else she was doing with them.  Oddly enough, several months ago I sat down with a Chess board because she asked me to.  Steve and I were stunned after going through some of the moves with her that when it came to her turn she recalled and moved her pieces appropriately.  We went through a whole game ( I think she even won) and then she went and played Sophie's Castle with the chess pieces.

She is a great kid.  Zach is lucky to have her, and she loves him too. 

Sophie can't handle loud noises of certain frequencies very well  such as Zach screaming or thunder or fireworks.  Currently, she does listening therapy to help.  Oddly enough, she likes really hard rock - like AC/DC, Metallica, 95X (for my fellow Syracusans) type stuff.  How many little 5 year old girls prefer hard rock?

She definitely stress tests us, but everything about her tells me that she is going to do great things one day as long as we don't let anyone squash her spirit becuase of her uniqueness.  I love my little metal head.