Yesterday I was pressed into action as Aunt Redcat. As it happened, I wound up kidsitting my newphews along with my father while my sister and mother did Something Girly. (Yuck.) I do love my nephews, but they can be a real challenge - both are autistic. The older one (just turned 7) has Aspergers, the younger one(age 5) is PPD-NOS (Pervasive Developmental Disorder - Not Otherwise Specified). They're both really good kids overall with above average to genius level IQ's (however well you can judge at this age), but they have lots of issues with social interaction and in dealing with frustration.
Things started out fine - in fact I thought for a while we'd get off easy, as they played separately but in the same room. Then the older one had a meltdown because something happened on the computer (for the life of me, I don't know what, but it had something to do with IndigoPokemon and something he apparently built that went away, or something like that). There was jack shit I could do about that so I somehow got him interested in doing something else, at least for a while. Then he decided he wanted to play with his brother on the DS (whatever DS stands for - it's a Nintendo thing), and his brother decided he wanted to play alone. Well, damn. World War 87 broke out. Older Boy had an utter fit and fell in it and Younger Boy, at an apparent loss for what to do, went into implosion mode. After what seemed like forever but was probably less than five minutes, I had a brainstorm and asked Younger Boy if he'd let Older Boy play with him if he brought him three (why three? I don't know) M&Ms.
He said yes, got his M&M friendship offering, and they played happily every after until Mom got home. I shit you not. If only the world's problems could be solved so easily.
This morning was a decent workout morning. The schedule called for a 4.5 mile easy run, and I did just a bit more than that; it was nice not to push pace at all given the continued lovely humidity. Then I went over to the dojo for some training. It was just sensei J and myself so we actually geared up (another lovely thing to do on a humid morning) and did some full contact work, then finished up with some ground work. Tonight I teach the kiddies solo and have my class. Funny, I seem to recall just last week thinking I was going to get a break from the kids for a few weeks - and now it happens that I'm teaching them three out of the next four weeks solo. Wha?
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