Gift Giving, Toys and Autism, and Putting Elmo to Rest.

It's January and I am so glad. Not just because it is a new year, but because December is over. It was a tough month.

We were all sick on Christmas. I will leave it at that.

There were great things about the December of 2013. Lilli got to go to school and be in a class for Polar Express Day. She went in pajamas with her homebound teacher, Leslie, by her side. She went caroling with her new class that she visits twice a week - other mentally high-functioning fourth graders who have autism. She seemed upset at first. I wondered if it was because she is non-verbal and cannot sing. I took a few pictures and went over and whispered in her ear, "You don't have to sing, Lilli! Just smile! You're just spreading happiness at Christmastime." Then I left to go to Josh's classroom, and whispered a quick prayer that she would just be happy. Leslie told me she DID have a great time and was happy after I left, hugging with classmates and laughing. Lilli has some new friends at this school that really adore her. I was so thankful. (I just didn't get a picture of the happy moments.)

Caroling in the main office. Lilli  is in the back, leaning against her homebound teacher, Ms. Leslie. Not happy yet. But happiness came later. Maybe it was because her embarrassing mom was there taking pictures of her, who knows.

Gift Giving Challenges

As Christmas crept closer, I felt myself begin to slide down into my annual mental pit of feeling upset and frustrated about Christmas shopping for Lilli. This is the part of Christmas tradition that sends me into mixture of excitement and dread.

I love, love to give thoughtful gifts. I think it might be my "love language." I keep a "gift idea" notebook and write down ideas for people all year long. If time allows, I love to make gifts for people. If money were no obstacle, I would haapily act like Santa Claus, all year long.

For the last five years since we made this life change, moved and Jasen went back to school, I started the habit of Christmas shopping at yard sales for my kids during the summer. For obvious reasons- living on student loans with three children- we needed to keep the gift budget extremely small, and I discovered that there are lots of strangers who sell perfectly awesome toys, cast off from their (very possibly spoiled rotten) children, in their garage sales for practically nothing. Maybe these people have money to throw away. Maybe they are very bad at budgeting. Maybe they forgot that they spent $20 each on those four Disney princess dolls in perfect condition, and plopped them on a card table masking-taped together with a $1 price sticker just to get rid of them. Or maybe they just wanted to bless someone who could not afford to buy them new. Thank you, perfect stranger who gave away like-new Disney dolls for $1, Chloe loved them.

My kids had great Christmases and birthdays while Jasen was in chiropractic school, partly because of this planning, partly because of the awesome year-round yard sales here in the south, and mostly because this weird thing happens with me. I just think of something we need or I would like to give to someone, and I find it a week later at a yard sale for a quarter. I sometimes specifically pray to find one thing, and there it is in someone's garage, like-new for a buck. God knows what I need. He knows what I want. He is a crazy awesome Giver. People say "God will provide" a lot, but not everyone knows what that really means. I'm telling you, this one way God provides for us. Ask anyone who knows us well, and look around our house. It's pretty amazing.

Five presents each. One from Santa, one from Jesus, three from Mom and Dad. That's how we do it here. If Santa can give presents, Jesus can too, goodness.

Those lean school years taught me how to get creative and find ways to give great gifts on a shoestring budget. I learned much about money and spending. I learned you do not have to spend gobs of money in a panic in late December on expensive new plastic toys to make a child extremely happy on Christmas morning. You do not have to wait until the weather turns cold and then rack up hundreds on your credit card for a few moments of screaming on December 25th, only to faint when you get the bill in January. It's a weird thing we Americans do every year. It does not make much sense.

Josh and Chloe are easy. This fall I went to a neighborhood yard sale and found Chloe an awesome disco ball light and Josh a huge box of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and superhero action figures for a few bucks. All were things they wanted and asked for. Thanks, God. (We put "from Jesus" on the gift tags. Cause they were.) Gift ideas, and the process of finding them is a thrill - when it's for Chloe or Josh.

We've got almost every super hero now. Even Aquaman and Wolverine are in there somewhere new in packaging. Five bucks for the box, thank you, kind yard sale mom who just wanted to get rid of her teenage son's junk. Chloe wanted Uno Moo a few months ago. $1. 

Lilli, however, is not so easy.

Searching for a gift for Lilli dredges up a mixture of unwanted emotions from deep within me. Inside, Lilli is almost ten. Outside, Lilli is much, much younger. The ages collide for her in many situations. One of them is toys. When I begin to plan Christmas for Lilli each year, I feel a small sense of hopefulness and the challenge of finding a fabulous gift - mixed with sadness and frustration. I have no idea what to get her.

The longer I dwell on finding a good toy to give to Lilli, my oldest child, the worse the feeling gets. I hate it.

I know it must sound so completely shallow. It's just that Christmas shopping reminds me of what Lilli cannot do. Playing with toys is something that has not come easy to Lilli. For Lilli, even learning how to play has been very hard work.

Learning to play is part of her therapy.

For those who are confused by this statement, I will share an experience I had when Lilli was much younger.

Autism and the Hard Work of Playing

When Lilli was four, she received the autism diagnosis. The doctor strongly recommended that she receive at least 30 hours of ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis) therapy a week. Yes, 30 hours a week. We talked to the school district where we were at that time, and they were all, "Huh? What's ABA? We don't do that here, no." (It costs a district money, you see. On a side-note, when we moved here we discovered that not every district is so stingy.)

So I went to a special school for children with autism and paid $500 to take a three-day seminar on ABA therapy. I was the only parent there. I sat with a roomful of special education teachers (from other districts who knew what ABA was) and therapists. I was like that annoying, nerdy non-traditional student who asks a million questions, takes notes and pays close attention to every power point slide. Everyone else seemed to count down the minutes to the snack break and tried not to fall asleep, because they were only there to get credit points toward their certifications.

I was riveted by every video clip example and page of notes. I was hooked. The idea of ABA gave me hope for Lilli.

Several times, we were invited into the special autism school to observe students receiving ABA therapy. They placed me outside a room of a four year old boy, bless them. They did that on purpose. He was an exact male version of my Lilli. He could not talk, and he did not know how to play with toys. He was not potty trained. He cried a lot. He did not know what to do with himself. He was so unhappy. I was amazed to see that my child was not the only one in the world like this. In fact, lots of children with autism are like this. I won't say most, because I really don't know. But maybe.

A therapist and little boy were in this room that was about the size of a large walk-in closet. There was no door. I sat on a child-size plastic chair in the hallway outside the doorway. I balanced my pen and notebook on my lap, and observed. I took it all in, and thought of Lilli the entire time. It was nothing I had ever seen or known about. The therapist, a laid-back 20-something guy wearing jeans and an untucked button-down shirt, was lovingly and patiently trying to teach this boy to play. He took a moment and explained to me that every time the boy even just made an effort to touch a part of a toy, he got a tiny treat. I think it was a tiny piece of a cracker or something.

There was a toy vacuum on the floor. My three year old Josh had one like it last year and he ran it all over the house and pushed all the buttons. This boy just looked at it blankly for a second and then stared at the wall. I watched with immense interest as the therapist showed the boy over and over...and over...how to touch one button on the vacuum to make music play. Then he would encourage the boy to do it.

This was hard work for the little guy. So hard. He obviously did not know how to touch the toy's button to make it do something. No matter how many dozens of times the therapist took his little hand and showed him, the boy would not do it on his own.

It wasn't the cool, fun, vacuum's fault. The therapist explained that this was a new toy this week. He was teaching the little guy how to play with it, and I was fascinated with the whole process.

He tried with other toys too. There were cars, action figures, boxes of awesome toys any typical four year old boy would love to touch, play with, imagine with, zoom around the room while making little boy car sounds. There were a few toys that the little boy did pay attention to. Those were the ones he had already "learned" to play with. He took a small truck and ran it back and forth on the table for about three seconds. That, I was told, was progress. They had worked for a long time to get him to do that. Many hours of teaching, and bags of snacks.

If anyone reading this is thinking, "Why such torture? Who cares if he doesn't want to play with those toys, let the poor kid do what he wants to do." I struggle to covey to you: that's just it. He did not want to DO anything. He sat and stared at the wall and cried. A child's whole job - whole life - is to play.

This little boy did not know how to play. And neither did my Lilli. It had to be taught.

This is autism.

Lilli and Elmo: True Love

For a long time, Lilli did not know how to make toys work. I think it might be called a processing problem. She could not make that connection in her brain that she had to push a button to get a toy to do something. It took a very long time to teach her. Weeks. Months. When she was one year old, she played. She reached out and touched and smiled at toys. She had words - real words, like ma-ma, da-da, dog, we remember she even said "poop." I remember even getting her to say the word "donkey." She began to regress around 15 months. She stopped playing with toys. It was like she forgot how. She sat in a corner touching sunspots on the carpet for hours and looking with fascination at her own fingers, while piles of fun toys sat nearby. She cried a lot. She watched movies.

That's an autism thing too - the sunspots and fingers. She would run a piece of ribbon through her hands repetively for an hour.

We were desperate to get her back. To have her play with toys, talk, be happy. 

The first time I remember her really "getting" how to make a toy work and playing by herself was when she was about four years old - shortly after we began ABA therapy with her.

My sister got her "Dress Me Elmo." If you squeeze his hand, he sings this little Elmo song about how "Get-ting dressed, there's nothing to it, now that we've - learned - how to DO it!" And I could sing the next part to you by heart, about zipping and buttoning...Anyway, Lilli was ga-ga over that little singing Elmo. But she could not get him to sing by herself. I would press his hand for her, and she would crawl off so super happy for about ten seconds. Then he would stop. And she would cry, and bring him back to me.

Fifty times in a row. All day long. The mood swing was ridiculous. Singing: HAPPY! Silence: SUPER MAD! Happy! Super mad! Every thirty seconds. She did not understand that she had to squeeze Elmo's hand, no matter how many times I showed her. This could be due to brain damage, or autism, or both, I don't know. It was very frustrating. Playing with Elmo was an extreme love-hate experience.

We hired ABA therapists who showed me how to take her hand in mine and make her hand press a toy's button, and not do it for her. Sometimes she was rewarded by a treat. Sometimes the music or action from the toy itself was enough of a reward to motivate her to learn. I will never forget that it took days and days of listening to Elmo sing that song and Lilli sob and bring it to me over and over. For hours straight.

I think this was teaching her muscle memory by taking her hand and making her hand do it.

And she finally learned.

She learned to press his hand all by herself.

What a glorious moment that was after days of Elmo torture, when she realized she could do it herself. To this day, five years later whenever I hear that Elmo sing about tying his shoes, I remember that he was the first toy she ever learned to play with by herself after her autism diagnosis. Well, she doesn't do the "dress me" part. She can't zip up his coat or velcro his little shoe. We never worked to teach her that part.

After Dress Me Elmo, I went bonkers trying to find toys that Lilli could play with on her own. Pizza Elmo was another big hit. We would do hand-over-hand and teach her what to press, and after a few days or weeks, she would be able to do it herself. It was a whole new world! We had the most annoying toys ever! The worst one was this big, super loud whirring thing with big buttons that had parts that spun around while music played under all that loud racket. But I was just so happy that she could finally entertain herself. As long as there was a big button somewhere that she could press, she could play with it.

Loudest, most annoying toddler toy ever, with nice big buttons and fun spinning action. Even the therapists hated it. I think we had a party when we got rid of it.

If we took a few days or weeks to teach her over and over where the button was, she could eventually get it. And then I would have a few blessed minutes of "peace" to do laundry or something else while Lilli played with a toy by herself - at the age of five.

As the years went on, we went through dozens of toys with simple buttons. And then we realized that she had more going on in her mind than we ever realized. I started to get excited about technology, thinking that she could use a Kindle to read books, or play new ipad apps.

Soon I realized that even those things would take a very long time for her to learn. It's just how her brain works.

Christmas Toy Shopping for Lilli

On Christmas morning, I want my children to open one fun gift that they love - just one special one that they shriek about and play with all day. One that I spent time thinking about and finding. One that I know they will be excited about when they go to school after break and everyone asks them what they got for Christmas.

I love to find the perfect gift for someone. And each year I have a tough time figuring out what NOT to get for Josh and Chloe. I narrow it down to a few gifts each.

But then there's Lilli.

I will see a toy I would love for Lilli to have. And then I think about it and I usually realize: it's too babyish. Or it's too complicated - she won't be able to play with it because it requires fine motor skills that she does not have. She won't be able to use it by herself, because she won't understand what to do with it. We will have to show her over and over how to play with it, and it will frustrate her.

Maybe it was wrong of me, but as I planned my gift lists, I just did not want to buy her another Elmo. I wanted her to move on. I want to find something that is pretty "cool" for an almost ten year old to play with, that she is able to do on her own. Had she moved on? I was not sure.

Maybe I'm the one that needs the therapy, not Lilli.

What does a ten year old do to entertain himself or herself? Besides watch movies or use a device?

I really was stumped.

I posted a question to the parents of children with cerebral palsy group online. I asked them what their older children did to entertain themselves, other than using an electronic device or watching a movie. All the parents agreed that this is such a tough issue that they all struggle with. They detailed how they are always either entertaining their children, or their child is using a touchscreen device. Because fine motor and gross motor skills make most activities very difficult for most kids who have CP. And self entertainment is difficult for many children with autism. Unless someone is sitting down helping Lilli, she cannot entertain herself unless she has the ipad or a movie, or a simple toy with one button. And kids do evetually outgrow Elmo. Well, maybe.

Was she finally over Elmo?

Not Down with "Elmo Up Up Up"

Right before Christmas, I was still looking for something for Lilli. I went into a thrift shop, and there was an Elmo on the shelf. He even had batteries. He sang a song about how Elmo loves to be picked "Up up up." I held him and stood there for a long time, listening to him and thinking. I felt a little excited that I'd just found a cheap Elmo just in time for Christmas. But then I felt a little sad, and I hesitated. I wasn't going to give Lilli another Elmo this year. It reminds me that her progress is so painstakingly slow. I didn't want her to keep playing with Elmos. I wanted her to move on, but move on to what...I did not know.

After a long few moments of listening to him sing, I gave in and bought him.

I hoped that maybe she would play with him and be excited about him, since I could not think of any other toy to get her.

She was not excited about him at all.

She got some cool clothes. She got new movies from Nannie and Pop pop. We pulled everything out of her stocking for her, and she didn't know what to do with any of it.

She got a "question-a-day" diary. My thought was that we can put the choices in her communication device and she can choose the answers. Maybe if she starts typing better this year, she can type things and I can print them out and put them in the diary. It's a long term, dreamy-hopeful goal.

She opened the Elmo, and didn't care.

Jasen said, "She's over Elmo. She's not into him anymore."

She played with her ipad and watched youtube movies on Christmas morning. Meanwhile, Chloe and Josh each played with their new favorite toys.

Lilli didn't play with her Elmo. And you know what? It's a good thing. She's moved on. Where we go from here, I do not know. But she will be ten at the end of this month. Her birthday gifts will be the next challenge for me. But the fact that she can make choices, and she doesn't care about new Elmo toys anymore....that is a good thing. It's progress.

Almost one per year. Except for the years when she got two. If there ever is a game show where contestants win by singing all the words to Elmo songs, I would win.  

Progress is so slow, it is hard for me to see it sometimes. I need reminders that we are on the right track, that I am doing the right things, that I should never give up.

I don't know where we go from here, but we are headed somewhere new.

Farewell, trusty Elmo toys. We have so many of you. Your songs and voice are unfortunately burned in my brain forevermore. But you are headed for Ebay.

It's almost like a gift...to me.

Hope and Forgetting to Have It

If you know my six year old Chloe, you know she loves the Wizard of Oz. Her fascination with it all began by my taking her to an elementary school play. I took her to that play last spring. I’ve mentioned before in my blog that I often write posts and then do not post them. Sometimes I don’t like them. Sometimes I decide it is too personal and I keep it for myself. Sometimes I just don’t feel like it is ready. This is one of those posts. It is just how my heart works, I’m not sure why. I wrote this and tucked it away months ago. But this morning I woke up and decided out of the blue, today is the day for that post. It seems random. Maybe it is because there is someone out there who needs to read it this week. Only God knows. I just wanted to explain that it happened almost a year ago. But it was significant enough to remain on my heart and mind all this time. I hope it touches someone else today.

* * * * *

Hope.

I think about it all the time. Hope is what keeps us going. And I am always looking for ways to keep it. Because it can be forgotten, and it can be lost.

Since Lilli started to communicate to us through her ipad, I have felt more positive about having a child with special needs than I have ever felt. The thrill of communicating with Lilli has pushed the other significant difficulties into the background a bit. I am not clueless about what Lilli wants, thinks, and feels anymore, which was most of the frustration before. It is still in the beginning stages, but the thought of her communication getting better, well, that gives me hope for the future. I have to look for things to hope for, and remind myself that God can do anything.  It is part of the reason why I write things down. When I am feeling overwhelmed and depressed about Lilli’s needs, I can go back and read what I wrote on Lilli’s eighth birthday and remind myself that she was born for a purpose, and created to be this way for a reason. Even with knowing all of this, I am only human.  And sometimes, I forget to have hope. Even after getting all teary and pouring my heart out about how Lilli was created by God to be exactly who she is.

I forgot on one particular night, for just a few minutes.

I took Chloe to see a play. Chloe loves theater, singing, dressing up, and all kinds of drama. She creates much of the drama in our house each day, sometimes with costumes and sometimes without. So when I heard about the free performance of the Wizard of Oz put on by a local elementary school, I was excited to take her to see other kids perform a play. I know Chloe will be on stage someday. She uses her plastic microphone and costumes almost every day at home. Since my mother in law was visiting, I was able to take Chloe and not worry about childcare for the other two while my husband was at school. Chloe skipped across the parking lot next to me, delighted about seeing the play. I, once again feeling a mixture of guilt and thrill for being out with one child while the other two stayed home, made my mind up to truly enjoy this short date with my five year old future actress.

We said hello to a teacher’s aide that I knew as we entered the lobby. I held Chloe’s hand tightly as we wound our way through the crowd into the seating area. The auditorium was packed with rows of extended families with cameras ready, and toddlers trying to climb over the backs of seats. Chloe and I picked our way to two seats way in the back, crawling over a few people to get to them. I read the photocopied program while Chloe bounced on the flip-up seat. Finally the lights dimmed. When the curtains pulled back and an eight year old Dorothy began to say her lines and sing, I was blindsided with an unexpected flood of emotion. I got teary and a lump formed in my throat. I was a little shocked at my reaction, but I should have known better. Moments later when an adorable group of elementary-aged munchkins danced around and sang, I put my fingers up to quickly wipe tears from my eyes.

Chloe noticed. She peered at me in the darkness.  She whispered loudly as five year olds do, “Mommy, why did you just do THIS?” and she put both of her first fingers up to her eyes and copied me.

“It’s nothing, sweetie, watch the show,” I whispered back.

I prayed and tried to get a grip. I have these moments every once in awhile. You see, this was Lilli’s elementary school putting on this play. It snuck up on me. Even when we walked in the door and saw that teacher’s aide, I thought I was fine.

That teacher’s aide was Lilli’s teacher’s aide in her class last year.

I thought about how Lilli went to that school for two years, and would still be in that building everyday if she were not medically homebound because of her uncontrolled seizures. I thought a ridiculous, heartbreaking thought that she was the same age as those other kids, and that I wished she could be up there on that stage dancing and singing with them. I went down that mental road that a mom of a special needs child should never go…the “What if” road. As in, “What if Lilli did not have special needs? Would she be friends with those kids right now? Would she be in the play? Would she have been picked to be Dorothy? Or a Munchkin?” I was torturing myself and discreetly wiping away all of my mascara.

Singing and acting talent runs in our family. I thought about how Lilli recently put her hand on her neck and typed on her ipad that she wished she could sing. I wish I had handled things differently that day. We were listening to a kids CD in the morning called “Seeds of Courage.” I love the first song, where there is a solo part that is sung by a young girl. Every time I hear it, I think about how I love her sweet, clear voice. Lilli was standing near me during that song that morning, and put her hand on her neck like she wanted to say something. I pulled out the ipad and asked her to tell me what she was thinking. She typed that she wanted me to turn it off, because hearing that girl made her want to sing. And she can’t. I turned it off and sat down with Lilli. I told her that everyone has different gifts.

I said those exact words to her, and I meant a lot by it. But I obviously just thought the deeper meaning to myself, and did not bother to explain it out loud to her. Hours later, she typed to her therapist Morgan about “opening presents.” Morgan was confused and did not tell me until later. By the time her teacher Leslie came for Lilli’s two hour block of afternoon school time, Lilli was really upset. I asked Leslie if she could figure out what was going on, and she told me Lilli kept typing that “everyone has gifts,” and she wanted to “open them now.”

Oh.

I had to explain to Lilli that there were no presents, and that when I said “everyone has different gifts,” I meant talents. Poor girl went all day thinking that she was going to get a present, because I had told her “everyone has different gifts.” (We must be careful to be literal when speaking to our children.)

But even though it is a hard concept for children to understand, it is true. Lilli does have gifts. She has gifts and talents that I do not have. To see her on the outside, strangers might think she has less than other, “typical” children. But to know her, she is incredibly blessed, and we are only beginning to learn what Lilli is able to do. And bonus for us, she is a blessing to others. There are people in Lilli’s life who adore her, who love spending time with her, and who want to know what makes Lilli tick. She can touch other people’s lives in a way that most cannot. That is a gift.

So back to the dark auditorium, where I am wiping my eyes.  I guess everyone does this in some way or another. We can all mourn the thought of how “things might have been” or “should be.” I think it might be normal for any parent of a child with special needs to have these thoughts from time to time. We can’t help it. We see another child the same age as ours and start to think about the what ifs. You can do that with any situation in your life. Especially the situations in which we had absolutely no control. What if things had been different?

 But that’s just it. This is the way it is.  And it is for a reason. For a greater purpose than we can fathom. There is a verse in Psalm 139 that says, “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” This is the verse I go to when I feel like life is spinning out of control. I believe it with all of my heart, but I need to read it constantly to be reminded. To be reminded that God is in control. He has it all planned down to the finest detail. He has my future already planned, and he has Lilli’s future planned. I take great comfort in that, knowing that He has plans for my little Lilli.

All of our children are going to have different gifts and talents. They may not all be up on stage. They might not all be running on a sports field. They may not all be exceptional artists or musicians. But each one will have their own purpose in life, blessed by God and created to do different things. Why do we waste time lamenting about how we wish things could be?

As for hope.

I do not think it is human nature to always have hope in life. We need to be constantly reminded of our hope, and what we put our hope in.  I do not know what the future holds for Lilli, or for any of our children.  But I remind myself of the hope I have in Jesus, and in His word. Because I put my belief, trust, and hope in Him, I have faith that He knows our future. And He has great plans for Lilli. And His plans were for Lilli to be born this way, here, now. To us. That I would be her mother. And she has a purpose for being here. She may be different than all of those kids dancing and singing up on that stage. But she has other gifts.

We just can’t see all of them yet.

Lilli kissing Chloe (who is wearing her Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz costume).

My Mistake

Some people don't like to admit their parenting mistakes publicly. But I confess them here hoping that a parent somewhere in the world will identify with me. Maybe it will make someone feel better, knowing that we all make mistakes when we parent our children. It's realistic, and it's good to know that we are not alone. My mistake tonight was seemingly small, yet revealed to me five years worth of unknowingly making the same mistake over and over. It was a personal, parenting revelation, and not a very good one.

A friend dropped by with a bag of Christmas presents for the kids. I held Lilli in my lap and took her hands in mine, and made her open the gifts. I didn't "help her." I made her. That's autism. Merry Christmas, I hate opening this gift. But I know Lilli. I know I have to take her hands and make them do things over and over for her to learn how to do them on her own. She cannot open her own gifts yet. It is hard for her and she does not want to do it. But that does not mean that she doesn't want what's inside.

The gift was a small purple snow globe. A figure of Cinderella stood inside the glass as glitter swirled around her. Lilli looked directly at it; a good sign of a good gift. She touched it a few times, then squirmed out of my lap. So here is the tricky part. The trap I have obviously fallen into for years and never realized it. Chloe said with big eyes, "I love that Cinderella snow globe! Is that Lilli's? Can we share it?" And I, while scrunching up the pieces of ripped wrapping paper, absentmindedly responded, "What? Oh, share it? Yeah, I guess you can share it."

Chloe proceeded to tear into her own gift, a Belle doll (which she did not offer to share with Lilli). Chloe is the middle child, but she is kind of a "stand-in oldest child" since Lilli has been unable to talk. Lilli's autism keeps her outward actions from revealing her true feelings, which complicates everything. Chloe is used to doing all the talking, and having reign over all the toys in the house. She does not know what it's really like to have an older sister. Chloe is confused by the fact that Lilli is the oldest, yet she is years behind Chloe in many areas. She can be bossy, and she takes over Lilli like she takes over Josh, who is not quite two.

Lilli started doing her half cry-half whine, which has always in the past turned into the "Guessing Game" until we figured out what she wanted. But not anymore. Not since she started typing words on the ipad. She cannot spell everything yet so there is still an element of guesswork. However, the ipad was not right there, and old habits die hard. My husband ventured the first guess: "She wants to watch a movie."

"No, that's not it," I said, but I wasn't sure what it was. I thought she was mad because we were all talking and making noise. She gets overwhelmed sometimes by too much talking. I took her hand and led her into the next room, with the ipad. I stood behind her and put the ipad in front of us. "Tell me," I said. "Type what is wrong. Use words and type instead of whining."

She fought me. She whined and tried to leave the room. But I kept bringing her back to the ipad and asking her to type it instead of crying. Finally, I got this:

"Because you told"

And that was all I got. She either did not know how to spell the next part, or she did not want to type it for some reason. I asked questions. Had I said something that made her mad or embarrassed? Was it about the presents? I was stumped. Then she finally typed "mad." I went out in the living room and told my husband and his friend Ryan that I could not figure out what had just happened. It was Ryan who solved the mystery. "Was it because you told Chloe she could share the snowglobe with Lilli?"

Hmm.

I went back in and asked Lilli. Yes indeed, that was why she was mad. I explained to both girls that we share our things and take turns, but that certain things belong to others and we have to ask for permission. I put the snowglobe on a shelf above Lilli's dresser and told Chloe that she could see it, but she had to ask Lilli first because it's Lilli's snowglobe.

I had never done that before. Lilli is almost eight! Then I looked at Lilli and said "Is that better? Are you OK with that?" She leaned in and gave me a kiss and a smile.

My five year mistake was revealed. Chloe is five. I assumed Lilli didn't care about all the times when Chloe just took Lilli's toys and ran off with them. Lilli never acted like she minded. Lilli has a shelf full of stuffed animals that are "hers" but she does not even play with them. How could I ever know that she was territorial about her things when she hardly paid attention to them? Later I asked her if she felt that way often about Chloe playing with her things without asking. She typed "yes" right away. No doubt about it. I had never laid down rules or set up boundaries, because Lilli was never a kid who put up a fight or complained when her little sister took her stuff.

Lilli typing on the ipad is a bit like tearing open that present, one tiny rip at a time. It takes a long time, and we have to make Lilli do it. She didn't want to open that present, but she wanted the snowglobe inside. She doesn't want to type, but she wants to tell us what is inside her mind. We have to learn to give Lilli the opportunity to tell us things. Lilli has to get in the habit of typing her thoughts instead of crying in frustration. I have to digest the many realizations that occur each time we have an experience like this, and change the way I think and do things.

The first thing I did to make a change tonight was to put the snowglobe up on Lilli's shelf and lay down rules for Chloe. Tomorrow I will go into Chloe's room and take a good look around. Sharing is a wonderful thing for siblings to learn, but so is respect for others' belongings. Tonight I learned that in addition to sharing, I need to teach my children to respect things that belong to others, especially when that person cannot talk or voice their opinion. As a mom of a child with special needs, once again I am reminded that I am Lilli's best advocate and defender. Even to her own siblings.