scripting

"I'll take 2 iced teas, please."

This is what Taylor said to me, waking me up this morning.

"Taylor, you don't drink iced tea and we don't have iced tea - go ask Bailey to get you water." (Daddy was playing basketball or I would have pawned her off on him first).

Yes, moms of little ones - this is what you have to look forward to!!!  In a few years, your older child can serve your younger one so you can SLEEP MORE!!  It only works if you have a very responsible older child who also loves to tattle tale, you sleep with your door open to be awakened to catastrophe, and you have observed for countless weekend mornings your children's ability to zone in to the tv like statues so you are assured they can't get into trouble.

"I said, I'll take 2 iced teas, please."

So I opened one eye,  and looked at my girl, who was looking at me like, "Are you dumb as dirt or just have a hearing problem?"

I just laid there for a second, and thought about it as I was coming out of my sleepy stupor...and realized she was scripting.

I learned the hard way what scripting is - and in Taylor's case, it is talking to you and you think she's conversing with you, but her end of the conversation is right out of a movie.

When she was 4, one night she woke up whining that her leg hurt.  "I have to go to the bathroom...my leg hurts..." so in the middle of the night there I was, massaging her legs wondering if it was growing pains.  I gave her Tylenol, gave her a bath.  She finally fell back to sleep.

The next day, she starts in again with the bathroom and leg thing.  I say to Kevin "I'm going to have to take her to the doctor I guess, I don't know what's wrong with her..." and Bailey says, "that's from the Up movie Mommy."

What?

So from then on, I had to listen carefully and many times ask Bailey, if Taylor's words were her own or from a movie.  Her pre-k teacher (special ed, so of course she had seen this and understood) told me it is sometimes a way for a child to engage without totally engaging, or they just love that part of a movie, or they need control of a conversation...many reasons.

Regardless, it has made life more interesting.  Many times, more frustrating as I try to get Taylor to talk to me, not repeat something she's seen or heard - and she likes me to play whatever the part is too ("Mommy, say this - SAY IT!!!!!") and insert complete breakdown here.

But as she gets older, it has gotten better.  She doesn't do it as often, and sometimes she's easily talked out of it.  Once in awhile, I play into it, as I would if she was a neurotypical child who's just playing and pretending.  The difference is, if she's doing it out of stress or just play.

This morning, after I figured out where little girlfriend was coming from, I went ahead and got her some "iced tea."  And the kiss she gave me - and I believe it was from Taylor herself and not part of a movie - was so good that I decided to stay up and not go back to bed, and I cuddled with my girls.