I have blogged some in the past about our oldest daughter Elizabeth, who is autistic. Elizabeth will be 19 on Tuesday (gulp!), and like many autistic people she has certain routines, patterns and obsessive/compulsive demands that dictate her days. One of Elizabeth’s big things is watching videos. Her subject matter of choice will gradually fluctuate but there are several constants: the “Barney” children’s videos, the “Roseanne” TV show and currently the “Kidsongs”, “BabySongs” and “WeeSing” series of kid’s videos. She will watch these shows repeatedly all day long, often rewinding and watching a certain scene over and over.

Back in the days of VHS rule, she had at least a hundred video tapes of many of these shows that she would literally wear out watching. Frustratingly for us, one of the first things she’d do upon getting a new tape was to destroy the packaging and scrape off the tape’s label, so we could not tell them apart. Fortunately she could somehow. We could hold up a video that had no label or marking on it, one of a hundred that looked exactly alike we kept in several laundry baskets in the downstairs TV room, and she would tell us what the video was. She was never wrong. I still do not know how she could tell them apart… it’s an autistic thing. (more…)

Merry Christmas to all, and Happy Holidays to those celebrating other occasions this time of year. I hope the season finds you happy and healthy in the company of family and friends.

For those looking for a little Christmas inspiration, this post from last year about a special Christmas gift that TV personality Rachel Ray gave our autistic daughter Elizabeth (without even knowing she did) says a lot about the simple power we all have to make the world a better place for those who need a little help.