Pre-Christmas Dinner, Shows and Games
We had a pre-Christmas dinner last night at Grammy's house. It's common for us to do that because usually my aunt and uncle aren't available for Christmas Eve. Turns out that would have been possible this year after the fact, but no one knew because Jennie and Doug only mentioned it at dinner. So, yeah we got prime rib for dinner including roasted potatoes, green beans and croissants. My mom made a little cookie wreath for dessert comprised of white chocolate covered pretzels and those danish sugar cookies. All yummy stuff. The prime rib turned out to cook much faster than they anticipated so it ended up resting for too long before our guests arrived. So it was a little on the cold side, but still good.
We actually came over to Grammy's close to 1pm so they could prepare, which didn't take long. I had to scarf down my snack lunch before we left. I wanted to go with my parents this time rather than coming over with my brother later because being in the car with him is awkward. After they got the prime rib in the oven we went to the store to pick up a few more things. Then while my mom and I were sitting on the couch, my mom was looking at Grammy's cassette tapes. Yep, she has a bunch and still has a cassette player. And one of them had my brother's name on the label. Grammy played the tape and it was of my brother reading out loud when he was five years old. And he was really cute. Then I discovered another tape. When I was ten, my mom and I sang along to one of those Disney Sing-A-Long VHS tapes. We sang the song Good Company from Oliver and Company. We listened to that tape too. I could only hear my voice, but I know my mom sang with me so maybe it was too faint to hear or it was on a different tape. It was a little embarrassing to listen to, but also nostalgic. The other side of the tape was labeled as my brother and I playing. We played that side and there is a long section of me playing pretend by myself I think with stuffed animals. My brother and I were given this recorder to play with. Then later on at the end of the recording my brother comes in and is making funny noises - raspberries, pretending to throw up and other weird noises lol. We were dying listening to that.
It's interesting that I've read that children on the autism spectrum are lacking in pretend play, but that's definitely a myth. That was not me. I had quite an imagination. I do wonder though for those autistic kids that do/did pretend play, how it compares to how neurotypical kids play. My play had a kind of order and routine to it and was scripted according to the tape I listened to. I gave the stuffed animals names: Mr. Mole, Mr. Bear, and I was giving them a snack time, a breakfast time and a sleep time, and I would go to the next day (in my imagination) and repeat that routine over again with a little variation. Any memory I have of this is super vague and I was really chatty. I might as well have been a different person on that tape lol. Funny thing too, while I was ten (I'm guessing), I sounded like I was five. I always looked and sounded younger than my age. It was definitely interesting to listen to. My brother on the other hand didn't play pretend and I think he's more neurotypical. So, I don't know if my type of play was typical or more of a spectrum thing, but it was definitely intriguing. I'm always eager to hear these kinds of tapes and see videos of myself as a kid so I can look for more clues that show I was and am autistic.
But that's getting on a tangent. So, I honestly was in a less social mood than usual last night. I was pretty sucked into my phone reading people's rants about The Last Jedi heheh. But that's a different story I may get into when I write my list of my favorite movies of 2017. I was ready to go home after my aunt and uncle left. But I conceded to one game of Skip-Bo. The game went pretty quick. Then at home we were watching that A Christmas Story Live! Why I thought there was a chance this would be good, I don't know lol. I also didn't know it was going to be a musical. That's one movie that doesn't deserve the musical treatment. It's so cheesy and drawn out. Eh. Parts of it are OK I guess. Haven't actually finished watching it yet. I still want to see how they do certain scenes so I'll probably finish it soon.
Now, about shows. I recently finished (recently meaning within the past few weeks) Gravity Falls. I'm not going to go into much detail into this show, but it was well made. The humor and animation is great as is the overarching story. Loved the episode about Stan and his brother. I also liked how everyone came together in the end, protagonists and former antagonists alike, to defeat Bill. Would I have liked this show to go on longer than two seasons? Yeah, but it's fine and I understand why they decided to end it. The story got wrapped up nicely. Now that I've completed it, I've gone back to my old routine of watching DS9 and Pokemon. I managed to watched an episode of each before The Crown came out, so now I'm watching that for the time being and so far it's been just as fascinating as the first season.
Games. I'm almost done with Stasis. Boy do I have things to say about this game, which I'll save for later. The final episode of Minecraft: Story Mode Season Two is out tomorrow. I've also got my Hidden Object Game lined up for after those.
That's it.
We actually came over to Grammy's close to 1pm so they could prepare, which didn't take long. I had to scarf down my snack lunch before we left. I wanted to go with my parents this time rather than coming over with my brother later because being in the car with him is awkward. After they got the prime rib in the oven we went to the store to pick up a few more things. Then while my mom and I were sitting on the couch, my mom was looking at Grammy's cassette tapes. Yep, she has a bunch and still has a cassette player. And one of them had my brother's name on the label. Grammy played the tape and it was of my brother reading out loud when he was five years old. And he was really cute. Then I discovered another tape. When I was ten, my mom and I sang along to one of those Disney Sing-A-Long VHS tapes. We sang the song Good Company from Oliver and Company. We listened to that tape too. I could only hear my voice, but I know my mom sang with me so maybe it was too faint to hear or it was on a different tape. It was a little embarrassing to listen to, but also nostalgic. The other side of the tape was labeled as my brother and I playing. We played that side and there is a long section of me playing pretend by myself I think with stuffed animals. My brother and I were given this recorder to play with. Then later on at the end of the recording my brother comes in and is making funny noises - raspberries, pretending to throw up and other weird noises lol. We were dying listening to that.
It's interesting that I've read that children on the autism spectrum are lacking in pretend play, but that's definitely a myth. That was not me. I had quite an imagination. I do wonder though for those autistic kids that do/did pretend play, how it compares to how neurotypical kids play. My play had a kind of order and routine to it and was scripted according to the tape I listened to. I gave the stuffed animals names: Mr. Mole, Mr. Bear, and I was giving them a snack time, a breakfast time and a sleep time, and I would go to the next day (in my imagination) and repeat that routine over again with a little variation. Any memory I have of this is super vague and I was really chatty. I might as well have been a different person on that tape lol. Funny thing too, while I was ten (I'm guessing), I sounded like I was five. I always looked and sounded younger than my age. It was definitely interesting to listen to. My brother on the other hand didn't play pretend and I think he's more neurotypical. So, I don't know if my type of play was typical or more of a spectrum thing, but it was definitely intriguing. I'm always eager to hear these kinds of tapes and see videos of myself as a kid so I can look for more clues that show I was and am autistic.
But that's getting on a tangent. So, I honestly was in a less social mood than usual last night. I was pretty sucked into my phone reading people's rants about The Last Jedi heheh. But that's a different story I may get into when I write my list of my favorite movies of 2017. I was ready to go home after my aunt and uncle left. But I conceded to one game of Skip-Bo. The game went pretty quick. Then at home we were watching that A Christmas Story Live! Why I thought there was a chance this would be good, I don't know lol. I also didn't know it was going to be a musical. That's one movie that doesn't deserve the musical treatment. It's so cheesy and drawn out. Eh. Parts of it are OK I guess. Haven't actually finished watching it yet. I still want to see how they do certain scenes so I'll probably finish it soon.
Now, about shows. I recently finished (recently meaning within the past few weeks) Gravity Falls. I'm not going to go into much detail into this show, but it was well made. The humor and animation is great as is the overarching story. Loved the episode about Stan and his brother. I also liked how everyone came together in the end, protagonists and former antagonists alike, to defeat Bill. Would I have liked this show to go on longer than two seasons? Yeah, but it's fine and I understand why they decided to end it. The story got wrapped up nicely. Now that I've completed it, I've gone back to my old routine of watching DS9 and Pokemon. I managed to watched an episode of each before The Crown came out, so now I'm watching that for the time being and so far it's been just as fascinating as the first season.
Games. I'm almost done with Stasis. Boy do I have things to say about this game, which I'll save for later. The final episode of Minecraft: Story Mode Season Two is out tomorrow. I've also got my Hidden Object Game lined up for after those.
That's it.