Lynn Hudoba: Magnificent Obsession

High on the list of autistic traits are “narrow interests,” which can range from the fairly benign, like a nerdlinger obsession with American presidents and dinosaurs, to the mildly annoying, like Thomas the Tank Engine, to the more, shall we say, impactful, like dismantling toilets.

There is virtually no obsession too esoteric that it cannot be indulged today via the Internet, specifically sites like YouTube. We have many little friends that are into elevators, and you would be amazed at how many videos can be found of random people riding elevators … and helpfully telling you details about them. Suffice to say that if I ever find myself at the Tanglewood Mall in Roanoke, VA, I will never have to wonder if their JC Penney has a Dover hydraulic or Schindler traction elevator.

My daughter is more of an escalator gal, and at various points has also been into watching cooking and cake decorating videos, Chinese-language versions of Baby Mozart, and people jumping into pools.

I confess that I don’t always pay the strictest attention to what she’s watching. But then again I don’t really need to, because at some point it will be regurgitated back to me word for word.

Me: “How was your day?”

Her: “Seven cool tweens! Seven super-girls!”

Me: “Who are they?”

Her: “Lexie cannot do a good handstand.”

Me: “Lexie? Is that a girl from school?”

Her: “How to do a round-off back handspring!”

Me: “Does Lexie do gymnastics?”

Her: “Your feet should be close together or it doesn’t look good.”

Me: “Ugh. Enough already! Do you have any homework tonight?”

Her: *blink* *blink* “You’re not supposed to wear any baby clothes.”

Our household is full of scintillating conversations like this. Sometimes I feel like my whole life should be nominated for the “Adapted Screenplay From Another Source” Oscar.

Turns out that Lexie is one of the Seven Cool Tweens with her own YouTube channel. My interest in researching this only goes so far, so I can only tell you that they appear to choose a theme each week and then make videos of themselves around said theme. As in, “This week’s theme is garbage bag dresses!”

Gymnastics was the theme one week, and I keenly deduced that this was the source of the script when I clicked on the first video in my iPhone history and there was Lexie telling me to drop the baby clothes and get into a leotard.

But for the first time ever, these videos have become more than just fodder for our nightly home version of Whose Line Is It Anyway? Because my daughter actually began to try to teach herself some gymnastics moves from these how-to videos.

She started out with cartwheels, which seemed a little advanced for someone who still hasn’t mastered nodding. But in no time she was kicking up higher and higher and showing pretty good form. She was actually listening to instructions, placing her body where it needed to be, and putting some oomph behind her movements.

Naturally, I immediately signed her up for a gymnastics class. After trying out a class for special needs children, I decided to see if she could hang with the neurotypical kids, or nippicals as we like to call them. I signed her up for a class at the , which has a ratio of two teachers to a maximum of six kids. I also requested a (special needs) aid for her, but she was able to roll off after the first two sessions … because my daughter rocked the hizzle fo shizzle my dizzles! That is, she did really well.

She took direction, waited her turn, tried hard, and, other than spending some quality time smelling her fingers after doing a touch-your-toes stretch, really looked pretty much like all the other girls there.

As someone who loathed gym class and cowered in the back hoping not to get called on or picked for a team, I was shocked to see my progeny raising her hand and volunteering to go first. And it wasn’t even her usual half-mast-heil-Hitler hand raise, but a real ooh-ooh-ooh-Arnold-Horshack-I-know-the-answer move.

Time will tell if this new obsession-turned-hobby will stick. It always seems like the interests that you want to stick around are just fleeting phases, while the ones that drive you around the bend never fade. Which means that by 2020, I will either be watching her medal at the XXXII Summer Olympiad, or scouring garage sales for long out-of-print Wiggles and Baby Einstein books. It really could go either way.