gcvmom
Here we go again!
I survived the multi-family birthday part from he!! yesterday, but I came away from it with a very perplexed feeling about my 20yo niece and am now wondering if this girl has something else going on with her.
She is VERY smart -- book smart anyway. She's one of these straight-A honors students who's probably going to graduate with her BS degreee a year early in pre-law/philosophy, of course, with honors.
But she has a very hard time processing jokes. Case in point: Her mom called to tell me the S wanted a backpack for her birthday. No particular color, style asked for, just a backpack. Okay, so kids and I decided to play this up and do something fun, especially since S is turning 20. She has a black belt in Karate and so we decided to get her a pink Kung-Fu Panda, thinking it was a silly girly-looking backpack that reflected her martial arts experience (and we stuck $20 in it with a gift receipt so she could take it back if she wanted and get a "real" or "big girl" backpack). But when she opened the gift (and this wasn't the only gift from us, she got other stuff plus the cash) she looked very confused, and her mood changed to a more serious tone. Her mom quickly piped up with some kind of explanation/interpretation for the room ("It's because S likes pandas!" Which I actually didn't even know!), even though I had just finished explaining why MY kids thought it was funny and appropriate for her. This really struck me as odd. husband noticed that the humor was completely lost on her.
I also notice that when she talks, it's very monotone. Not a lot of inflection or animation when she talks to people. And she doesn't generally use a lot of facial expressions. She does smile, she does laugh at things.
Is this an Aspie-in-disguise? Or is it just her personality? She is SO, SO, SOOOO different from her parents and her brother.
The whole thing just struck me as very strange.
by the way, her brother has ADHD and is dyslexic. Her mom is likely someone with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), ADHD, and has some compulsive issues in my opinion.
She is VERY smart -- book smart anyway. She's one of these straight-A honors students who's probably going to graduate with her BS degreee a year early in pre-law/philosophy, of course, with honors.
But she has a very hard time processing jokes. Case in point: Her mom called to tell me the S wanted a backpack for her birthday. No particular color, style asked for, just a backpack. Okay, so kids and I decided to play this up and do something fun, especially since S is turning 20. She has a black belt in Karate and so we decided to get her a pink Kung-Fu Panda, thinking it was a silly girly-looking backpack that reflected her martial arts experience (and we stuck $20 in it with a gift receipt so she could take it back if she wanted and get a "real" or "big girl" backpack). But when she opened the gift (and this wasn't the only gift from us, she got other stuff plus the cash) she looked very confused, and her mood changed to a more serious tone. Her mom quickly piped up with some kind of explanation/interpretation for the room ("It's because S likes pandas!" Which I actually didn't even know!), even though I had just finished explaining why MY kids thought it was funny and appropriate for her. This really struck me as odd. husband noticed that the humor was completely lost on her.
I also notice that when she talks, it's very monotone. Not a lot of inflection or animation when she talks to people. And she doesn't generally use a lot of facial expressions. She does smile, she does laugh at things.
Is this an Aspie-in-disguise? Or is it just her personality? She is SO, SO, SOOOO different from her parents and her brother.
The whole thing just struck me as very strange.
by the way, her brother has ADHD and is dyslexic. Her mom is likely someone with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), ADHD, and has some compulsive issues in my opinion.