Sleeping Bags Outside

Katherine is starting to live life again. She has been slowly regaining her interest in the world around her and in participating in it. Often when Katherine is doing well, she playacts in a way that shows use of an imagination that, I’m told, is rare in kids with her level of autism. She is also capable of carrying out some very elaborate plans to pursue her idea. Last weekend yielded a fun example.

It began with Katherine asking for “sleeping bags outside”. Katherine is a huge Mickey & Friends fan and this is a reference to a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse episode called “Minnie’s Pajama Party”. Minnie plans an indoor pajama party but their friend the Giant crashes the party. He is too big to attend an indoor sleepover so they all decide to sleep outside so the Giant can join them. The whole group then sleeps in sleeping bags outside of the Clubhouse.

“Sleeping bags outside” is something that Katherine has asked to do off and on for months but her condition has finally improved enough (after months of medication changes) to give her the where-with-all to pursue the idea herself. So, undeterred by the 14 degree wind chill, Katherine put on her pajamas and began gathering everything she felt necessary for sleeping outside.

These bursts of elaborate playacting so rare, and actually non-existent in the last year, that we hate to discourage her. We decided to let her play it through and figure out for herself that it was too cold to sleep outside.

So she bustled about getting her owl sleeping bag, ladybug pillow pet, “big” Minnie, “fairies blanket”, Jamberry book, etc. She even found a way to reach behind her vanity to unplug her CD player and lamp. She doesn’t understand that she needs a wall outlet for them to work. Finally, with her bedtime gear piled high in her arms, she marched out to the front yard and began setting up camp (click on photo to enlarge).

With me watching over her and responding to verbal requests for help, Katherine got her sleeping gear positioned and burrowed down in her sleeping bag. It was at this point that I realized that she might be too clever for my plan to work. She recognized immediately that it was too cold for how she was outfitted. But instead of giving up the idea, she went right back in the house for more blankets!

I helped her spread out her additional blankets and read her the Jamberry book but then, reluctantly, pulled the plug on her adventure. With this many blankets it was going to take her an hour or more to get too cold and, let’s face it, I was just not willing to stay outside with her that long. Plus, what if she just kept adding more blankets?!

She was sorely disappointed and cried off and on for quite a while after we got her inside. Eventually we were able to divert her attention with a movie and then tuck her into her usual cozy warm bed. I hope that she enjoyed the fun part enough to balance out the disappointment at the end. And we’ll certainly make a point of making sure she gets “sleeping bags outside” when summer rolls around again.