So, we spent the day at Michelle's house.

Jenn et al. were upstate (hey, it is NORTH of the city limits. That makes it upstate) with his family.

Michelle's got two kids, a four year old (Deniz) and a 15 month old (Su). Sweeties, really - but Deniz, man does she ever crave attention. You can't get a moment alone without hearing "My bear is called Sparkles, did you know? Cats don't like having their tails pulled, did you know that? I saw a seal yesterday, I saw a hundred seals, did you know? I really want attention, pay attention to me, you're not paying enough attention to me, did you know that? Did you?"

So I ended up instituting the one-chapter rule. I'd play one game with her. When she changed the subject and wanted to play a different game, I'd agree to play it after reading one chapter of my book. That worked... moderately well, actually. She still interrupted me every other second, but she could be politely and firmly sent away.

Mommy and Michelle are worried she may have a hearing problem, and after spending a day with her, I'm a bit concerned too. I know she's four, and my speech historically has given people problems (in recent years, that's mostly been to people from other countries, but even people who know me well will claim I have an accent), but even so I should *not* have to repeat a sentence three or four or five times for her to understand it. Not when she's standing right next to me and the rest of the house is being fairly quiet. And it seems telling to me that after the first time, she'll stare intently at my mouth as I speak.

Thank you for the people who replied to my recent autism-related posts...

I can't reply to everyone, because... well, because typing the last post took a lot more effort than I'd realized it would when I started. And every reply I want to make ends up wanting to talk on the same subject, and that's more than I can give right now.

Besides, I can't very well talk about the argument in autism because I just have to stay away from there. Forget about helping people - I'm getting pissed, and my comments show it. And this is an issue too important mihi to do that. I've always gotten irritated at people who let being right come before doing right - mostly because I'm one of those people, and it's really counterproductive.

So I need to just back out of that discussion until I can be calm, reasonable, and *not* want to smack everyone there until they Stop Being Stupid. That might take a while.