Videos

Haley loves to watch videos.  Since she was very small she has loved them.  She never got into television.

When Haley was quite young she would play with the video cases.  She liked to pull the cases off of the shelf on to the floor.  I think she was looking at them as she did this, I hope she was not just making a mess for the fun of it.  She could also put her own video cassettes into the player and they would play, so that was a fun game.  She would put one in, watch it, take it out, stack it on the last one and put in another one.  We would have stacks about two feet high around the TV.

DVD's are trickier.  I put those in for her.  She likes the fact that they have "extra stuff" though.  My daughter likes the extra stuff.  She will bring me a DVD and say "Stuff" she will then sit and watch people talk about the movie, how it was made, the actors, how the music was written and all the other things that go into making a movie.  She loves the stuff.

Sometimes she just says "Show." I can then hit play on whatever happens to be in the machine. We can have the same video in that machine for days at a time. Haley will watch a video and when it is over she says "Again." I either rewind a tape or hit menu on a DVD and start it over again. Haley will watch a video like this many times. I know toddlers do this. Haley is twelve. That is a lot of years watching the same shows over and over. I decided a long time ago that one of the reasons she does this is because she likes to know what comes next.  It is how she can bring order to her own world.

Life is unpredictable to a child like Haley. Things can happen around her too quickly. She gets disoriented and upset by the chaos of life. Too much stimulation can bring on the MELTDOWN. She doesn't like crowds, loud noises (like big barking dogs) or flashing lights. We can't take her to a movie theater.  We just wait for the video.

She loves to watch a video over and over because she has seen it so many times she knows what comes next. It is routine. She does have her favorites; The Lion King, The Road to El Dorado, Spirit Stallion of the Cimmaron, 101 Dalmatians (all versions) and Finding Nemo are at the top. Consequently Big Sis and I have these movies memorized. We can quote them, we can sing along, we can tell you what scene is next. Haley can too. Haley loves it when I say a line in a movie just before it happens or at exactly the same time. We get the giggles from that. Well, she gets the giggles from that and then I get the giggles from her giggles.

Haley also likes videos about trains. 

What you may not realize is that there are videos about trains.  There are videos about certain engines, about certain lines, about certain trips, about how to repair engines, about the people who work on them, about engineers, about how to right one after it derails, it goes on and on.  Haley loves them all.  This started at an early age as well.  Her father likes trains, and so does her grandfather.  I could understand if she liked to watch the train go by on the screen, but that is not all there is to it.  The first time she saw a video we have about one of her favorite engines I thought that she would lose interest soon.  Not so.  She loved it.  This is a video of people talking about the engine, "talking heads" as they say.  She was enthralled.  I was amazed.

So not only am I now fluent in all things Disney, Pixar and Dreamworks I also know more about trains than I ever thought I would, or ever really cared to.