Interesting Detail

Yesterday we went to our local library for story time. S has been to this library before, but it's been a long time since we've been there. Now when we got her, she stared up at the lights in the room. We thought she'd never seen overhead lights before, so she was fascinated by them. This wasn't an isolated event, the light staring obsession lasted a long time. The frequency and intensity lessened, but she'll still do it. I began to wonder why a child would be obsessed with lights. Since she has sensory processing problems, I thought it might have been sensory seeking behavior. I got to thinking about it and remembered reading a long time ago about near death experiences. One of the common experiences was seeing a bright light that was very pleasant to look at, even though it was very bright. They were drawn to the light as they were dying. As they were being revived, they felt like they were being pulled away from the light and that they didn't want to, it was such an experience of pure joy and love. It may be a far fetched theory that S may have been through a near death experience, but she was born prematurely. I think this can be established as fact because of her weight at 2 days old. The records say she was 3-4 pounds. Even severely malnourished mothers give birth to near normal weight babies. This weight puts her at least 6-8 weeks premature. If she were born in this country, she would have spent time in a hospital. Her nanny said she was never hospitalized, but there were people who thought she wouldn't survive because of her size. Her neurological profile is in sync with this possibility. Anyway, the reason I mention this is because when we were at the library yesterday, S looked up at the lights and was staring at them and not paying attention to the story. Later, she said she was scared of the lights. I don't know why she is suddenly afraid of lights. The strange thing is that she wants the light on when she goes to sleep. I have to wait to turn it off when she is asleep. Since resuming NR after our summer slack, she hasn't wanted to go in her bed. She used to cry, now only protests a little. She seems fine if I hold her and talk to her for a few minutes, then she willingly goes in her bed. I don't know if NR is stirring up some emotions that she doesn't know how to deal with. She can tell me she's afraid, but I don't know how many more emotions she can put words too. She doesn't mention happy or sad, or any other emotion, pleasant or not. I hope that her lack of ability to express emotions doesn't hurt her. It seems most of the people doing NR are older and can communicate. I'll have to ask Bette this one......She has also told me that she's afraid of a light upstairs. She finally pointed to our smoke detector. None of it makes sense to me, but I'm sure it makes complete sense to her. I wish I could get inside her head to figure her out.