Parenting a Necromuffinbutton (My Adventures with my Autistic Artistic Daughter)

Naomi aka Necromuffinbutton

When I first got the news that my daughter was failing kindergarten and might not pass, my heart crashed down into my stomach like a heavy stone. I was standing beneath it like Wile E. Coyote with a little sign that read “help.” It wasn’t because my child was failing, but the fact that my worst fears of my daughter having some type of learning disability were coming true. And it wasn’t because her having said learning disability would have been a blow to my ego, no. I worried about the expense of getting her help.

My husband was the stay-at-home dad and I worked. Because I made what California considered to be a middle-class income, I didn’t qualify for any type of aid. That meant that I got charged full price for services that low income peeps get discounts for, meaning, I was no better off than many of them. I knew the price of tutoring and what some of the more well off parents of her school paid, and that wasn’t an option for us. So mentally, I stood in a corner, quivering with fear.

Here's a photo of Nomi at 5yo from Kindergarten with
her father, sister Danae, and Danae's friend at the far end

I’d told the school early on that Naomi (or Nomi, as we all call her) had some issues with learning. I was the type of parent who did flash cards, story time, etc., so that my kids knew the alphabet, numbers, colors, and other basic knowledge before they even stepped foot into preschool. Naomi never could retain anything. While my oldest daughter showed an interest in these things beginning at two years of age, Nomi wouldn’t even respond to her name, and she was a late talker. Also, she’d shown little interest in other children or anyone around her when we played at the park.

The school gave me a voluminous packet of tests to fill out for her assessment, while they conducted their own. There were various questions about this and that, but two of the tests had to do with Autism. I put those at the bottom of the stack because I was absolutely, 100% sure my daughter was not autistic. I had friends who had autistic children and she was by that time verbal, responding to her name and behaving somewhat like what I believed to be the average child. She just couldn’t retain anything you’d taught her the day before, and was a bit behind in behavior compared to other children her age.

I knew nothing about high-functioning autism. I had no idea there were different degrees of the disorder at the time. My husband and I knew a couple of people whose children were autistic, but they were severe, being non-verbal and needing constant assistance.

I completed the two tests, which were amazingly thorough, as they asked me questions dating all the way back to her being a baby. I got the call two days later from the school’s psychiatrist and she told me that Nomi had scored high on the Autism test, Aspberger’s as they called it. Mine and their own. I’m not the crying type, but this is one of the few times I did. I was afraid of what I was in for, if I would be able to afford extra services for her, what the future held regarding her being able to care for herself through adulthood, everything. But, I picked myself up and got on the Internet and set to the task of understanding everything I could about her diagnosis. At the time, there was the huge debate about vaccines, and based on what I found out, Nomi showed signs of being autistic before she was given her first set. Also, I was a volunteer at the hospital at the time, and the nurses there filled me in with even more information on Autism. I began to feel a bit more at ease. (I will post another article about this later because there were challenges.)

Fortunately for us, the school proved to be pretty proactive with mentally-disabled children and other children with learning disabilities. I met with the Psychologist and the Special Ed teacher. They decided to let her pass Kindergarten and would start her in special education beginning with First Grade. They also worked out a schedule with her learning plans and what she should know by the end of the year. Okay, seemed easy enough.

To my surprise, Special Ed was the best thing for my daughter and she loved it. I got to know each of the children in her class and became rather close with their parents. They worked on projects together and had a far better closeness than in the regular classrooms. Nomi indeed fulfilled the school’s expectations as to her learning, and by fourth and fifth grades, excelled enough to where she was able to sit in on some regular classes. At the parent-teacher conferences, the teachers expressed their pleasure at having her in their classes, as she had a very unique approach to their lectures and assignments.

FROM MUSIC TO ART

We’re a household of musicians, and reading that many Autistic children excel in the arts, we were sure she would follow in our footsteps. She was given guitars (thanks to my husband) and she’d sit up in bed strumming her heart out, singing jibber-jabber at the top of her lungs. Or when we had band rehearsal, she’d put on this little white anime wig from one of her Halloween costumes and jumped in the middle of us, strumming her little goldfish-shaped guitar like she was part of the band.

Nomi at 3yo with Dad Singing

However, all that fell away at the age of seven. She had a friend from school named Chris and they loved to play video games. I’m not one of those parents who gets a butt itch from video games. After all, I had one of the first Atari games when I was in school in the late 70s. Plus, due to our love of Renaissance Faires, play dates at the park, and outdoor events, my kids got more than enough outside time. So, video games didn’t bother me, as long as school work and rooms were clean.

She got a Nintendo DSi for Christmas that year and a few months after that she appeared at the side of my bed asking me to watch this animation. It was cute, to which I told her. It was simple and only a few seconds long. Between her and my older daughter, they were always showing me little animations from the Internet. She grinned at me and said I made that then went skipping off. My mouth fell open and I’m like wait, what??? Hey, get back here! (Sadly, I haven't figured out a way to download those animations to here.)

First of all, I had no idea the Nintendo DSi could even do animations. Second, I’d never seen anything like that from my child. At seven, she was pretty good at drawing, but nothing exceptional. But this was nothing like the school art projects she’d brought home. She told her father and me that she wanted to do art from that point.

Of course, I did what any parent did, went out and bought her drawing pads, art sets and stuff that goes with it. When she was ten, I got her a laptop with more graphics programs and a digital art pad. She bypassed the programs and the art pad, preferring to use her mouse to draw pictures using just the Paint program.

This is Fooch, a little plushy she carried around with her
that was gifted to her by a teacher in elementary school.

MOTIVATION

Let me express that I’m not a stage mom or the sort, and I backed off from pushing her onto programs and such that she considered too advanced for her. Having been in the entertainment field for over thirty years, I’m like, I’ll set the stage, but you have to want it. I’m not going to make you draw, play music or anything, and force them into doing anything. If they show tenacity and initiative, then I’m in their corner. She stuck with it, and by the age of 12, I noticed that she wasn’t letting up about it and her art was getting better, her characters more refined. Aside from her love of video games, she began to spend more and more time in her room after school drawing a stream of characters that were part of a world she created.

The Earliest Version of Kinzoku drawn at age 12

She looked up Japanese names for her characters, and began to meet up with other artists online. The gaming community she belonged to required her to use her art to create her own world and characters, which she showcased to her friends. She began to use the chat feature and frequently asked me about words and how to spell them, paying more attention to grammar. By the time she graduated Middle School, she received an award in English.

ART AND AUTISM

Nomi’s dedication to her characters and the developing story that’s coming out of them to date has been a journey that I think has helped her condition. If one thing I’ve learned about high-functioning artistic individuals is that they can be extremely focused, driven, and have a level of dedication to their interests that is downright amazing. We’ve seen autistic children who’ve had an interest in things like trains, where they can name each and every engine and their origins, all the way to creating amazing artwork that looks as if a human didn’t create it; not to mention non-verbal individuals playing musical instruments at a classical level, entirely self-taught!

Naomi watched online tutorials and taught herself Photoshop and Illustrator. She also likes to use Manga Studio. She gave her characters all Japanese names, out of her love of anime and mangas. She says her dream is to create a manga and eventually learn to animate her characters.

I had to push her school to put her in Art when she began last year as a freshman. They wanted her to take a class that was on her IEP track, and we thought it was unnecessary. They saw her artwork and relented. This will be her second year in Art and she’s been getting nothing but A's in that and the rest of her classes.

A sketch she did of Morgan Freeman as a class project

To speak with her, you'd think you were speaking to a much older person. She doesn’t have a lot of friends – other than the few from her gaming forum. And she expresses no interest in hanging out with other kids. I have to sometimes force her to go out and get some fresh air. I don’t mind that she spends most of the time in her room switching from drawing to gaming. She comes out every hour or so and runs back and forth from one end of the house to the other. She says it helps her think. At first, she was ashamed of the in-house jogging and would close my bedroom door so her father and I wouldn’t see her do it. She had been doing this since she was around two years old, where she would run laps around the McDonald’s and playgrounds instead of playing. I told her that if it feels good to her and it helps her think about ideas, to do it. We’ve become used to it, making sure things are out of the way so she doesn’t run into them or hurt herself. When I see the ideas that come out of her, I’d say she could run as much as she wishes.

COMICON

I had a small side business selling lotions and perfumed oils and decided to vend at the Stan Lee’s Comikaze at the Los Angeles Convention Center. There, Nomi was treated to all sorts of artists showcasing their artwork. While most of the art were artist versions of already known characters, there were a few who had created their own comic books and/or animations. I told her that if she wanted, I would get her an artist table the next year to showcase her characters.

As I said before, she is driven, and she’d spent the entire year drawing enough characters and said that in lieu of Christmas and her birthday gifts, would I copyright them. I was going to copyright them, but she beat me to the punch. Who was this mature, industrious kid and how did she get into my family?

At fourteen, Nomi was the youngest artist vending at the Con last year. We had 8.5x11 and 11x14 prints of her characters. She had a very good response and many people were drawn to her table. While people didn’t know what her characters were, she didn’t hesitate to tell everyone about them and their backstory. She even got the attention of actress Elle Viane Sonnet (Space Command, Star Trek: Phoenix) who introduced her to Neville Page. They were there doing a panel to promote their latest movie Triborn. She was gone for almost two hours where Neville had spoken to her and was impressed with her drawings and her story, telling her to keep at it.

Nomi hawked her table, refusing to eat, making sure people came over to look at her work. If they showed no interest and kept strolling, she’d look at me and shrug and was on with the next person. She told me she was well aware that not everyone would find her work interesting, but that was okay. If one thing many of us artists have is the self-esteem issue. Many of us are crushed behind the slightest criticism because we’re so sensitive about our work. I’m glad my child doesn’t have an issue with this, and to not take rejection personal. Being the moderator on one of her video games, she’s had to deal with negative people and trolls, and says she has no problem banning people or them saying mean things to her. I told her a strong spirit will serve her well in this business.

Nomi working her table last year at Stan Lee's Comikaze

SAN FRANCISCO COMICON

This will be Nomi’s second comic con and we have a bit bigger space. She’s created some new posters, in addition to the ones from last year.

Here are some of the prints you will see:

Willow Mena is Nomi's Main Character - You will see she casts the shadow of
her other character Kuroi Hon

Kuroi Hon, Another Main Character - He's Nomi's Favorite

Kinzoku, Main Character

Gorudo, Main Character

If any of you are in the San Francisco area, and would like to come, you can get tickets here: http://sanfrancomiccon.com/tickets/

Please come by her booth and say hello (NomiArt #405). She’d love it.

She’s also on Facebook and Deviant Art – her name on Facebook: Nomi Robles or DeviantArt: Necromuffinbutton.

I have no idea where she got this name, but I love it and it fits her perfectly.