There are times that I honestly don't think about having special needs children. I don't think about how many appointments we have during the week, or what skills we need to work on during the day, or even give a second thought to avoiding family functions, etc.. It's just our life and it's no longer a truly big deal.
Then you get days like today, where after one exhausting episode, you feel the weight of every little slight, every misstep and the whole ball of wax feels like the weight of the world is on your shoulders. You realize everything that you've done wrong and pray for some respite from the chaos.
It's not often I feel this way. Most of the time I have two mottoes that I live by and they keep me in check. One is never sweat the small stuff, remembering of course that unless it's life threatening, then it's all small stuff. Two is remember, it could ALWAYS be worse. Those two phrases have kept me off of the pity pot for the most part and kept my head on straight.
While it's disheartening to know that your child may not be the quarterback of his football team, nor will he win "most popular" at his school, my mottoes have kept me booking and onward to excepting both of their diagnosis and all that they entailed without looking back.
Then you get days like today...
Understanding a Dyspraxic, a child diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder, OCD, ADHD, SPD, ODD and labeled with "autistic tendencies" is pretty simple to me, but even I get complacent when things are going well and I forget. Today, I forgot. It apparently was such a grievous mistake that now the entire neighborhood knows I forgot!
My husband had the day off and I decided I needed a break, a little me time if you will. We decided that he would take the boys to their OT and PT appointments today and I would relax at home on my own. I forgot to tell my oldest of the change in plans though...
It was a terrible scene and my husband finally got to witness one of his meltdowns in person. He will never complain about what he considered a "meltdown" again. lol It was some horrible scene you'd expect to see if someone was abducting your child! Complete with blood curdling screams, a child grasping at the door frames as he was carried to the car to go to his bi-weekly appointment. He was clawing at the walls, grasping onto me as if he was never going to see me again, all while screaming like someone was going to murder him. It was awful really.
The description, while I'm sure is horrifying to some, isn't even doing what happened justice! Needless to say after 20 minutes of prying him off of doorframes and myself more than once, he'd gotten my youngest so worked up, he was hysterical and scared and just wanted mommy as well.
Knowing that I could not fully explain to my youngest who still struggles with receptive language skills, what was going on and that he and his brother were really ok, my heart broke. I gave in and went. I KNOW I should've stayed home, the ABA and the psychologist would have given me a stern look for caving in and I know it was wrong, but looking at my little one's face, terrified out of his mind, I couldn't say no.
Afterwards, I was so exhausted. I am so exhausted. I'm upset with myself too. My neighbors who've been amazing through the years with the amount of screaming that I know they hear from my house, were even startled today. They know my children are special needs, but today even a few of them came out to see what was going on.
For those of you with neurotypical kiddos, imagine if you saw a mother and husband carrying their 8 yr old child out to the car, kicking, screaming for mommy, as if he was being abducted! I was painfully aware of how it must've looked, even to those who knew my children. It's times like this, I want to crawl back into my room and not come out for a day. Partly out of embarrassment, and yes, even after all these years, I still struggle with accepting those people who look down their noses and not understanding. The other part of me that wants to go in my room is exhausted - mentally and physically. I can't tell you what kind of a toll this can take on a person and it doesn't help that as soon as it's over, all I can think is that he's only 8, how many more years of this can I keep doing? How often is he going to keep doing this? Which we all know better than to do. lol Today though, I did all of those things and it got the better of me.
I've sat in my room now, one kiddo in bed and the other snuggled up under my left arm, passed out for two hours now thinking about my actions and emotions. I've come to realize three things. One, tomorrow is another, brand new, bright, fresh and cheery day. Two, don't sweat the small stuff - this is small stuff and three, it could've been much worse. Fingers crossed tomorrow is another day.
