There are moments in life when everything is so far out of whack that you can't find your way out of a paper bag. Then there are those times when things seem to be falling down around you and yet you can clearly see the silver lining, despite it all.
For example, one day your son complete refuses to participate in his occupational therapy session and they call you back from your quick time at an indoor playground with your other son because of it. While there he completely melts down, full on screaming at not one, not two, but three of his occupational therapists! Then melts down in the car on the way home and then does it again once inside the door, all of a whopping three feet. This was just a section of one of those "paper bag" days that I had this week. Did I mention that when he melts down, he often beats the tar out of himself? How he is not black and blue half the time, is beyond me. These are the days I want to go back to bed and pull the covers over my head.
Then there are days when you enter the library and your youngest, screams bloody murder only 30 seconds after stepping through the threshold.
For lunch, you brave the outside world and take them again to their favorite indoor playground. During your visit, you youngest child proceeds to obsess over numbers, writes them over and over and over again, all while making fire engine (siren) sounds and repeating the numbers aloud. During this time, your oldest son has now locked focus on a 1 year old little girl, who has shown attention to his Blue's Clues dolls that go EVERYWHERE with him. While he's just honestly trying to actually engage her in play, he's ticcing like a maniac. I will admit the mother looked way less comfortable than I would've hoped. Funny enough how the mere mention of Asperger's (ASD) and Tourette Syndrome, can seem to empty a place in no time flat!
By the end of the day, I'm mentally exhausted from trying to keep them engaged in whatever activity, assuring them that they would have computer time when we got home, etc. That when OT/PT is over, I just really want to go home, but since we're down a car, we have to pick up their dad from work. So, we go back to aforementioned playground usually. Well, that day my oldest son decided to spill something on his pants. Which for a NT (neuro-typical) child is no big whoop. My son though, we're in the car - in front of his OT/PT/SLP's office and he's stripped NAKED in 30 seconds!!! When I ask him why, he says because his underwear is wet. Being the good sensory mommy that I am, I always have extra clothes on hand for just this kind of thing. I retrieve the extra clothes and much to my dismay there are no underwear in the bag!
So, after a lot of "discussing", I agree to let him go commando....commando! Of all the things I thought I would tell my child to do, this was not one of them!
Still despite this kind of day, despite the mental exhaustion, the stress and the even the physical exhaustion, the day was alright. I found humor in every situation, even while the drama was going on. It was a fine day really.
I do not know why some days are worse than others. I do not know what in me decides that one day the naked meltdown is ok, and on another day that the simple act of screaming can set me so ill at ease. Still, I am along for the ride, I can't complain too much, it could always be worse.
The thing I despise the most though, is the ignorant remarks on how to discipline my child(ren). I sincerely despise that no matter how often I explain what Autism is, or Tourette Syndrome entails, or what Dyspraxia means to motor skills, that still people offer advice they have no business giving. I think it is the on thing I most dislike about being a special needs family. It saddens me; frustrates me that no one truly has any idea what a day entails, the good, the bad and the humorous. The simple joys we experience over small milestones, miracles and sadness we feel when those around us don't understand, when our children are separated from those "neuro-typical" children around them.
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