Ahhhh, What A Day!!

A slightly different post this week, not a question but rather a statement of exasperation!!

It had been a day of trauma, hyperactivity and many tears. It was the school holidays after Christmas and my son had gotten a bike for Christmas and of course, rightly so, wanted to go on a bike ride. The weather had been awful, wet for days and so I was reluctant to go to our usual spot for a bike ride. In fact I didn’t want to go at all but I could see my son was pent up with energy/rage/impulsiveness. He needed to be outside in the fresh air. Hopefully at one with nature.

Our usual spot in nature would be so so muddy thanks to the constant rain and therefore not the best conditions to get used to a new bike. And so I suggested to my son that we ride his bike into town, this would help me as I had lots of jobs to do in town. I needed to run some errands and get some birthday cards and so we would ride into town. That was the plan. And so we set off hyper but happy. By the time we got into town I was hot and sweaty from running, trying to keep up with the bike and desperate for a refuel, so I suggested we go in Costa and get a drink. We did this and saw my mum….no surprise really as she practically lives in Costa. Everything went fine but of course there was chit chat between us all. We then decided to go to the card shop. On the way every single person tried to engage my son in conversation which is lovely but very unwanted from his point of view….

“Ooooo someone got a new bike for Christmas”
“Did Santa bring you that bike”
“What a clever lad for riding so well”
“Nice to see a helmet on”
“Oooo I like your bike gloves. Those are bobbydazzlers”

We then saw my dad. Again another exchange for my son. He was doing well with this though and did speak to my dad. We then saw my aunty and my cousins who wanted to speak to my son. In case you haven’t guessed we live in a relatively small town population around 15000. You can’t swing a cat round without bumping into someone you know. Not only that but I have a rather large family who always seem to be in the town!!!

At this point my son looked at me and asked to go home. And I knew any other jobs I needed to do in town would be over. I’m past trying to get through my job list though when I’m with my son. It’s no good for him, it’s no good for me so I said come on then let’s go home. After this though my son was like a wound up yoyo. Hyper. Agitated. A big ball of energy. Almost wild. The ride home was frantic. He was obviously desperate to get back to the sanctuary of home, where he feels safe. But when we got home he didn’t know what to do with himself. He was crawling the walls. 

We attempted some colouring in and it went ok but as soon as I made a mistake and coloured something in, in the wrong colour I was done for. He got upset. He started to cry. He was so very distressed. Over the fact I had coloured the robots button in orange rather than blue. He didn’t know how to fix this, he couldn’t accept I had coloured in that bit wrong, he couldn’t adjust his thinking from wanting the button to be blue rather than orange and so the colouring in got worse and worse and worse. I just sat quiet. Willing him to come to terms with it. But he didn’t. And then he asked to go to my mum’s. This was disastrous. I knew this wasn’t the right day to go to my mums but he was so distressed already there was a small part of me that hoped this might calm him down. I knew the more people that were around him the worse this would get, yet I agreed to go. Not only that but I also persuaded his teenage sister to come with us. Mainly because she had been in her room for two days straight. It’s hard to remember you are a parent to another child when one of them is all consuming. And so we – me, my moody teenage daughter, and my wound up hyperactive agitated son, arrived at my mums.

I’m sure my mum’s heart sank when I whispered to her that he was in a bad way. And that we would be staying for exactly 70 minutes – this was at my son’s request. My mum wasn’t surprised by either of these. My son is quite frequently “in a bad way” and recently he had requested every time we go to Grandma’s to stay for exactly 70 minutes. Which I couldn’t quite work out why but he was adamant that that is how long we should stay for and so I started to count down the minutes. And they were long long minutes let me tell you. We were literally on a knife edge for the first 35 minutes. The second 35 minutes went from bad to worse. Nobody could settle my son. He cried. He got angry. My mum was nearly in tears. My daughter tried to blow balloons up to defuse the situation (bit of an oxymoron there….how does blowing a balloon up defuse things!!) And surprisingly it didn’t. In fact it made matters worse as balloons were now flying around the room. And throughout all this….my stepdad, my sons grandad, was sat at the dining table in his own world, sorting through his medication. My son was crying and shouting. Balloons were flying around the room. My daughter was laughing hysterically at the carnage the balloons had created. My mum was almost crying. I was attempting to maintain some control on this situation. And failing miserably. And my stepdad was absolutely oblivious to it all. Absolutely oblivious. There was a part of me that was jealous of this ability to zone out completely. How did he do it. And I realized as much as I wanted to zone out and let chaos ensue I just couldn’t. I took control of the situation. Balloons were put away, daughter looked at with my stern face and a plea to help me, we packed up, bundled us into the car and we left my stepdad still sorting through his medication and my mum absolutely wiped out on the sofa wondering what the hell had just happened in the last 70 minutes.

It was at this point that I think I worked out why 70 minutes was the golden time. It had taken me a while to work out and obviously I wasn’t 100% sure but I couldn’t think why else my son was so specific with 70 minutes. I believed it was because that in term time my mum picked my son up from school on certain days while I was at work then dropped him off with me when I was back. This tended to work out as 70 minutes. And there had been several times in the school holidays where my son had requested to go to my mams for exactly 70 minutes. It was too much of a coincidence to be anything else. He must have a feeling that that is how long he is there for after school and was missing it during the school holidays. And if that was why then his routine was so much more important to him than anything else.

We had lasted the 70 minutes on this day but we now drove home in silence. My husband was there when we got back and he gave me the look as to say “well how did it go?” And I just shook my head. He knew not to ask anymore. I felt like crying but was becoming a pro at battling on through. Then all of a sudden my son gives a heavy sigh and says….

“What. A. Day.”

I looked at my husband. He looked at me. And we laughed. And laughed. And laughed.

We weren’t laughing at my son, but rather the situation that my son had gotten so so right. Never had a truer phrase ever been spoken. However hard I think the days are with my son, he has them much worse than me. And this was one day where he had realized it had been a stressful day. It gave me hope as this meant he was understanding some of his emotions better.

And hope* is what keeps us going…..

*along with the two or maybe three or four brandies I had to have that night in order to settle myself.