Emotions are hard. Sometimes it’s his emotions and sometimes it’s mine. Loneliness is something that easily gets me. Owen is not a big fan of having people come visit and when they do he tells them to “go bye bye.” It’s not always something that ends the minute they walk back out the door either. He will mention them for hours, days, weeks, or even years later. He truly does not forget a thing. He does better when we go someplace else but that also has been hard. When he would go spend time with his grandma I couldn’t come back for several hours because he would have huge meltdowns if I came back too early. It took years for us to work through those moments. If we tried to have a meal there it would spiral into more meltdowns. I can only imagine the emotions that he was going through. My expectations are sometimes what gets me. Like this week I kept praying that I could convince him to go someplace on those days that we didn’t have our routine activities and they were all a no. The pins and needles I sit on change the course of our day so many times. I really wanted to go someplace today and I couldn’t even convince him to go to the big slides. Really, I didn’t want to go to the big slides, the indoor playground, because most likely he would have spent an hour pacing back and forth trying to get into their closet to look for Santa Claus. He has rules about places and I can’t change his mind. We are working on this with his therapists and it is as much about how I handle a situation so I have to learn strategies to help Owen cope with these moments. The morning went great. He slept through the night and he came to sit with me. I asked him questions about his favorite things at school and his answer was animals. It’s not so much about the answer as it is about him answering the questions. The bus was right on time and he was so delighted to see it. When he came home from school he was in a great mood but he had one thing on his mind and that was seeing grandma tomorrow. I pray he sleeps through the night. We talked about sleep and how he can always come to me in the middle of the night if there is something wrong, but he needs to go back to sleep if it’s just about his tablet. I want him to understand he can come talk to me if you need something but he needs to sleep if he wants to go see his grandma. He gets it on his mind and he thinks about it in his sleep. He was quite calm and happy for the rest of the night. He played his harmonica off and on. I love that he just picks it up and starts playing randomly. I’m thankful for a good day and every day I pray for the progress. Be thankful in the rays of sunshine and remember every step forward is a step. Smiles to all and donut daze!
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