Dear Addie,
We made it.
Sweating, catching our breath and wiping away tears, but we made it.
It was just another soccer game Saturday.
OK, well not exactly. It all started 7 hours earlier...
It was Saturday, daddy was out of town, and the only thing scheduled for the day was an afternoon soccer game. That morning I had found myself in an unfamiliar scene of having just slept in til 7 am and somehow was the only one awake, sitting on the couch, sipping coffee in silence.
As I sat becoming far to intrigued for 7 am in an organizing article from a recent Better Homes and Garden magazine, I heard you make your way through the hallway and down the stairs. When you got to the bottom of the stairs you saw me, and wasted no time opening the closet door.
You see Ad, every morning (for maybe the last 3-4 months) you wake up, go to the downstairs closet, remove the broom and bring it to whomever is closest in the living room or kitchen. You’ve actually gone as far as to bring it to me in our bedroom when no one is downstairs. Sweeping, for whatever reason, makes you all grins and giggles. Not gonna lie it makes me smile too when I see someone other than me sweeping, but perhaps for a different reason.
But I digress...
Today, as I was sitting on the couch just waiting for the broom to come my way, predictably unpredictable as you are, you never brought it over. Odd? Today you decided to do things a little differently and lined up all the cleaning objects you could find in the closet then bounce your way back upstairs.
Side note: a common practice of autistic individuals is finding calm in lining up or organizing like objects.
With another sip of coffee I was now staring at a lined up check list of cleaning for the day - thanks Ad. I decided maybe you were on to something, and some tidying up before soccer was a good idea. I had like 7 hours until soccer, so surely I could get some things done, right?!
Now Addie, l actually love cleaning, but when allowed a bit of time, it takes on a whole new organizational system (or sporadic lack thereof). For me, starting one thing leads to something else without finishing the first thing and so on and so on. It’s a hot mess of a bunch of barely finished chores.
Before I knew it, 7 hours has gone by and we were frantically pushing ourselves out the door - never a good thing for you. Routine is your calm. Sometimes though, this routine can take over most things you do and make situations when we are rushed frustrating on a whole new level - for everyone. While we might not understand why you do some of the things you do, it matters to you and can completely affect the dynamic of your mood for not only the moment, but sometimes the remainder of the day.
This one thing we had actually planned today was about to see what a rushed routine could mean first hand.
We piled into the van at an alarming speed, your organizing of your “car toys” before getting your buckle on was, well, not exactly something we had time for.
I pushed the ripped out book pages, broken toy parts, and wrapped prepackaged snacks you refuse to open but only hold, also known as your “car toys” aside and buckled you up.
Your agitation wasn’t easy to hide. You immediately started trying to gather the pieces in some orderly fashion that made sense to only you. Your buckle was already engaged, so the whole process was a blur of confusion to you. You started stimming, yelling and whining fast and loud. Your process of simply getting into the car, something so simple and relatively mindless for most people, was thrown way off in your world and you started requesting things that we don’t ever have in the car...ever. For those of us witnessing the situation it was as if a delusional realm of thinking had taken over. On this day you wanted a “pink elephant” and were even trying to reach for it under the seat in front of you.
With your increased frustration and your volume only getting louder and louder, Clara thought she’d help and leaned over trying to find what you were looking for. She didn’t see anything, but you were insistent a “pink elephant” was just out of your reach and were now grabbing Clara’s arm, pulling her over, yelling for her to “Help her! Help her! Help her!”
With Clara reaffirming there was indeed nothing under the seat, let alone a pink elephant, you became enraged (yes that word is appropriate here), unbuckled you’re seat belt and started hitting Clara. Not safe for anyone involved, or a sight a parent ever wants to see from the rear view mirror. With no shoulder to pull over on and (in maybe not my finest parenting moment) I began yelling at you to stop hitting Clara! All while Clara was trying to keep it together who was now holding back tears begging me to pull over to help you find this dang pink elephant so you’d stop screaming and hitting her!
I gripped the steering wheel until my knuckles were white and now I was crying. I just couldn’t believe this was all unfolding the way it was and all I wanted to do was get Gabe to his soccer game. I felt like I had officially lost control of everything. Yes it sounds dramatic but in that moment I was truly losing control of everything!
I finally was able to pull over (now we had 6 min to make it to the game) and jumped out to investigate the pink elephant drama. SPOILER ALERT: there was no pink elephant!
I buckled you up, grabbed your hands and very sternly told you stop hitting your sister! I’m full blown crying now. Clara’s crying and Gabe I’m confident just turned the volume up on his iPad trying to stay game ready.
Back in the drivers seat we set back out to the only thing scheduled today and right as I pulled away the pink elephant drama was back, only this time you weren’t hitting Clara so I just kept repeating “all done Ad, all done.”
We pulled into the parking lot, and Gabe literally flung himself out of the van to join his team. The rest of us parked and we sat for a few minutes waiting for you to pull it together.
Still kind of a hot mess we made our way (late and loud, you know “stare worthy”) to join the other team parents. I quickly realized with the first whistle blown and your auditory sensitivities now on crazy high alert the “I feel, I feel” script you’ve developed had started, and that it just wasn’t going to work. I told Clara I was going to try and take you back to the van to see if I could settle you down. Gabe made eye contact with me as we were walking away and my heart broke because I’m sure he wanted us there to watch him - I wanted to be there as well!
One of the hardest parts of parenting Addie is sometimes there’s just not enough of (in this moment) me to go around. I felt like nobody was really winning here today.
After a few minutes and me calling daddy to vent about this disaster experience (sometimes I just need to vent and daddy is a great listener) we attempted to make our way back up to the game.
When we got back to the field you refused to sit back by the game so we compromised sitting back by the wooded area - finally a place you weren’t upset or crying in, I’ll take it.
So there we were, I sat on the ground well behind the soccer goal feeling every ounce of exhausted, and defeated, Clara midfield trying to pull her emotions together to watch Gabe play, and Gabe not showing any signs, so far, of the complete $h!t show that just happened in the car on the way here. And you, well now happy as could be playing in the rocks and dirt.
Not gonna lie, I sat there looking at all the other families cheering on their players and wondered how their Saturday was going? Did they have a pink elephant meltdown in the car?
The game had ended with a loss (I think we all really could've used that win today but it just didn't happen) and we went over to gather our things. Gabe dumped the ice from his water bottle onto the grass and without skipping a beat you picked it up and popped it in your mouth. I looked up to a mom, grandmother and two kids looking every bit of disgusted at your grass infused ice snack, but I honestly didn’t have the energy to care and maybe that was a good thing.
With the field almost empty at this point and our family not crying anymore, thank God, Clara, Gabe and I thought we really needed to rally our day back. So with a unanimous decision we decided there was only one way to do that today - ice cream.
We had one thing to do. We made it Addie, hanging on by a thread, but we made it. And we are all glad that the day is behind us now!
Love,
Mom
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