Dear Addie,
I’m so sorry sweetie, but it had to happen.
Mark it - my new Quarantine challenge: cleaning your room. It happened and to say you were thrilled would be a lie.
It’s no secret that most autistic individuals (heck I think many neurotypical people as well) find comfort in routine and order. So often it’s teamwork that creates that order on our journey. For example, a bedtime routine of washing-up, brushing your teeth, getting jammies on... or perhaps your school routine - wake-up, eat breakfast, change your clothes, brush your teeth, pack your bag etc... these routines having mommy and daddy as your teammates. Once you are at school, your teacher becomes your teammate. I feel like we have the upper hand in driving the order in a particular direction most of the time, but when it comes to your place of comfort - like your bedroom, a place that you go when everything is just too much, you run the show.
We respect that. Your room, your space. But sometimes our worlds collide.
Here’s the thing, while I wish I could just close your bedroom door and let it be, it still actually needs to be cleaned. I’d be a horrible mother if I just let you play in a petri dish of filth. Addie, the truth of the matter is there are some "not so glamorous" parts of special needs parenting, and that includes my love/hate relationship with the steam cleaner. The oranges that make it to your room only to get the juice sucked out and then discarded to the floor (those are super fun to find in a corner somewhere - dried and stuck to the carpet, along with sticky spit or drool on many toys and surfaces, and lets not forget the leaky pull-ups, or how about the dried pasta shower you gave yourself a few weeks ago - all super fun cleaning bliss...). Cleaning this type of magnitude can only happen after your toys or "stuff" rather (you still have dads belt organizer) are put away so I can see the floor! Not exactly an easy task.
I used to do this while you were at school. You would come home, retreat to your room for some decompression time and quietly put all your toys back the way they were.
Win/win - you could put it all back in your organized kind of cluttered way, and I knew it was clean. With quarantine cleaning now being our standard, I now only get about 15-20 minutes while you’re outside getting your morning swing time in to accomplish anything. Challenge accepted! Maybe...
On this particular day I don’t know if it was just quarantine life getting the best of me or what, I decided the arrangement of furniture in your room just wasn’t working for me. I couldn’t clean it efficiently to say the least. So not only was a "put your toys away so I can vacuum" type cleaning about to happen, but a rearrangement of your room as well, so I could clean better.
I knew you weren’t going to handle this well, but it really had to be done, and I was out of options seeing that we are around each other 24-7 these days.
How would you react already enduring so much change the last two months?
Well...
In the past if you were part of the process of moving furniture you reacted better than if you were surprised with a new arrangement. So with you and me in your room together I said “Addie I have to move your bed to clean.” You looked at me with a blank stare as if I was speaking French and said “Goodbye.” Hmmm maybe this isn’t gonna go well?! I started to move your bed and you started to stim and whine feverishly, but no major eruption yet. I thought, OK, that was’t too bad - let’s keep going.
Next up, your climbing apparatus (or transformed scaffolding.) 3, 2, 1...this is where you lost it. I had to move your stuffed animals that were housed underneath it to even get the darn thing to move, and you were not pleased. I set all of your plush friends on the bed and proceeded to pull the scaffolding into its new space. Bright red, sweating, screaming & crying now, you started throwing your stuffed friends like bullets back underneath the scaffolding mid movement. As if you pelting stuffed animals in my direction wasn’t bad enough, I had to push the bed I had just moved over to make room for Mr. Scaffolding’s new spot, and your stack of elephants next to your bed came tumbling down from what looks like an intense cheerleading pyramid you had them doing.
That was the last straw.
I got the bed moved, scaffolding moved, but now your toys were in disarray and you were in meltdown mode sitting in your platform swing screaming - I mean like really screaming at me. I decided I’d caused quite enough trouble for the moment and left you alone.
I had disrupted your energy flow of calm which is funny because this room does everything but make me calm. Calm to me does not say, broken toys, torn books and dried pasta sprinkled here or there - yes I’m still finding pasta from your pasta showers you gave yourself a few weeks ago, but to you it’s all organized in a fashion only you get. Screaming and now gagging, yes Addie, you were so upset you started gagging I had two options.
1. Move it all back, or 2. keep it the way it is and let you work through this change.
You see Addie change is necessary in life. While we recognize it can be extremely anxiety-provoking for you, inevitably change will happen in one fashion or another and it can come without warning. A lot. Having come this far I decided to go with #2 and work through this. About an hour and a half into meltdown mode I thought we needed to drastically change the scene. Then a light bulb when off, you had not been outside our house or yard in weeks, maybe a ride in the van would jolt us out of this room rearrangement chaos. Worth a shot. Right?
I opened your door and said “let’s go bye byes Ad!” You stood up, wiped your flushed faced and followed me downstairs. Still sniffling and upset, we buckled ourselves in the car. A thirty minutes drive nowhere was just the reset you needed - oh and a Chef Boyardee cheese pizza (it’s your fav!).
Officially settled with no signs of crying and sniffles 3 hours from initial meltdown, you went up to your room and closed the door. I walked up and listened through your door a few times only to hear you talking some gibberish, some echolalia and playing with your bells - no crying, no screaming, no gagging. We may be accepting this change after all.
That night I went up to your room to tuck you in and noticed a scene that looked like some sort of town hall meeting with your plush friends.
For how soundly you were sleeping I think it was a unanimous vote that everyone was in on accepting this change.
Addie I know this was super hard and stressful for you, and some would think a meltdown over such a thing would be ridiculous, but in our world I saw growth. You weren’t happy that was a fact, but you eventually adapted in far less time than I had actually expected.
I’m very proud of you Ad and super happy with the new cleaning efficiency I will have ;).
I love you the whole world full!
Love,
Mom
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