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Writer's pictureLeanne Menzo

Blindsided

Dear Addie,

I sat on the living room floor holding a blue Tupperware bowl with one hand and stroking your sweaty knotted hair with the other. Dad was next to you wiping your neck and forehead with a cool rag while you were kneeling in front of me, screaming (like seriously screaming), drooling, crying, and so upset you were gagging repeatedly leaning forward and dry heaving into the bowl.

This wasn’t how the night was supposed to go.

Addie, we’ve been isolated together for quite some time now. During this crazy time, I’m sure many have done things they may not have normally done. For myself, I'm pretty sure I’ve painted every room in our house (kind of a challenge to do it with A.) everyone home and B.) paint we already own to avoid exposure in stores - good thing we like color and painting a lot because we have what looks like our very own Sherwin Williams store for picking new paint colors for rooms around here!) but I digress...

While I have basically redesigned the house during this quarantine, I saw a friend of mine had completely redone her front porch and that got me thinking, we don’t use our front porch more?  All I can think is that it's never really felt "comfortable" to be out there I suppose. Somehow the front porch just seems so exposing. Weird thing to say right, seeing it is part of our own home. But with restrictions being lifted, people are entering back out into the world more and more and we thought it’d be nice to see and talk with neighbors even perhaps give some new neighbors a face to the sounds they may hear from you in our backyard. I think it's fair to say we are all craving human interaction again. Insert my new project, family-friendly front porch makeover = being more social neighbors!

Challenge accepted and go!

Now noticing another neighbor had a gate on their front porch for their dog, I thought - “genius” and ordered one for us. Step 1 - a way to keep the dogs (and you) from bolting to the street - safety first and check!

Well, dad jumped on board at this point and decided the front door needed something more. With trial and error of a few designs, and what felt like a bazillion days later, it was painted inside and out, and in our opinion looked amazing and completely transformed the house for sure!

Front door refresh - check!


Exhausted from the door reno, and not done with my full front porch “vision” just yet, all I wanted was to sit out there and enjoy our new view for a moment. A test drive of our new space. You see Addie, for whatever reason, the idea of sitting out front somehow felt to me like going to a restaurant and the back porch, well, like eating at home. In some weird way, it just feels like something considered “normal” by most - like eating in a restaurant, comes once again with complexity, like making sure you don't run away or become a noise nuisance to our neighborhood. Not sure if that even makes sense but it just seems like we are exposing our family chaos to the whole world. While I know very well this is our own home, somehow it feels like people will judge or we will suddenly become the topic of a social media post and not in a positive way. I know what you are probably thinking - overthink much? Well, overthinking is often the devil on my shoulder baby girl. So in a journey full of judgment what do we have to lose? Let's give it a go. With the gate closed, it started with just dad and I calmly sipping adult beverages on the front porch after dinner. Then the calm was interrupted with the front door flinging open and like a 5 alarm fire, you and the dogs bolting out with Clara and Gabe not far behind (they were unaware of the gate closure and thought everyone was taking off.) Ok so now all 5 of us plus two dogs are on our not-so-sprawling front porch and it feels a bit cramped... but it’s all good. Then it happened, just as I had envisioned, here comes some of our neighbors enjoying an evening stroll - it's game time! With my friendly “hello” it triggered the dogs to bark like crazy and your auditory sensitivity to reach a tipping point of screaming after each bark. Ok so not exactly my vision! Clearly our front porch game is way off (or non-existent) and we are a hot mess. Sorry neighbors. Clara and Gabe ushered the dogs inside. Next, you calm down and are using my phone to watch “viheos” as you call them. A side note: while you dislike being recorded, you love to watch videos of yourself on my phone. And just like that a moment of calm. Then it happened. Dad and I were mid-conversation when I looked over to see your lip flipped turning to some serious sadness, like real fast. I immediately took the phone to see if it was something you were watching, there was nothing out of the ordinary that would’ve triggered such sadness, but whatever it was, it began to escalate quickly. With our initial badgering of questions, “what happened? Are you sick? Hurt? Scared?” You were only getting louder and louder, so we decided to continue this “party” inside. You ran to the couch and flopped face-first screaming into the cushions. Still unclear what had happened dad sat down next to you trying to console you. Having none of that you became more upset flopping about on the couch screaming in and out of the cushions before falling to the floor. Beat red, and gagging, yes gagging at this point I grabbed a bowl. We had no idea what happened. These are what I call blindsided meltdowns. Remember I’m not a doctor so that term will only be found in my Menzo Autism Dictionary. This type of meltdown happens out of nowhere and there’s no definitive cause for such a disruption. You can’t discipline it, you can super sleuth all you want, but truly all we can do is wait it out gathering every ounce of patience we possibly have. It’s truly heartbreaking to bear witness to it. You are struggling and we simply can’t fathom the amount of pain and distress you are in, but we know it's intense. It obviously affects you the worst but no doubt affects us all. Clara and Gabe start the guessing game - they are “fixers” and become anxious just wanting to solve the problem and make it better (don’t we all) while dad and I try to dig down deep for that parental intuition that somehow seems to feel nonexistent in these moments. On my personal level, I’m battling keeping my patience while internally screaming “please just use your words and tell me what’s wrong!” All while knowing that may very well be wishful thinking in this. With about 15 minutes on the floor, I ran upstairs to retrieve your blankie. I was able to then get you off the floor and at least into my lap on the couch. You curled up into my arms like an infant, clutching tight to your blankie, sobbing now directly in my face. While the screaming and crying had only been going on for about 30 minutes from the start of all this it felt like hours had passed. I had already given you your nighttime meds so part of me knew sleep would certainly be our end game here - which didn’t make any of this easier and somehow made me feel worse that you would probably fall asleep in such distress. At this point something on the tv (any animal that shows up really) caused you to take off like Usain Bolt into the craft room. We (as our neighbors) could still hear you screaming and sobbing in the other room. Parental emotional exhaustion is a real thing and anyone who has raised children surely has experienced it. At this point, I was there and needed a couple of deep breaths before heading back into giving whatever support you needed of me. I walked into the room and sat on the couch. Still crying, you handed me a book - you wanted me to read it to you. You were now desperately trying to pull yourself out of meltdown mode with familiar activities you knew you liked, as if the meltdown wasn’t heartbreaking enough this was worse, you were trying to fix it, trying to make this stop, but sometimes it’s just not that easy. The brain is complicated baby. Still sad you leaned into the couch so I leaned in next to you. You moved closer putting your forehead against mine. You were spent. I was too. I could feel your sweaty tear-soaked face against mine and it seriously hurt my soul. Meltdowns are no fun and unfortunately are often mistaken for a tantrum, poor parenting, or spoiled children by a lot of people. We know it’s none of those things baby girl, but a very real part of this journey indeed. A part that can not be escaped. Finally catching your breath I asked if you wanted to go “night night” you repeated it back to me and grabbed my hand. It’s been some time since you’ve needed me to lay with you but by grabbing my hand you wanted me too. Being a daddy’s girl (to your core) you wanted your mommy. I'd be lying if I didn't say my heart smiled a bit at this moment. I think we've all felt that way at many stages in our life Ad, where we just want mommy because it somehow makes it better? I laid with you until you fell asleep all while being watched by a creepy monkey on your dresser.

Addie, I’m so sorry this happened to you. There have been so many times when I think we’ve finally turned the page on meltdowns but the reality is they don’t ever really go away, and with riding the road to puberty I’m sure we’ll see more. But let’s be honest, life has just been plain weird for everyone lately and I’m sure explains a lot of the increase of your meltdowns lately (while this was the worst recently, hasn’t been the only.)

So it's safe to say, my front porch socializing didn't go exactly how I had envisioned it, but I’m sure with some more attempts, yes even our very own front porch will in time feel comfortable for us all and hopefully will result in fewer meltdowns.

I don’t feel things like you do Addie, and we can only hope and pray that one day you will be able to explain it all to us and tell us how we can help you get through these times. But until that day comes, just remember no matter how bad it gets we will get through this, together.

Love,

Mom


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