Dear Addie,
This week I was reminded of the all-important wisdom of “all behavior is communication.” Now having said that this reminder started with something I like to call the dreaded parental algorithm and if you don’t know what that is it’s when one parent is not home for whatever reason from running errands or just out of town and inevitably someone gets sick in some sort of non contained, disastrous way - and go.
Daddy was out of town for work, so the algorithm was triggered.
It all started with a change of routine. A sudden closure of school midday due to a COVID outbreak meant this could go one of two ways, luckily for us it went relatively well considering the disruption at play. When you got home you seemed ok but went to your room to decompress and adjust. Fast forward a few hours later and construction (which has been going on during school hours for some time now at our home) had resumed and the dogs were barking excessively otherwise known as producing one of your greatest auditory assaults.
After some time of you voicing your displeasure (or screaming rather from your room), you came downstairs to really get your point across yelling, spitting, kicking, and throwing things. All of this seemed like extreme reactions even for you to dogs barking, but it was what it was so we dealt with it. You ate dinner and drank some water before returning upstairs where there seem to be no more screaming so perhaps some time-outs and dinner did the trick?
With construction wrapped up for the day, you were suddenly standing in front of me downstairs in only a diaper (on backward mind you - we’re working on it), dripping wet and holding a pair of Jammies. It hit me then that you had given yourself a shower, which meant you were self-coping and something was off. Being close to bedtime now, I gave you your bedtime meds and you went off to bed upstairs.
Being a creature of habit myself, I went to check on you about 45 min later and you seemed to be all snuggly in your bed. Side note you sleep under a compression sheet and/or a ton of blankets. I walked around the other side of your bed to pick up a cup and noticed bits of food on the floor, that’s when I rolled you over and everything made sense - you were not feeling well and had gotten sick all over your bed. Curse you parental algorithm!!!!!!!!!
Algorithm clean-up engaged!
I guided a half-sleeping version of you to the shower, got you set up, and then started stripping your bed - throwing it all (including your beloved blankie) in the wash. I made your bed, Jammied you back up, and tried to put you back to bed… keyword “tried”. It didn’t take you long to notice that blankie had gone missing or was washing rather. You just kept repeating “a blankie, a blankie, a blankie” doing my best to reason with you I told you I’d bring it up when it was done washing, which only put you in a full sprint to the laundry room where some pretty extreme crying took place as you watched your blankie tumble in circles through the glass door that was midcycle locked and unable to get open (thank goodness!) You sat with all sorts of big feelings in front of the washer for about 5 min before heading upstairs and back to your room – still repeating “a blankie, a blankie, a blankie” as if maybe it was all a mirage and I was going to just pull it out of thin air and it really wasn’t tumbling about downstairs. Then I had an idea that worked a time before when blankie was left at the beach, we could use big brother Gabe’s old baby blanket! Yes, this would totally work! Gabe dug around in his memory baby box and pulled out a much cleaner, fully intact white baby blanket, we handed it to you, but we wouldn’t have the same luck as last time as you said “no fank you” and dropped it to the floor.
I decided at this point that maybe you needed to just work through your feelings so I closed your bedroom door and not gonna lie I took in a very deep breath. About 30 seconds later you opened the door and went running down the hall to Clara and Gabe’s room. You stood next to Clara’s bed for a minute, then reached over and snatched her stuffed bunny (that happens to be her lovie from childhood), ran back to your room, and closed the door.
None of us had any idea of what was actually going on, but Clara was ok with it so we just relished the fact that you had finally stopped crying.
Having used the quick cycle setting on the washer, blankie was now in the dryer and almost finished. When it seemed dry enough I brought it upstairs and set it next to your exhausted self as you lay in bed.
You then popped up like you were late for a very important meeting, ran down the hallway, and threw Clara’s bunny back on her bed only to scurry back to your room shutting the door. I checked on you 5 minutes later and you were clean, and out like a light like it was all just a bad dream.
Addie, I know now, that the extreme behaviors and your self-coping taking a shower were all part of you actually not feeling well more than anything else and being unable to communicate effectively in an already scrambled day. My super sleuthing kind of failed me on this one. Luckily for us, you have siblings that understood your lack of communication in the midst of this chaos and were willing to share even their lovies with you when it seemed you needed some extra comfort.
That's right Ad, your jackpot siblings strike again proving that even in our toughest moments, we are surrounded by love. One team, one dream.
Addie, I’m sorry all this happened and you had to feel all that yuckiness from sickness to feelings, but I’m happy it was just a fluke thing and the very next morning you were back to smiling and stimming about.
We love you. Always.
Mom
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