Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Completely Helpless...

Last night I had dress rehearsal for my show. I was hoping for the best but ended up with one of those situations that I dread being caught in...

Since I couldn't take the kiddo with me and M was up he stayed home with him. We started new data so I talked him through what to do and and wished him luck with homework. I was out the door by 6:20pm. I didn't really anticipate anything major happening. As you know, M and A are two peas in a pod and have a lot of fun together. I figured the kiddo would protest his homework a bit as he always does with me but still do it. I knew M would be able to easily deal with any behaviors and fuss he put forth so I wasn't worried. The kiddo hates homework...

It all started with a text message at 7:06 from M:



We hadn't started yet as we were still waiting for the newspaper to show up to take pictures so I got the message pretty quick:


That didn't go over well.... I am stunned by the reaction...


Did you hear the crack? Pretty sure my heart just split in two... Of course there was no way for me to get to him either so I was left fretting and trying to figure out what to do from where I was. I kept telling myself M had everything in hand and tried to keep from entering freak-out mode...

What felt like an eternity later:


Crap... I have no idea where to go from here. It doesn't appear he's calming down at all and I'm still stuck. I'm afraid to let him off the homework hook (and in a sense giving him negative (avoidance) reinforcement to do this again tomorrow) but I don't want to drive him too far. The decision ultimately falls to me so...


That's right. Mommy gave up the fight. I knew we needed to get the kiddo calmed down asap. Everything is lost once things start flying. I then asked if anything was broken, since I'm an idiot and have antiques out... But in my defense, things rarely get broken and the cat broke the last antique that bit the dust...


Did you hear that? Yep. My heart cracked again.... Him hiding is usually indicative of worse behaviors to come (or a complete surrender, it's 50/50 but I wasn't home...) so I had to ask if there was any SIBs.... Then naturally freaked out in the process....



Then because I can be a jerk sometimes he added:





*corrected to him not home (Autocorrect got him, haha!)

During this time and the following hour I kept running to the dressing room between scenes to check my phone for the latest updates on what is going on. I felt like a crazy woman rushing around, concerned and distracted by what my son is going through and trying to focus on my lines. It was very difficult to do. As you can imagine, it is quite the distraction.

Around 8:13 pm I received this email:



You can see the picture of the homework page he wanted help with and his request for my help. Since the theater is in an old school and is also a nuclear fallout shelter (comforting, no?) I have no idea what time he actually sent it. Signal is really bad in that building....

After A had calmed down, order was restored and he settled to have a snack and snuggle in on the couch. When I came home M told me that the kiddo was so worn out that he fell asleep on the couch early (bedtime is 9) and he carried him up. I went up to check on him and he was sleeping away.

This morning when the kiddo woke up he came and snuggled in. There was no hint of the upset from last night. My only clue that something was ever amiss was that he was slightly clingy and actually snuggled in this morning. Usually he sits on the bed somewhere and asks for the iPad. There were lots of hugs too. He was quite happy when I dropped him off at school this morning.

We are a little baffled by what made him go over the edge like this. Unfortunately there is no way to really know. The only thing we can suspect is that he's been a little more anxious lately. Hopefully tonight will go a little more easily.

I can hope right? :)

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