traffic

We were less than five miles from camp this morning, when traffic slowed to a complete halt.

I thought we were lucky that it stopped before we actually passed the last opportunity to turn. I hesitated for two seconds because I was not completely confident that I knew how to get to the camp from the other direction. But one more glance at the never ending line of brake lights and I made a hard right to get the hell off of that road.

At first Hayden was asking questions but didn't seem bothered by the change in route. Then I made a wrong turn, and another, so by the second wrong turn he was clearly frustrated & screaming at me to go down the road we just turned off of.

He also listened as I tried calling my husband twice before the two wrong turns, and I wasn't able to get him on the phone, so that may have contributed to Hayden's anxiousness.

We finally passed a landmark which confirmed we were definitely on the correct road. The detour probably took us about ten minutes out of the way, but I am not convinced we would have made it to camp any sooner if we sat in that caravan of cars. From an anxiety standpoint, that would have been intolerable for Hayden, anyway.

He was a little bit "off" still when we got to camp, but luckily some buses pulled up and that distracted him long enough for me to leave.

When I picked him up from camp, they said he had a great afternoon but it was a difficult start to the day. He ended up missing morning swim which is one of his favorite activities, but their repeated efforts to get him changed and in the water fell flat. Today happened to be camp t-shirt day, so I was wondering if that threw him off-- because typically he would arrive at camp in his swim gear but today was different because he wore his camp T. Who knows.

Shortly after we got home, it was time for the behaviorist to arrive. Today she had the lovely occupational privilege of witnessing the motherload of all meltdowns.

I am trying to remember what the antecedents were, and I know it included (1) trying to correct his insanely loud hammering because we could not hear each other speak and (2) trying to encourage him to sit and eat his snack instead of bouncing around the living room with crackers falling everywhere.

Following non-compliance with both, that is what prompted me to turn the television off. His yelling then turned into a physical disaster of sorts. Switch on.

I know his armchair was overturned, his snack table was pulled away from the wall and all four chairs thrown about, the contents of his kitchen and his toolbox were scattered far and wide, the couch cushions were of course on the floor, his grill set was disassembled, and there was a mine field of wooden blocks and cars.

He just kept unleashing his wrath until everything was everywhere.

Finally he worked his way back over to the couch, where I attempted to keep him confined to the corner between both sides of the sectional.

I was getting kicked, slapped, scratched, shoved, whacked, teethed, spit on... and screamed at. The behaviorist was in the doorway on the other side of the room, and at one point I heard her say, "You're doing great, Mom."

I was only thankful that my back was to her because after several minutes I could no longer coach myself out of being upset.

Suddenly Hayden stopped. Apparently a neighbor had powered up their leaf blower, and with that Hayden sat up on his knees to look out the front window. Switch off.

I spent the next five or so minutes crawling around the living room to put it somewhat back together again. Eventually the behaviorist was able to prompt him to clean up one thing, and he put the blocks back in the their blue bin. Even after the ten minutes it took me to turn the damn television back on between our two broken remote controls, I finally got his show going again and he was essentially fine. He sat at his snack table and ate his crackers.

For the second time today, traffic slowed to a complete halt.