Blink and I (and by association, his little sister) have had some rough mornings lately. Like the day I had to essentially drag him to his sister's school while he screamed, "Help! Let me go!" That was bad news.
So I've been doing a lot of thinking on how to make the morning go more smoothly. I have started waking him earlier so that he has more time to move slower than molasses. I made a new morning schedule. And I am trying to make this my mantra: It's ok if we're late.
Things have gone better since I instituted these changes, but I still find myself holding my breath each morning. Is it going to be one of those mornings?
Today started out uneventfully. We walked his sister to school and then walked to his school, as always. I let him hold the umbrella. He was fairly cheerful until we walked inside and I could feel his mood starting to teeter. Just as I was about to say goodbye to him, he realized he did not have his half-finished comic book. Apparently he wanted to share it, which I did not know. The truth is, it could have been anything that he suddenly decided he absolutely positively needed at this very moment.
Blink screamed. He started breathing all funny — it sounds like he's hyperventilating, like he is terrified, completely out of proportion to the situation. He screamed some more. I told him it was "toooooo big" of a reaction, which was completely ineffectual. I told him we could problem solve if he stayed calm. He wanted me to go back home to get it. I could have. But I said no. I feel a little guilty about this, even though I know that it's not really about the object he forgot. Rather, it's that he was anxious or otherwise disregulated and he went to his default regulation strategy: angry outburst.
Oh, Blink. If only we could move past this response, all of our lives would be so much easier. I'm so tired. A month ago, you were doing so. well. What happened?
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