Well tonight my boy is certainly not a happy one. Yesterday while watching balloon videos on you tube, he decided he wanted some giant balloons. I would just like to point out that every time we go out we have to buy a packet of balloons and he now has a huge box underneath his bed, of every balloon you can imagine. Not forgetting the 6 foot balloon I got him for Christmas which cost forty quid. Seriously I have sold toys to accommodate balloons but still , he fixates and that’s it, we had to have these balloons today. Not tomorrow , today. Well I ordered these balloons yesterday on my mobile while he watched me, and was promised , next day delivery, today.
I have been working all day today and the only way I could bribe , sorry soothe, him into letting me work,( he hates me working) was with the guarantee that his balloons would be here today. Well **** you Amazon Prime, I mean thankyou Amazon Prime, they were not here when I arrived home and what was waiting for me when I returned home was just slightly more tolerable than Japanese water torture. Three continuous hours of ” where are my balloons?”, “I hate you mummy”, “go away mummy” , “don’t kiss me mummy”, “I will hit the postman mummy ” , combined with a little shove here and there and an attempt at a Chinese burn.
The thing about autistic children and perhaps adults, is that they are able to mask their true feelings, and then when they feel safe, with the safe person, they unleash and show their true emotions. Its quite common for children with autism to hide how they really feel when they are at school but then have complete meltdowns when at home with their safe person, this could be mum or dad but I suspect its mostly mum. One thing that irritates me is when people state, “well they cannot be autistic as they know how to behave when they need to”. No, that does not mean they are not autistic, it means that they can mask their emotions.
Anyway, this is what happened today with Balloon boy. He managed to hide his frustration all day until now. I am mentally exhausted. I mean he didn’t just have a temper tantrum, he was completely inconsolable. I knew it was due to his autism and not him being a little shit, as he was so upset and sobbing , like we would if our pet hamster had died or something. I could see how distressed he was and I hated to see him like this. To him it felt like the end of the world and I could really feel his pain. He was expecting to come home from school to giant balloons and that didn’t happen so he could not cope. I dealt with this by giving him lots of cuddles and empathising with him. I also pretended to call amazon which seemed to work. I told him they were nearly at our house. I find that in these situations, giving cuddles works best. If I shout or get angry, he will just shout back at me.
I thought I had managed to soothe him as while I was cooking dinner he went quiet , watched some TV then announced to me that he had farted, so I thought he must be ok now, but I was wrong. We just sat down to our cauliflower cheese when a white van pulled up outside, well we were both hopping around so happy and excited, I mean both of us. I opened the door and the man said “delivery for number 9? ” we live at number 10 so I knew I was dead ! . “Are you from amazon ?” I asked “no, yodel” was the response. Oh fuck !
After more tears , sobbing and throwing cushions around and me pretending to call the delivery driver, his balloons finally arrived. Not before he asked me several times why his balloons had not arrived, reaching the end of my tether “because life’s a bitch” I muttered under my breath, to which he replied “why you saying bitch?” Oh no, I have done it again. He did somehow manage to still eat his dinner, I find food is an excellent decoy in these situations. At last my boy was happy and so was I. He ran up to me, gave me a big hug and told me he loved me, he was sorry and I was his princess. My loving and affectionate little boy had returned. The balloons, well they have been placed in his box underneath his bed with all the other ones. Huge shout out to the amazon delivery driver who made it by the skin of his teeth. 🎈🎈
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