I quit!

I've got to just tell the story of today (sometimes they are in both places as well) I'm going to tell a quick story about why I threatened to quit being a parent for the first time in a long time. Ok, I wouldn't really quit but sometimes thinking I could quit my job of being a stay-at-home mom of a special needs child helps me get through the day so don't judge please.

After getting Eden off the bus today we hung out for a while before we needed to head to the middle school to pick the older girls up from school. We had no problems getting in the car and when we got there I took her inside with me to wait for the girls. Not a big deal right?

We were waiting in the office with a couple of other parents and Eden saw another student she had seen with her sisters that lived in our neighborhood. She jumped up and ran trying to get out of the office to follow him and I quickly tried to stop her. I knew that stopping her would be trouble but I have about a half a second to make that decision or I won't be able to catch her. When I did stop her she started to physically fight with me to get away so she could leave the room and in that process she hit me a few times. Once I got her to stop wanting and fighting to leave the room and chase this random poor teenage boy down the hall; I had the awkward job of waiting for 10 minutes in the quiet trying to keep her calm while trying to avoid the stares of the other parents and office staff. That would have been alright but it just got worse.

As we were heading to the car, of course it was the same time as the buses were being loaded..oh joy this should be fun. I asked Eden to hold my hand, she refused, our next step is I offer to hold her forearm, she refused that as well. The next step  is to stop, and this is for a few reasons usually when this happens we are getting ready to cross the street, walking in a store, or in a busy crowd so it's a safety issue and this wasn't any different. The only thing I could picture was her trying to jump on one of those buses, plowing into random kids trying to run away and the older girls just dying with embarrassment because all this is happening in front of their friends. It took me about 3 seconds to figure out she wasn't going to let me help lead her through the crowd and given the weekend we've had (I'll have to tell you about that one in another post) I didn't trust her to just walk with me.

So, there I was in the midst of teenagers, teachers, my older girls and a almost 7 year old on the verge of a full out meltdown. The older girls know their job, they are so wonderful about that. Stay with me, and catch her if she runs because mom can't run as fast as she can. This is the point where I fall back to the behavioral training, it makes it safer for me, her and everyone around her. So, I start leading her down the walk way and she looses it. She is full on hitting me, trying to run from me, and screaming.

And like a pro I didn't break stride, stop her moving forward and did my best keeping her from actually hurting me. There was a little positive in the 20 minutes of picking the girls up. I even saw a teacher who was on bus duty completely do the right thing but ignoring the situation. I did apologize because I was slightly embarrassed at the situation. She told me that everything was fine and it was no problem at all.

The rest of the evening went on like it always does and she had a few more incidents but nothing as bad as at the school incident. I'm tired and it's not looking like things are going to get easier for the time being. I'll survive like I always do and once it's finished I'll have the less aggressive, friendly, Eden.