Here's the oops story

So, it was day four yesterday of our air tight bubble. Things were improving a little bit everyday with Ty. He wasn't demonstrating such aggressive behaviors. He wasn't so difficult to manage. He even had a few periods of good engagement time. He was wanting to participate in an activity with me. He was calmer, more organized (at least compared to the previous days), and just slowly as we say recovering from this 15 days of hell. It's going good- I even offer to go walk to our local market to pick up dinner. A place that we all have a favorite, so it's perfect. Ty's first choice was sushi (aka rice and seaweed roll with avocado and celery). But being a friday night I knew there was a chance they would be out- So I asked him what his second choice would be in case they didn't have his first choice. This sometimes alone can cause major problems. But even this day four, he demonstrated flexibility and gave his second choice of a smoothie. Great- okay I'm off! I get there and check the sushi counter and as I suspected they were out. Then I got focused on the other things to get. Plus I thought added bonus mom is bringing home dessert. Yeah, this will be a nice family night- after a long couple of hell weeks- things are looking a little brighter again- we haven't left our bubble now for four days. Not one step, except playing in the front yard. I get everyone's choices. I get gluten free bread because I do remember talking about sandwiches and Sarah agreed and in my mind so did Ty. Hmmm And I got ice cream!! This is going to be great. Here's a cheers to my family. I walk home with my groceries. I walk in the door and I'm excited to tell everyone I got dessert- yeah!!! Everyone asks what they got and I simply remind Ty that in deed they were out of sushi so he and Sarah will have sandwiches- He loves when daddy makes him a triple decker turkey sandwich. And then my oops. Oh boy my oooops!!!! Now I'm a mom. I'm a wife. I'm human- and first to admit I make mistakes. I forget things a lot, I mess up. Who doesn't, right? Well, this is a glimpse into my wild world. A good day, things improving. Lots of laughing and smiles. And then Ty yells "where's my smoothie???" "I wanted a smoothie!" Oh boy, it's starting. His over reaction to a pretty small event. But in his mind, there are no small events. Everything is a major catastrophe. Everything causes an eruption of yelling, screaming, behaviors, throwing. It could be small like I gave him the wrong spoon. (yes spoons can be an issue:( ) Or it could be a major issue. But when everything is a big deal and big major behavior problem, it all blends together. Yes, I forgot his second choice was a smoothie. I know, bad mommy! But I got dessert. Daddy will make you a triple decker sandwich like you love. But nope- never enough. I would have actually gone back to the store to get his smoothie- had he not started in immediately with such an over reaction. So there is no way I can reward this behavior by actually getting the smoothie now. He blew it at this point. He not only was screaming at me, but throwing objects. I know he was disappointed. I know he was feeling frustrated. I know he was not sure how to handle the emotions he was experiencing- let down, disappointment, something different, probably anger too. But as we consistently remind him- it's never okay to hurt someone, or throw things, destroy property. I'll sometimes accept the yelling and screaming, because if that's the only behavior- hey, he's not hitting- he's using his words. People who live in an Autism world that has behaviors like this- probably understand what I"m talking about. We are always asking him to use his words. It's okay to feel frustrated and mad. It's not okay to hit, kick and other behaviors. And yes, I made a mistake- an oops! I forgot he wanted a smoothie. But does it have to ruin the entire evening? Ruin the good run we've been having? Ruin our nice day that up until I made this "mistake" was going so well? Damn- I screwed up. But geez, imagine parenting where you are not allowed to make a mistake. Not allowed to be human. Not allowed to accidentally disappoint your child. Forget the times you just disappoint them because they are kids and you are the parent. This is how we have to operate. Knowing when we screw up, as we do- really what parent doesn't screw up, but this is always the response from one of your kids. These complete and utter world crashing on his shoulders because we made an honest mistake. It's not easy. It's frustrating. It's tiring. It's sad. It's stressful knowing I"m the reason that this behavior is occurring now. Had I remembered the darn smoothie- things would be fine. We would have continued the day with smiles and laughter. But I forgot the smoothie- so it wasn't. It ended with frustration, with yelling, with stress, with very difficult to control behaviors. Difficult to control since he was out of control, and for us to try to gain control of him so none of us were hurt or property destroyed. Yep, all over a smoothie forgotten. This is the life we live everyday. Not allowed to be human and make an oops. Or if we do, there are consequences beyond what most people would ever ever understand. But tomorrow will be another day. (or it's today, and yes he was up at 5:00am, feeling disappointed about some TV show or something- I don't know, I was asleep and can't remember what he was really saying. ). And it's continued to be a little bit of a roller coaster ride of emotions today. It's Saturday- the schedule is different, it doesn't matter to him that it's a weekend. That only means things are different. So it's a bit harder for him- we're all home. Not the same routine. It's different. So we'll ride the weekend, get through- lots of divide and conquer as we call it. And know tomorrow is another day. And will probably have it's own oops moment- what family doesn't have regular oops moments?