What a long Saturday…mostly because it was a long week followed by a long over night where Bradley rarely slept and that made for a long night and a longer Saturday. Eric is having some really painful back spasms, so Bradley has had to snuggle up with mom at night and not dad, which I don’t think he actually minds, but it is a change in his routine. In a way it’s good, not that Eric is in so much pain - but it is helping Bradley to adjust to a new routine so that even when he returns to his daddy snuggles at bedtime, he can rouse enough to walk to his bed like he does for momma. I mean, he may be stuck at 62lbs…but I am not trying to work at UPS - I don’t need to be lifting that much weight (especially since my knee can’t really handle it).
Our plan was to head up to Cal Lutheran tonight and watch the volleyball game. Sydney is doing an official NCAA visit there in a couple weeks, so we were curious about giving her a chance to watch the team dynamic and see if it might be an appealing place for her to go to school and potentially play volleyball there. Bradley has been overly tired and easily overwhelmed today, so we were going to let him stay home with Madison and just play with her, maybe go get ice cream with her or something…that was the plan anyway.
Bradley really loves Dad’s truck. But Dad’s truck was recently in the shop for a week and so Bradley’s car seat is not in there - so it is not an easy thing to take Bradley for a quick ride, besides…it’s not really a quick ride he wants - he never really wants to get out of the truck once he’s on his way.
So we told him he could go with Madison for ice cream, but she was nowhere near ready and he was very ready. At that point, the delay was the very straw that broke the camel’s back and Bradley just lost it. So many tears - so completely crushed. At that moment, I knew - we were changing our plans completely. Instead, we stayed home with both girls and Bradley. Once I got him calm, we went in to eat some tortilla chips with five layer bean dip - which he was thrilled by, so brand new to him. But I think the bigger thing was having a few minutes with the family together, something that has been lacking over the last few days. Madison was at Horror Nights at Six Flags all day and night yesterday, and then after school Sydney had practice and then she and our sweet friend went to a fun Halloween Carnival type place for the evening…so Bradley was kind of stuck with me as Dad was medicated for his back and sleeping.
You don’t always know what Bradley is wanting or needing, when he is calm he can usually work through it with you and if he can’t verbalize or show you physically - we can rely on his Speech device. When he suddenly gets super agitated, we usually know why - but we just can’t always figure out how to help him calm down or offer him another choice that is just as appealing. So I go with the basics. My voice gets calmer and lower, he gets his weighted blanket across his lap and I keep his hands from hitting or his head from trying to make contact with someone or something. Maybe you could call it damage control.
At some point, I was beside him quietly waiting him out a he calmed down. And once he transitioned from angry to sad, his little whimpers eased too and then he settled and we returned his movie until he was ready to go to the kitchen and get something to eat. As Sydney sat across from me with Bradley between us, I apologized for the upheaval in our plans. Her plans were not originally with us, but her friend had to change her plans, so we made a new plan…but now that was changed as well. But she just shrugged and smiled and told me that she thought that Bradley just needed us all home together today.
I guess when it comes down to it; Ferris Bueller, continues to be as wise as he seemed to be to me thirty years ago when I first watched that movie - to paraphrase…life moves pretty fast, sometimes you have to slow it down. So today, we slowed it down for Bradley. Did we all benefit from that? Yeah, I think we really did. Is that the way we want to do it? Nah, it can be frustrating to readjust our plans and be cool with a whole new plan after taking the time to get ready to leave the house. But we have learned over the years that there are times where Bradley is at the end of his patience and at the end of his endurance…and though sometimes I see it in his eyes early; not always.
After the meltdown, it was a bath to continue the calming, then jammies and then I let Bradley lay in his bed for a bit. I think that he almost put himself to sleep, but then got super squirrelly in there to keep himself awake - so I went to get him and he came out to the living room with me. Headgear, CPAP machine and weighted blanket and he was out within five minutes. Settled him into a deeper sleep, then walked him to bed, bought his machine in and so far - still asleep and still attached to the CPAP… so a very easy bedtime after a struggle of an early evening.
I think the plan for tomorrow is a truck ride after we get the car seat back in. Maybe a great day to go play in the sand at the beach, let him watch the water and then maybe a fun lunch or something. Life last week was way too full and way to busy for Bradley to come through it without needing some TLC and some downtime with all his people settled around him. He handles things in such amazing ways with so much patience and resilience…sometimes we forget that life can be really overwhelming to him.
We got you buddy, lesson learned again.
31For21 Blog Challenge for Down Syndrome Awareness and Acceptance. His is a life worth living, his is a love you’re Blessed with having, and his needs are so small they can be missed until he lets us know there is a gap - then we reassess and correct the sails to fill the gaps.
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