October 29, 2022
In my attempt to continue to help Bradley keep enjoying and being excited about Halloween, I put him in his clean Shaggy costume today (I got up early with him so I could wash his costume). Clean costume, Scooby by his side, and of course his new little pumpkin in his lap - we headed out hoping Bradley would love this day. Before we left the house, he was pretty happy. In fact, Sydney got these two shots of him with his pumpkin before we left for the day.
So today, the shops in Old Town were participating in a trick or treat event where the kids were able to collect candy from the shop owners. I think part of this is to get kids to stop trick or treating on Halloween, but that might just be my cynical side showing. Given the day - I guess it makes sense.
So we put Scooby in Bradley’s little backpack and he carried Scooby around in it as we walked down the street. It was a little warm, and really bright. My boy decided that he wanted to become extremely shy and every time we asked him to practice saying: “Trick or Treat” we barely got a murmur and then his usual thank you’s were barely audible. He did pretty well until the point we passed a music store that was cranking their tunes, it was a little loud for him. But then we passed a restaurant that had a very kickin’ DJ and then the next had a live band. It was just a whole lot of noise and I believe that it was just a little more than our sweet boy could handle.
He only tried one more trick or treat attempt and then he was cranky and very insistent that someone pick him up. His 68lbs is more than I can do for long and with Eric’s heart, way more than he should do. So we made the cranky boy walk back to daddy’s truck and didn’t try to trick or treat anymore. We think maybe the lack of doors to knock on, the light outside, all the differences from actual trick or treating, were all contributors for the things that threw him off. I guess Monday night we’ll see if he takes to trick or treating or not.
Anyway, home we came. He wasn’t interested in taking his costume off but was happy to sit on the couch and watch his movie and play with his dominoes. Until he suddenly wasn’t. He was sitting there and suddenly started crying. Maybe he was getting upset because he got a video with fighting come up that may or may not have been part of the issue…what is positive about this moment, when I told Bradley to come see me, he actually got up and walked over to me and climbed into my lap. He usually won’t move, he’ll come with me if I go get him and bring him over to sit with me, but this was the first time that he walked over and climbed into me lap. Snuggled in, head on my shoulder, he cried a bit more and then settled his head on my shoulder. He spent a good half hour in my lap and when he wanted up I helped him up and he walked back to his seat and his movie. Within a few minutes, he was giggling and laughing at his movie. So whatever it was, he was back to himself and happy again. Good grief!!
I thought it was just Eric and I disappointed by the outing - but in his own way - Bradley must have been as well. Luckily, he is incredibly resilient.
As one last treat for the evening, my Facebook memories popped up with a memory from the very first time that Bradley went to a Pumpkin Patch. Look at these little faces! Oct 29, 2012 - ten years ago today…my babies were still just babies at: 10, 8 and 2.
31For21 Blog Challenge for Down Syndrome Awareness and Acceptance - Not the Best Day for Shaggy
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