Therapeutic Who?

Part of the frustration of therapeutic parenting is that so many people just don’t get it. They fail to see that the child’s behaviors are not normal and when they turn the charm on around strangers, the “ohh and ahh” at how friendly and adorable they are begin. The child’s special needs are not visible to the world making it all the more easy to write off those behaviors. I am loving this blog post. How true this is and how much is sounds like our K. http://therapeuticmoments.blogspot.com/2011/04/there-is-nothing-wrong-with-that-child.html. We were at a graduation party last weekend and had not been at a social occasion with our little girl in that type of setting for months. It was agonizing to watch and in the end, we ended up excusing ourselves and heading back to the hotel. I would compare it to watching a train wreck, with me, glued to a lawn chair trying to figure out my next move, but too awestruck with the wreckage that happening in front of me to get off the chair and do something about it and at the time, not knowing what to do. In my mind, all the while, playing back the past months and how we could have progressed so little. As the week rolled on, I thought we were making headway back onto the right path, theraplay on Friday morning with some one on one time and nail polish, then the wreckage….. everything fell apart again at the doctor’s office when I came face to face with not 1 but 2 disregulated 4 yr olds that I might have had a fighting chance with some time-ins had I been able to instantly clone myself right there in the waiting room, but alas, the fiasco ended with 2 raging kids strapped in their car seats and still somehow managing to pinch, scratch and beat the tar out of eachother even though they were barely within eachother’s reach and me crying to T on the phone and trying to figure out how we were all going to limp back home in one piece. The Friday from Hell is an understatement as that was just the begininng. Time-in’s, lost privileges, therapeutic everything, you name it, I tried it, and collapsed on the couch at 10:00 that night only to find out the cat had barfed all over the living room. Saturday was a new day and we all needed some repair time which included the park, hours in the kiddie pool with the kids yelling “I LOVE MY FAMILY” before going down the slide, two picnics and a birthday party (another social situation…). And the clouds parted and the birds sang “Hallelujah!” K hung by me at the party, asked me for food and drinks and wanted ME to hold her not some random stranger (note picture...smiling K looking at me and not interested in random strangers in background!) (Insert shock and awe here). Now I can’t say it was not more exhaustion than attachment, but hey, after this past week, it is the little victories I am hanging onto to charge head on into this week.