Mommy meltdown

B had a decently good day yesterday. This was his schedule: awake at 6:30 (unusually early for him), therapy from 8-11, 11:30 - 3, 3-6:30 and therapy/training with Dad from 6-7. He was cruising along pretty well with minimal complaints. Around 4:30, he came over to me and wanted to be picked up. He was on a short break with his therapist and I was in the middle of going over some paperwork with our soon-to-be PCA. I couldn't quite tell what he wanted so I put him in his bed which usually is good chill time for him. A minute later, I checked on him and he was asleep SITTING UP in his crib. Poor little dude just couldn't stay awake any longer. He slept for an hour amongst a LOT of loud activity in the house, with an open door. And when he woke up, let's just say he was cranky.  At that point, it was past his dinner time, he was totally thrown off from a schedule standpoint and there were 2 therapists, 2 grandparents, 2 parents and a big brother all in his house. I could keep him calm by rocking and singing but when I tried to get him to do anything like eating, he just couldn't get it together. I tried a quick walk around the block but he was devastated when it was over. When he finally sat at the table to eat yogurt (a favorite), the grandparents, big brother and I took our dinner and went down to the basement for a very bizarre picnic of sorts. Shortly thereafter is when I lost it. I could hear him crying and just so upset and I knew he just wanted to be done. When either of my kids have done the late nap thing, we've generally kept it very low-key until they are ready to re-enter the land of the living. He wasn't being given that option. And for the first time, it just felt mean. We're doing a lot of tough love around here. It's not easy but it's easy to see how it is what is best for him in the long run. And that's enough to keep going. But last night was too much. I'm not sure you could find any kid (autism or not) who could just roll with that situation. I cried while he cried and I have never been so happy to see a session end. And they did end a little early. I was able to scoop him up once he'd had a short period of calm.

To our team's credit, they immediately proactively came up with a plan to address this. We're going to try really hard to give him a nap twice a week AND give him mom time after rather than launching him right into therapy. We'll see how it goes. Now, even more so, I have no doubt that this is the right therapy for him and that we have the right team. Add to that a supportive, wonderful hubby and family and we'll get through this... hopefully with fewer meltdowns all around.

We also had our weekly review meeting this morning. It's hard to assess how everything is going while it's happening so I very much appreciate the extreme quantity and quality of data we get. He had a phenomenal week. FIFTY ONE total hours of therapy (this includes mom/dad time), 92% success on his objectives, an increase in his rate of acquisition of new skills from 4.3 to 5.5 and a whole lot of really positive numbers but I will try not to bore with the details. The sum of it is - he's getting it. We're even introducing a vocal objective this week.