Holding Together

Yes, we made it through Spring Break. Hooray, hooray, a whole week without schedule, and we survived. The boys returned triumphant to school. Joey actually did pretty well, the first few days of break (with the zoo, etc) were fine. We started having the breakdown Friday, and Monday morning, we were all ready to get back to routines.

On Monday, I got stellar reports about both boys from their teachers. Joey had a great day. Andy had a great day. Everybody was great. Wow, great, wonderful.

So who stole those children and put these two wild things in my house? The Witching Hour on Monday? Holy Hannah. And today? I think Andy bounced in constant motion from the minute he woke up until the minute he passed out in bed. At Grandma's, he pulled out the floor cushions and the couch cushions and made a circuit of bouncy spots to walk over- a little circuit he walked the whole time I was at work, apparently. Even strapping him into the carseat did nothing for keeping him still. His little bottom bounced and wiggled all the way to Grandma's and back. We went to the park and bounced there. We picked up Joey, and another great, wonderful day at school meant another bouncing child in my car. They bounced into speech therapy. Andy ran around outside while Joey worked. Then we bounced home (very loudly, I may add.) Then they bounced all the way to Andy's art show, bounced back out to Grandma's (so we could give her Andy's T-Rex sculpture as a gift, since she's been taking care of him while I've been teaching), and bounced at Grandma's before bouncing, wiggling, and shrieking all the way home. Can we bottle this stuff?

Lest we mistake this constant motion for normal four-year-old-ness, Andy's OT gave me a letter to send in to his school. She listed a number of strategies for meeting his sensory needs in the classroom. I now am supposed to call the school and set up another meeting about looking this over and seeing what we need to do now (since the ChildFind screening committee decided he doesn't qualify for special ed). Vestibular breaks. Transitioning strategies. Visual cues. In some ways, it just looks like good classroom management to me, but then i realize that most kids don't need these things to get through a day. They can have lunch in the cafeteria without having a breakdown (or a meltdown) for twenty minutes afterwards.

Monday was rainy. The school Andy goes to has an "open floor" plan- ie, the classroom walls only go halfway, so the cacophony of seven classes echoes throughout the day. It must drive Andy crazy. Regularly, he would get a break from the noise when the class went outside to play- but with the rain, there was no break. No wonder the poor little guy was grumpy. He holds it together long enough to get through school, and then he's had it. As we emerge from teh change of season for Joey, we have some of the same thing- he is now at least able to hold himself together to get through school, but its exhausting. He comes home and is done. So he and Andy go picnicking on each other. The Witching Hour begins.