In an effort to keep J
entertained this half-term (and therefore make half-term less stressful for all
involved) I decided the best option was to keep him busy, so I decided we'd go to my parents.
He broke up from school on the Wednesday, and while he was at school I packed our things and got the car ready
for a long journey. After collecting him from school, he got changed and we got
in the car. Having done the trip many times before, I prepare thoroughly – he
had a small lunch bag containing various Tupperware boxes with nibbles for the
journey and two bottles of drink (I also take an empty bottle with me in case
of emergencies!) He had his backpack containing his (fully charged) Leappad, a
notebook and pencil case, a couple of toy cars and some Lego pieces. I picked
up a very handy car organiser in Aldi a couple of weeks ago for £5 and in this
I put other small bits and pieces which would help keep him entertained. For
me, up front in the drivers seat for 113 miles, I had a thermos travel mug of
coffee and a bottle of strawberry water along with a packet of sugar free
mints. We got in the car and set off for the journey.
J is very good at car journeys –
he always has been, right from when he was tiny. His first ever car journey was
home from the hospital like most babies – it takes about 40 mins and he slept
the whole way in his CabrioFix carseat. We travel this particular journey a few
times a year, normally just J and I, and we stay with my parents for a few
nights and visit family and friends we don’t often get to see.
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| The Queen Elizabeth II bridge - Image by |
Our journey is by default 2 hours
door to door, however there is normally some kind of hold up on the way making
it longer. On the way there we encountered a silly man who failed to realise
the person in front had braked by the toll booths at the Dartford crossing on
the M25. Police were on scene but the two damaged vehicles, plus police cars,
made a bottle neck style squeeze right before the toll booths to get off the
Queen Elizabeth bridge which delayed us by about 40 minutes. J was brilliant
the whole time, chattering away to his invisible friends (there are many – it
varies who he has with him, but at that point it was constantly Emmett and Lucy
from The Lego Movie) He was building with his Lego and pretending they were
helping him, I had Radio 1 on the car radio and it was all very civilised and
relaxed despite the hold ups. We arrived at mums later than planned, but it
wasn’t a big deal and we ate dinner as soon as we arrived then J went to bed.
Our first full day there was
Thursday, and I had to work – Once mum had been to the dentists and come home
again, I disappeared upstairs to work in the loft room (my old bedroom – it’s
always very surreal sitting there working) Mum kept J entertained and they had
a great time. The following day I came downstairs for lunch and J played up as
soon as I appeared – once I went back upstairs again he was fine. It’s weird
how he gets like that when there’s more than one person about.
On Saturday we piled into the car
with my dad, and we drove another few miles to visit my brother, his wife and
their daughter. J is obsessed with his cousin R – he loves visiting them all,
and when we’re there he wants to cuddle and kiss her all the time. The trouble
is, R is not a particularly tactile little lady – yet – she’s only six months
old and she’s unsure of us because she doesn’t see us very often, so she tends
to be worried about J’s constant affection and seeking the reassurance of her
mum and dad. Since J does get himself so over excited about visiting them he
does tend to go off on the deep end a bit – he starts running around, getting
louder and louder, and sillier and sillier. After some work checks I suggested
we all went for a walk, so we got R in the pushchair and went out. J held onto
the pushchair nicely and we went to see the planes nearby, but on the way home
he started getting silly and didn’t want to hold hands to walk nicely. His
Uncle J and myself ended up grabbing a hand each and almost dragging him along
as he screamed about wanting to hold the pushchair again – we explained if he
wanted to, he’d have to walk holding hands til we caught up with his Auntie E
and the pushchair, but he continued screaming and struggling the whole way. By
this point my dad was beginning to understand the difficulties I have with J as
he’d never really witnessed much before and it’s difficult to explain to people
in a way that they realise when you say you can’t do something it isn’t for
lack of trying. J held onto the pushchair and walked nicely again. Then, for
reasons best known to himself, he let go, and he raced off down the road.
The road is very quiet, but it’s
a turning off a busy, fast road and while the chances of him coming to any harm
in their road are remote, if he’d got as far as the main road and tripped over
into it or raced out to cross it in his silly mood, it could have been
disastrous. Fortunately my brother can shift when he puts his mind to it and he
stopped J getting any further, then held his hand back to their house. Once
there, J and I went into the back garden so he could carry on running around
without causing damage to their home – for a while we had a great time.
One thing about J is that even if
he’s boiling hot and red faced with sweat pouring off him, he won’t think to
take his sweater off or pause for a drink and catch his breath, he’ll keep
going. So as he started getting hotter and sweatier, Auntie E asked him to stop and
take his sweater off and have a drink. He wanted to have a drink first, and
went indoors for it. He then came to the backdoor with a mouthful of squash and
spat it out onto the patio.
I was so upset. We’d had a big
chat just a couple of days before travelling to mums house about him spitting.
It certainly isn’t a habit he’s picked up from myself or Daddy P – I think it’s
absolutely disgusting and I’ve been known to tell off friends of mine for doing
it! There’s no reason for spitting and yet J for some reason has always gone
through phases of doing it. (Last time was when he was about 3 and he would
hang over the edge of the sofa in the front room and spit onto the floor,
saying he couldn’t swallow the spit in his mouth because swallowing meant going
uphill due to the position he was in) My brother told him off for spitting and
asked him why he’d done it. At this point, J had a meltdown.
Whether it was because it was so
unexpected having my brother tell him off, whether it was because he realised
that Uncle J is a force to be reckoned with (he’s a mild mannered, laid back
character, but he is a stubborn and strong willed man too) whether it was
because he realised as soon as he’d done it what a big mistake it was and felt
silly, I don’t know, but J literally went off on one. There were tears,
screams, he was struggling to get away from Uncle J’s grip, kicking out at him,
yelling, he was asking me to help him because he didn’t want Uncle J to have
him, all sorts. Uncle J was calm and firm, kept repeating himself to J “Why did
you spit? Tell me why and I’ll let you go” for ages all J kept doing was
screaming no and mummy help and it took a long time to realise that wasn’t
getting him anywhere so he eventually gave Uncle J a reason – that he’d taken
too big a mouthful of squash. They had a chat about taking smaller sips of squash
and not spitting.
The meltdown was a fairly
impressive one, considering he’s never done it in front of J and E / at their
house before. Usually his really spectacular behaviour is reserved for myself
and Daddy P, sometimes in front of my parents and rarely in front of Grandma
and Grandad P. I was really impressed with the way my brother reacted – he kept
calm, he got down on the same level as J, he spoke calmly and firmly and
repeated himself and provided reasoning and everything that you’re meant to do
but which sometimes, when it’s the fifth or sixth time that day and I didn’t
sleep too well the night before, the things I find so difficult to do. My dad
started to get really concerned with the degree of meltdown after the calm-down
time and the conversation, and then without warning J suddenly revved up again
and was yelling and screaming. My brother wanted to explain to him why we
didn’t spit (us civilised, well mannered human beings in developed countries)
and J was done listening. This meltdown I was the one trying to hold onto him
as he went beserk. He landed several punches, kicked me in the stomach (I was
sat on the floor trying to wrap my arms and legs around him to stop him running
off or hurting himself and he managed to get me several times and with a lot of
force) He started pulling my hair to get me closer to him and smack me round
the face or headbutt me. He grabbed my jumper and pulled at it to expose the
skin on my neck and shoulder and then grabbed it with his hand and dug in his
nails. At one point I tried to wrap my arm around him and control him and he
grabbed two fingers of my right hand and bent them in opposite directions as he
squealed in my ear. His transformation from Jekyll into Hyde was complete, and
all in front of his Uncle J, who continued dealing remarkably well, but who was
obviously surprised by this behaviour.
In total, not including the five
minute breather after the incident and before part 2 of the meltdown, J was
screaming / yelling for two hours. It started around three, just as his cousin
R went up for her nap – it didn’t finish until twenty past five, when I said to
him he’d wasted our time there and it was time to pack up and go. He was upset
and started getting worked up about that – I told him if he hadn’t wasted all
our time being silly and having a tantrum he could have done much more playing
with Lego with Uncle J, more reading 10 Little Fishes with Auntie E, more
watching In The Night Garden with cousin R. I eventually had to carry him,
still screaming and yelling and kicking and hitting at me, to the car and put
him into the carseat then wrestle the seatbelt around him. He continued for a
short time but soon realised he was getting no further reaction from me or my
dad, and he calmed down. Back at their house, he kicked up a fuss about dinner
and refused to eat, so he ended up going to bed with hardly any dinner but he
was so exhausted by that point after such a stressful day that he fell asleep
exhausted relatively early. My dad couldn't believe it – he was in total shock
about the behaviour. (More about that in a later post) I may have gone to the
supermarket once he was asleep (with mum and dad at home with him, obvs) and
got a bottle of vodka and I may have got a little drunk that night. It wasn’t a
successful day – and more than a little challenging.
Sunday I woke feeling
apprehensive. After the meltdown of the previous afternoon I wasn't sure how J
was going to behave and I wasn't sure if he would still be in the frame of mind
where he wanted to go home. I needn't have worried – he’d slept well and woken
up in a good mood and gone downstairs with my mum. He didn't mention coming
home again, and we had a lovely day. On Monday I worked in the loft room again
– mum’s sister, my Aunt M, came round and spent the morning with mum and J.
Once again at lunchtime I went downstairs and J immediately started acting up –
Aunt M had to leave, J continued to tantrum throughout lunch so eventually mum
left me with J. One thing we've found when J starts acting up is that it’s made
worse by having more than one person there. If you’re left with him to get on,
chances are he’ll come down and it’ll be fine pretty soon. Sure enough it
worked and soon we swapped, so I could go back upstairs and carry on working
and mum spent the afternoon with J.
On Tuesday I was off work but mum
and dad both went to work. J and I had a lovely morning – we did some crafting
(we made a book!) and we watched some Thomas and some Scooby Do. At lunchtime
we were treated to a visit from an old friend of mine. A is not a parent, but
she adores Star Wars and Lego and her and J are good friends. We spent a
wonderful afternoon with her and then J had an early bath and was ready for bed
by the time my mum got home from work – I headed out for the evening, leaving
mum to babysit. Mum reported that he was absolutely fine and went to bed with
no arguments *relief*
We made our return journey on
Wednesday. Again I loaded the car carefully to make sure J was well entertained
for the duration. Once more the Dartford crossing was stuffed and added almost
an extra hour to our drive time but we made it and got home by mid afternoon.
It had been a tiring but on the whole a lovely time with my parents. I’m sure they needed a
rest from us as much as we needed to get back to our own home by the end of it!
Love,
Mummy P
Mummy P
xxx
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