This is Syd, all smiles when Harrison and I picked her up early from summer school on Thursday. It’s the smile on her face that I love and even more the excitement and hugs we received when we picked her up. This is perfect autism.
Yesterday I knew I was pushing it, the heat index was well over 100 and we stayed inside for most of the day. Harrison had a 4:00 doctor appointment and I wasn’t able to reschedule so we had to go.
We made it with ten minutes to spare. Once we checked in, Sydney noticed that Mary Poppins was on the DVD player. I was proud of her for asking the receptionist to please push play. The receptionist was nice and started to get Mary Poppins for Syd. This is old school Mary by the way, that’s her favorite.
It was 4:03 and Harrison wasn’t called yet, so we waited for the movie to begin. When the movie began to play it was Finding Dory. I told Syd this would be fun to watch. Plus I knew they would call us back soon.
By 4:15 Syd had a blank stare on her face. She started repeating push play, Harrison needs a doctor and where’s Mary Poppins. It wasn’t until hours later that I questioned myself for not asking the receptionist to play Mary Poppins instead of Finding Dory, but Syd was handling it fine. This was a plot twist.
By 4:22 I was ready to leave and Syd asked for pressure. I began to give her arm hugs and I kept her focused on me. The nurse saw me and I explained that I think we needed to leave.
Syd’s brain is wired in a way that she couldn’t let go of Mary Poppins and “push play please” and she also knew that Harrison needed to see the doctor and we were leaving before he did that.
Why didn’t I just cancel the appointment? After all they said stay inside! At 4:34 we pulled over to the side of the road for Sydney to have a meltdown. This time I didn’t offer a calm down tool. I didn’t talk to her, I just prayed for this to be over. We were all safe and this too shall pass.
We were 15 minutes away from home and it probably took us 40 minutes to get home. If I sensed Syd getting upset. I pulled the car over and waited. I would ask her if she was calm and ready and we would try it again.
Today Syd woke up at 4am which is her new wake up time this summer. The first thing she told me was, “She needs to push play. Let’s take Harrison to the doctor’s appointment.” In her mind she obsessed about the incident yesterday. This is the reality of autism.
💙
~Brooke
A Woman's Work - Brooke Basically Blogging 