yesterday

Today I feel completely drained. I prayed all night for a better day today. Yesterday was a horrible day.

Yesterday, aside from the fact that boy was completely out of sorts and not at all himself, we had 4 serious meltdowns. For anyone who has not witnessed a meltdown, you may not fully be able to understand the horribleness of the meltdown. Every kid has meltdowns to varying degrees. My 5 year old will have a meltdown that will consist of her yelling something mean "You Meanie!", crying a bit and then sitting on the couch sucking her thumb for 5 minutes before she has self-regulated her feelings and can move on. My 2 year old will stomp up and down until you divert her attention, which allows her to self-regulate her feelings and can move on.

With my son a meltdown is all consuming, terrifying, loud, uncontrollable, unpredictable, and lasts for HOURS. He may calm after one meltdown, but the stage has been set that he can easily be set off again. That seemed to be the case yesterday. We have a "soothing box" for him to use in his room to help self-regulate his feelings, but yesterday he was completely non-present during them. That's another thing that happens sometimes in a meltdown, he shuts down internally and I swear even his eyes glaze over. He turns into this empty shell of a person. In those instances I put him in the shower and the water seems to help calm him. Then he comes out exactly the little boy that I know and everything is right with the world again.

Yesterday was a very difficult day, we did a lot of difficult things (allergy testing, teeth pulling). And we are on summer vacation as of last Friday, so we are lacking the routine of school and are trying to adjust to the routine of summer...

On a side note, our routine charts for morning and bedtime worked great the first couple of days, but now the novelty has worn off and he hasn't yet established the routine charts as a rule to his day so he's less ambitious to do them and even less ambitious to get ready for morning and bedtime! Any suggestions on how to make the routine charts really work?

Today will be a better day. Today will be a better day. Today will be a better day.

Today will be a casein free day...which will probably make the entire day very weird! :)