Saturday, December 24, 2011

Holiday lessons learned, 2011.

Today was interesting. We took the boy to grandma's house for the holiday gathering today after only a 50 minute nap. On a typical day he requires two to three hours for a full recharge- especially when he has had a rough night for sleep. But we did it. He was mellow/whiny in the typical dr Jekyll manner of a toddler.

Then upon arrival he was immersed in a total sensory experience. People, things, lights, noise, food, motion activated decor... and meltdowns began. Oh, boy.

"Eat? Mama, eat? Eat now?"

"ham. Ham! HAM!! Eggs. Egg peeeeeese! Want pineapple."

"my car. That's my car! Mines!!"

That's the first ten minutes.

Three separate occasions I had to pull him to a quiet room to reset him, and once I had to break out my Mandt Training moves... then gifts were opened.

Everyone who brought a gift for him brought toys. Most had lights and sounds. All the kids were overstimulated by the time all the gifts were opened. They began to feed off each other's energy, and it was like a demonstration of atoms being heated.

We came home and found more toys with lights and sounds had come by mail. The thought I appreciate, but now we are all overwhelmed! When I become sensorily over-tapped, I get irritable and emotional. When my husband gets to that point, he gets jittery and needs to be doing something-anything with his hands. The boy gets hyper-happy and tries to bite folks. This is bad, by the way. It's like we all three go offline.

So. Here we are with a mountain of toys for one child, many of which are noisy and large. My common sense mama brain says we need to give goodwill a donation of all his old stuff. My sentimental mama brain says we need more storage bins.

Next year we are determined to just hand out a booklist and a list of clothing needs/likes/dislikes to make sure we aren't overly 'blessed' with so many toys.

Our boy does not handle abundance well. He sort of short circuits, pulls every toy out, then wanders around touching every toy. So, less is more. We will ask that everyone understand that about him and to only get him something meaningful (books, specific toys) and I'm fairly certain we're going to freak them out with this.

Another lesson learned: mandatory potty trip before looking at Christmas lights. The kid is a trooper. He made it through 45 minutes of Christmas lights (we couldn't escape the neighborhood) albeit uncomfortably while holding back full bowels and bladder. Unfortunately, his daddy was super stressed by the whimpering from the back, "potty! Gas station? Home? Potty!!"

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