I feel like I currently have my normal Lauren-level of difficulty (minus the elopement since she can't walk right now, thank God. It's been a nice break.) plus the mobility issue. Today was a super fun day, but it was really freaking rainy. Wheelchair plus rain is not fun! Lauren gets a little freaked out about little things like raindrops touching her wheelchair, her coat, her pants, etc. I can never transfer her from her chair to the car fast enough. She's really freakin' heavy.
But you know what? She called me "sweetie mommy" multiple times today. I got tons of kisses and hugs. She was awesome today about telling me she needed to go potty. She wore the same outfit all day! No potty accidents. This is a big deal nowadays because it's tricky with her not being able to get herself to the bathroom. She doesn't generally love to tell us she has to go, but she did awesome today. Ryan had a self defense class for kids today, it was awesome. My nephew did it too. I signed Lauren up knowing she'd likely not be able to participate in the majority of it. She did for about 5 minutes, and during that 5 minutes Ryan reached his arms out for me to hand her to him, then put his arm around her while she sat on the floor next to him. Melt my heart! The rest of the time she sat in her chair or on my or my sister's lap. She got plenty of snacks, watched my phone for a little. She covered ears when it got too loud in the class. (Why am I incapable of remembering to bring her headphones to things like this?!) She asked to go potty a couple times there.
Then we went to lunch at a coney island, and she was great there. They had little quarter candy machines at the front and afterwards I gave all the kids quarters. Lauren got (my choice) a little plastic animal instead of candy. (They only had gum. Funny, I let her try gum again earlier today for the first time in a year and remembered why she can't have gum. LOL.) She got a cute little squishy squirrel and I told her not to put it in her mouth and she didn't! Not even one time. It's itty bitty, like the size of gumball. She thanked me several times and held onto it all day (she loves to have things to hold onto).
We all went back to my house to hang out, she was pretty people'd out so she watched my computer and had some downtime while the boys played. We played Barbies a little bit (the bane of my existence, I am a bad pretend-player. Plus she always wants to make one of the Barbies sick and have to go to the doctor/hospital/dentist. You know your kid has special needs and lots of doctors visits when....).
Then later a while after Greg got home from work we were going to have a family movie night and it was Ryan's turn to pick. She desperately wanted to watch Puppy Dog Pals and couldn't be persuaded, so she and I found an episode on YouTube and snuggled upstairs. She got to talk to Grandma Pam and Pa Tim before bed. Once her show was over it was bedtime and she didn't argue. I of course snuggled with her a little bit while she was falling asleep.
And I realized how lucky I am I get to do this. Is it hard? Yes! It's mentally and physically exhausting a lot of the time. But she is generally a pretty happy kid and she just wants to be near me. If she could spend 100% of her day touching me in some way, she'd be thrilled.
There's really no downtime right now for me. If she's watching TV or whatever, she needs me to get her water, snacks, clean her glasses 50 times, etc. Take her to the bathroom, fix her sock, etc. In many ways this is no different from parenting a typical child. The self defense class today was for ages 5-7, Ryan was only there because it was for my sister's work and my nephew is 5 so he got to go too. Seeing what other, typical girls and boys in this age group look like and behave was a little bit of a reminder that yep, I am not parenting a typical daughter. Lauren isn't shy, but she often won't talk to other people. Lately when asked a direct question by anyone but me, she whispers to me, "Mommy, you tell her!" If she doesn't want to do something, there is no bribing or coercing her most of the time. She doesn't whine about it, which I love. But she is also not easily persuaded. With Lauren, what you see is what you get. I don't know if she's realizing lately that others may not understand her speech and it frustrates her? I'm really not sure what to make of it. The kids in this class could hear multi-step directions, watch a demonstration, and then complete the activity independently. It feels like Lauren is light years away from this skill. The class was explaining the concept of running away from a dangerous person, the different between good people and bad people, good touch and bad touch, NOT going with somebody because they offer you candy/a puppy/a toy, etc. They talked about causing a scene if someone tries to abduct you, that bad people are often not strangers, using a family password so that an unsafe person can't coerce the child to going with them. These are not concepts that Lauren cognitively understands or is able to process right now.
I don't list these differences to complain at all. I certainly wish Lauren was capable of age appropriate skills, of course I do. I simply want to highlight the differences between where Lauren is currently compared to typical peers. Parenting her in many ways is very unlike the reality of what other parents of typical 6 year olds live on a daily basis. In someways I love Lauren's innocence and her complete faith that everyone wants what's best for her. But of course it's terrifying and I wish I could keep her in a bubble of safety and love.
Here's Lauren and I during the class
Here's Ryan with the instructor. They were role playing Ryan walking home from school and someone approaching him and trying to coerce him to go with them. Ryan was a year too old for the class and almost the same height as the instructor! It was funny to see and did not go unnoticed. During this exercise,she helped all the kids put the backpack on. Then she got to Ryan, handed it to him, and said, "Sir". We all died laughing. They also talked about how you can tell a good person from a bad person. Ryan said, "A bad person will have a devilish smile!" Ummmm, what?! LOL.
I want Ryan to do the course for 8-12 year olds this summer, but convincing him might be impossible. That class covers everything they talk about in the younger class, but goes over bullying in more detail and I think talks more about being coerced to go with someone vs abduction (because 8-12 year olds generally are a little harder to just pick up and run off with). The instructor asked for a volunteer kid to let her pick them up to demonstrate and Ryan was the only kid who raised his hand. She was like, uh that's not gonna work!
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