Small Victories

We'll take victories when we can get them.  The last couple days proved to be busy once again.  I was gone most of the day Saturday helping a local organization I am part of and Tyler had the boys and helped his parents at their house.  I knew we had a birthday party to go to in the afternoon and was nervous as Charlie has had a really good couple of days (minus the hour long melt-down he had Friday night).  I was worried the birthday party would be the breaking point.  But, we gathered everyone up and went anyway.  Charlie did amazingly well.  He had a small moment where he needed some cuddle time with dad, but otherwise he was among the other kids playing and having fun.  No meltdowns during or immediately after the party....VICTORY!!

We left the party a few minutes early so we could get to church on time- we like to go to the Saturday evening church service when we can since it's a little easier on our schedule and tends to be a little less people there.  After service on Saturday evenings our church offers a fellowship meal that anyone can partake in.  We tend to take this time to enjoy the meal offered- again, less stress on our schedule of having to rush home and make dinner quickly before bed.  However, tonight proved to be a little more challenging.  Charlie was clearly done for the day.  He couldn't sit at the table, couldn't focus on eating and was having a hard time listening to direction.  I don't blame him.  It wasn't the usual dinner crowd at church this time.  The high school kids were putting on a bake sale at the same time to help raise funds for their upcoming missions.  There were MANY more people there than usual, there was a lot of movement and it was noisy in there.  To anyone else they may not have even taken notice to it.  Tyler ended up taking Charlie out into the hallway to lessen the sensory overload for him.  Unfortunately Charlie was unable to eat his dinner (it's not uncommon- meal time is hard even at home).  I had to give him kudos though- making it this far in the day before having any noticeable difficulties.  And no meltdowns!  He was so sensory overloaded, Charlie wouldn't wear his coat and had a hard time laying in bed to listen to dad read a bedtime story.  Instead, he spent some time decompressing in the living room with his trains.  He eventually did join the bedtime story.  It's moments like these that I need to remind myself that he's not trying to be difficult.  He's not trying to be oppositional to bedtime, but instead finding his own way to calm down and decompress after the busy and overloaded day.

Knowing we're in the process to get Charlie a service dog, it's challenging moments like these that make me excited to see how Charlie's dog can help him in these moments.  The service dog will help be a calming presence in situations where Charlie gets anxious or nervous.  We're looking forward to the dog being able be help Charlie stay at the dinner table and be able to focus in larger crowds.  We're excited the service dog will be there to help Charlie calm down at night, provide deep pressure input by laying on/with Charlie in bed and help him decompress from a busy day.