It's a Muckin Moment: Denver Diary Day 22: Pirates, Pizza, and Harleys

Today was Cade's next to last therapy session for this trip. If I thought all would go beautifully, I was wrong! It was a tough day...after a fairly typical start on the monkey bars he was very upset because he wanted to flip upside down without any support from us. It's not that he can't do it...he can pretty much climb and flip on just about anything with ease - one plus to his SPD. But because he had fallen in an earlier session Julianna let him know that it was unsafe to flip without help, so we would help hold him whenever he flipped on the monkey bars.. Cade takes many risks...his "danger factor" isn't what it should be for a typical 4-year-old (but of course more typical of that of a 4-year-old boy!), So we have been working on setting boundaries for him, especially in situations where he could injure himself.

Well...Cade certainly did not like the prospect of not being able to flip without someone's hands on him. His extreme tactile defensiveness screamed at us to back up, don't touch, move away...and that turned into an all out meltdown - complete with hitting, screaming, crying, and Cade retreating to a room where he wanted to be by himself. In a desperate moment I looked at Julianna and said, "What do we do here?!" She said we just have to co-regulate him -- he cannot regulate these emotions himself and the lack of sensory regulation is actually what caused this meltdown in the first place -- so we worked to give him the language about what and how he was feeling, and tried to give him options for allowing himself to take a break calmly. After a timer, offering a tent, moving away from him - probably at least 20-25 minutes of meltdown madness - Cade began to de-escalate and redirect himself to a pirate game he found in the room.

Happily I report that the session ended up being an excellent one. He and Julianna played a guessing game with pirate swords that helped to redirect Cade and calm him:

Julianna is hiding swords and Cade is guessing which color is in each hand.

And now Cade is taking a turn hiding.

The remainder of the session consisted of hiding in the Rainbow Room, the room full of huge pieces of Lycra where Cade can climb and climb forever -- we played Hide and Seek for several turns there...and then Julianna and I being chased out of the gym by Cade the Shark. He came out pretty regulated and was able to have a good car ride home - this has not always been the case here as I have endured many car rides after therapy spent screaming and crying.

On a note completely unrelated to therapy...when we came into the STAR Center today I was speaking with the receptionist to get some appointments nailed down for our return trip. Julianna came out and we were talking to make sure we had everything ready to go for our next two weeks, when we heard some hysterical laughter coming from the book corner. Now this is usually pretty alarming to me...don't get me wrong, I love to hear my little boy laugh. But it usually means something is going on that probably shouldn't, so you can imagine how I flipped around to see what was happening. Cade and some other kids had found the book, "Once Upon a Potty" -- I'll let the rest speak for itself...

This evening the local chapter of Harley riders came to the Ron McD House and brought us pizza for supper. It was a lot of fun - the house gathered outside on the patio for a picnic. The boys had a great time...I mean, pizza and Harleys??!! Of course they pigged out, especially Kai, and then asked if they could look at the motorcycles.