Post Halloween Madness

After an insane week of days off, Halloween festivities around every corner and lots and lots of chocolate, Monday began a new week. A new and very very noisy week. Actually this noisiness began on Sunday. Daniel was so incredibly LOUD. His 'normal' perseverating and chatting and singing but times 10 in volume. . . at least. I have a tendency to get sensory overloaded. Most adults wouldn't be able to name that for what it is, but having Daniel in my life has helped me understand some of my own "quirks". Too much noise and sound and my insides start to tighten, I'm clenching my jaw, my shoulders are rising up, until that sensory glass runneth over and I'm DONE. Sunday I was DONE on many occasions. I told him on at least twice that one of us had to leave the room because mom could not take the noise, noise, noise! (is that the Grinch or Cat in the Hat?) Anyway, he was very upset with me and my lack of being able to tolerate his loudness. Nice that he wanted to be at my side, not nice that he couldn't lower his voice to anywhere near a normal decibel level.

Fast forward to Monday. The loudness continued. He, apparently, came into school "singing" at the TOP OF HIS LUNGS and from there it got nothing but louder. Soon he was in tears because people kept trying to get him to take breaks, take a walk, get a drink, all the things they are SUPPOSED to do when he can't pull himself together. This just pissed him off further. They called me, not to complain, but for advise. All I could do is say, "I know, I know, I saw it yesterday". Group was pretty good Monday night. She has a new strategy for when Daniel gets upset because kids are "acting silly" or "not following the rules" and he tries to control the room....she simply wrote on a piece of paper something like, "when kids are being silly or not following the rules, Daniel will stay quiet and let the teacher tell them what they should be doing" or something like that. As soon as Daniel would start to point something out, she'd point at the paper, would not say anything, just point, and HE STOPPED. Every time. I have, of course passed this on to school.

Then Tuesday morning I was at Zachary's bus stop. My cell rang. It was the school. This is bad news as school hadn't even started at that point. Sigh. I answered (tentatively and really wanting to ignore the damn thing) only to immediately here in the background Daniel screaming at the top of his lungs. These poor people were beside themselves. I told her to ask Daniel to get on the phone with me...the response was NNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! O.K......

They had gone through the first, what? 8 weeks of school, and not seen this ever. All of a sudden he flipped. I listed strategies, reminded them of everything and nothing was working. I found myself counting the days until his para was back from her Family Medical Leave. November 30. That is a LONG time away. At least from this chair. Probably not so much for her. But really it's all about me...isn't it? No? Well, it should be ;) Anyway, after school the note said he was "aggressively leaning into his para pro (who has been wonderful by the way), not touching her, but in a threatening manner". I, unfortunately, know EXACTLY what they are saying. This is what he does when he's really mad at you. He may not be able to verbalize it, or the why, but you can't get much more of a non verbal communication than that can you? I wrote the teacher an email back explaining this saying, I don't know what he's mad at, but he is clearly, telling her to back off. If she is following on breaks etc, she must stop. He needs space and is clearly communicating that. I followed with, I hope you don't turn around and talk about the nutty woman in EL, but. . . . it's been a full moon, can we give him space and see if this passes on its own? Yes, I was suggesting that the moon was contributing to the insane and noisy behavior of my son.

Her response was, omg I didn't realize it's a full moon, ok lets see...That night, I kid you not, Daniel was getting into bed. He turned to me, smiled his beautiful and slightly sneaky smile and said, "I love a full moon". Seriously. I should have said, what do you like Daniel, the fact that you let everything out and are basically HOWLING AT THE MOON for two days? But I just smiled and said, "I know." It was almost like, "that was the end of it, I've been acting crazy but now its over." And you know what? The next day it was done. Over. Gone. Back to normal. As if nothing happened. I received an email from school saying,"well, it's the same Daniel today as the rest of the year." I knew it was going to be over after he said that. I don't have a good ending to this except, I've seen in the past the moon having an affect on him. But this was nuts and he pretty much told me it was the end as if he could feel the pull was gone. It's really an amazing phenomenon. I'd like to hear how you or your kids have reacted in the past to the full moons. It's fascinating. And I'm glad it's over....for this month.