Yesterday evening I took the kids to Noelle's 6th grade Shakespeare play. We arrived a little early to get good seats--and then Nathan started throwing a major tantrum. He didn't want to be there (yes, I had it on the calendar--but that doesn't solve all the problems). The difference between a 2 year old tantrum and a 17 year old tantrum is that I can't just pick Nathan up and take him out because he outweighs me by over 50 pounds. I had tried to get the password to the guest WiFi when we first arrived, because I brought his iPad with me. Unfortunately none of the teachers I asked knew the guest password. Well, after our unsightly tantrum in front of 50 people one of the teachers had pity on me and came and typed her password into Nathan's iPad. After that he was just fine and sat through the entire performance happily.
Too bad you couldn't just type a password in my brain to tell it to calm down. I sat there with adrenalin pumping through my body--feeling jittery and almost sick. I'll confess that I glanced up and saw a mom sitting in front of us with her sweet daughter sitting happily on her lap and was filled with a stab of jealousy. "It's not fair," I thought. I don't have those kind of feelings often anymore, but after a huge tantrum it came. I had to banish that thought and count my blessings. Blessing #1: At least we showed up early enough to not tantrum in front of 300 people and disrupt the play. Blessing #2: The teacher that saved me by typing in her password on Nathan's iPad. Blessing #3: I was able to watch Noelle's play without having to take Nathan out. Lesson learned: Always show up a little early because you never know what kind of mood Nathan will be in.
#CountingMyBlessings #Tantrum #Autism
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