After School When there are No PCAs

All our PCAs are on Spring Break. Dominyk has come home each night this week so that we can enjoy a meltdown together. Often he has one after school, but I usually am off giving a ride to other kids and i miss it because the PCA is here.

The meltdowns consist of him asking me for something he can't have or obsessing about something. Last night I made the mistake of telling him that we were going out for pizza at 5:15. So, from 4:00 until we left, while I was attempting to get something done, he sat in my office asking if we could leave now. We had a very pathetic routine going on. He would ask me the same questions over and over, "What time is it? When are we leaving? How much longer is it? Can we go NOW?" And I would patiently respond, give him answer, and remind him that we were meeting Mike and Kari and their kids and we wanted to get there at the same time. i would respond patiently for about 5-7 minutes. And then I would get frustrated and stern (especially if the project I was working on wasn't going well or something else was annoying me and I would raise my voice and say something horrible like, "DOMINYK ... you are going to HAVE to find SOMETHING else to DO until we leave. At which point he would scream, burst into tears and throw himself to the floor sobbing. "You don't have to yell at me!". And I would apologize and remind him that there were many other things he could be doing with his time besides sitting in my office asking me what time it was. He would finally calm himself, self-regulate, and then sit back in the chair in front of me and say, "What time is it? Can we leave now?"

The cycle repeated itself for 75 minutes.

Now, I am sure that you are asking yourself, "Why didn't this stupid woman just get up from her desk and spend time entertaining the child and save herself from all that hassle?"

And in retrospect I agree with you. But that was way to smart of an idea -- and I was trying to get a project done.

Maybe next time it happens . . . like TODAY . . . I will figure it out and leave the office with him.

Interestingly, though, once we did get to the pizza place, he spent most of the meal having similar discussions with me about other obsessions -- wanting a third glass of pop, wanting dessert when he hadn't had his pizza, etc. etc. etc.

During the meal I said to him, "You can ask me 3,000 times and I will say no every time. Because we are with Mike and Kari, and even if you throw a huge fit they are still going to be our friends."

And a few minutes later he had had enough, stomped out of the room, throwing 3 chairs to the ground and screaming, I'm sure with a few curse words added, "I don't care about you people. You're just trying to starve me." (or something similar).

And Kari turned to me and smiled and said, "We'll still your friends."

Ah the joys...