What goes up must come down

You know what they say… What goes up, must come down! This is exactly what happen when Christmas Day suddenly finished. All that built up excitement and in someways anticipation experienced by the little man was suddenly gone… And boy, didn’t we know it!

No Christmas is Christmas without an Aspergers style meltdown and although little man sailed through the actual day itself in a somewhat relaxed and merry way… Boxing Day was somewhat different all together.

Waking him up was the hardest part, if I’d let him, I’m pretty sure he’d had slept the day away. His facial expression said it all… That evil deadly stare that says “Back off bitch or I’m gonna blow! Not to be defeated I persisted on my mission to get the little man up from his bed before the daylight had fully disappeared.

Crashing around, screaming and shouting, declaring me to be the most evil mother to ever walk the earth. Little man was now up… but happy about he he was not!

Literally throwing his whole body through the living room door, crying for reasons he himself didn’t know, he shouted in no uncertain terms “Stop trying to control me, this is my life, my time!” Somehow I felt as if I was sat watching the film ‘Kevin and Perry Go Large” but this wasn’t some stroppy 17 year old. It was my 12 year old who had gone to bed smiling and woken a raging beast.

I knew things could easily spiral into a more explosive episode, so with that I did my best to ignore the rude names and hurtful statements, fore I’ve learnt that engaging in an argument with your 12 year old only feeds his fuel. His sister, sat on sofa was next inline as he so angrily asked her what she was looking at. My daughter had a choice choose to ignore it like me or feed the fuel and if course she went for the latter.

Screaming over one another the hurtful comments flew about the air as the toddler sat watching Thomas drowning out the noise like he had done so many times before. To think it was not even midday and I was already reaching for the Paracetamol, was a clear indication of the day ahead.

Finally… some two hours later, a sore head and with this inner feeling of drain washing through me. I sat on the sofa next to the little man who was now much calmer meaning I could try to unearth the meltdown trigger I’d regretfully missed.

One would expectedly assume that the trigger for this meltdown was tiredness. His need to catch up on sleep if I’d had allow him too. I guess in some respects this is true. However this was in no way the main trigger it was just the one that sparked the rage. Whether I’d woken him or not, I was about to discover that today’s antics would have been unavoidable all the same! Why…
Well… Because the tigger was Christmas!

It had been on the agenda for so long. The build up, christmas crafts, school plays, parties and more! Suddenly it was over… No more Christmas for another 365 days and counting. Talking to him, I realise that for months his head has been consumed with nothing other than festivities. If it wasn’t the rehearsals in his bedroom for the school play it was searching the Internet for the latest WWE merchandise to add to his growing Christmas list.

Little man looked at me and with a tear in his eye he declared “I think I’m actually really sad its over!”

Well, there are many things a mother can try to fix but this is something I cannot. This is life… something that little man will face year and year again. But just being aware of this will help me prepare for the events that could likely follow as Christmas comes and goes in the years ahead.

a happy little man on Christmas day