Playground Fun?

In an effort to find some fun for Little Man this afternoon, I suggested that we take a short walk to our nearest park. It’s about a ten-minute walk, at Little Man’s speed. We took his scooter, because he always wants to bring something with wheels, be it the stroller, the wagon, his bike, or the scooter. Usually, I end up pushing/pulling the chosen vehicle, so I used what little authority I have and insisted that we take the scooter today, as it’s lightest.

I was reminded, in all of my impatience and irritability, that Sensory Processing Disorder is still wreaking havoc in Little Man’s world. Much to his OT’s chagrin, I’m sure, I don’t think his therapy has done much for him yet. Not that I expect it to be miraculous and overnight, but I kind of have the impression that this is what the OT is hoping for.

When we arrived at our street corner and paused to look for cars and make sure they stopped (this is actually a rare occurrence in our area, as there is still construction going on and the workers tend to barely slow down at the stop signs…grrrr…that’s another post entirely), there arrived a dump truck with squeaky air brakes. Little Man, thrown off by the sudden, unexpected squealing, stopped short, tripped over my heels, and slammed his palms to his ears, in a much-too-late attempt to block out the auditory intrusion. He took a moment (which felt like an eternity to me, his patience-challenged mommy) to recover, we looked both ways again, then crossed the street.

With many complaints that the sidewalks are “too slanty” and “too bumpy” and “too wobbly” and “too sidewalk-ish,” (<—– slight exaggeration), we made our way almost to the park.

I was checking out everyone’s landscaping and lawn maintenance when I was rudely interrupted by a child-turned-elastic-band clutching my thigh in a death grip. Screaming, fast-talking about fears and cats and black cats especially and clawing at my cellulite and oh. A cat. About 5 metres ahead of us. In our path. Minding its business, but in our path nevertheless.

I attempted to peel Little Man’s suction fingers from my leg and show him that, look, the cat is walking away from us. Almost running. In fear of, get this, US! Not one to be easily  swayed (<—– extreme understatement alert!), Little Man looked up at me, his dilated pupils popping.

“Mommy. Mommy. MomMY! MOMMY! MOMMY!”

“Little Man, it’s ok. Look: the cat has hidden under a car. He’s probably going to have a nap. Cats like to sleep under cars because it’s cooler in the summer. He probably won’t even notice us.”  Please, GOD! Please don’t let the cat notice us. And if you insist on having the cat notice us, could you FOR THE LOVE OF, oh, YOURSELF, make it RUN THE OTHER WAY??!!!

“Ok, Mommy. But let’s go slowly. We don’t want to wake him up. “

Maintaining his death grip and continuing to do that weird popping-out thing with his pupils, Little Man allowed me to walk-limp (with him clinging to my left thigh and the scooter balanced against my right) past the evil cat.

Tangent: HOLY MOTHER!!! I’M ON THE PHONE WITH HUBBY RIGHT NOW AND HE’S TELLING ME THAT HE GOT IN A MINOR CAR ACCIDENT TONIGHT. FOR BLOODY MARY’S SAKE, HIS VEHICLE IS UNDER A HEX! End tangent.

We managed to make it almost all the way to the park when we came across a group of older kids who were just goofing around on their bikes. Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem, right? Right. Unless. Unless you’re Little Man. He made sure to give the kids an extremely wide berth as he made his way through them.

*For those of you who aren’t familiar with SPD schtuff, the reason that LM was most likely avoiding these kids was to avoid the chance of them bumping into him (accidentally) and jostling him. For kids like LM, it takes much longer to recover from a bump like that and they will avoid it whenever they can.

Phew. We’re at the park. Little Man, after commanding me to keep an eye on his scooter (because some other kid might want to GASP! use it or something), tiptoed (I’m noticing more and more that he walks on his toes a lot; something that Hubby pointed out to me a while back) over to the splash pad, which was turned off, HALLELUJAH! Why is this cause for celebration? Because Little Man likes splash pads, but he doesn’t like to get wet. Duh.

Sigh.

This joy and fun-ness continues for about 5 minutes, with Little Man frequently (again with the understatements) demanding that I “Look at me, mommy! Look at me!” Oh, and his pupils are back in his eyes, where they belong. But wait. Continued joy was not ours for the taking. In walks a little JackAss.

Now, before I go into this in great detail, let’s deal with a little disclaimership, shall we? If, when you read the following text, you see a boy who resembles a child that you either own or know, please don’t conclude that I think your child is a JackAss. I am simply using this title because it’s fun and easy to remember and, for the sake of my kid’s point of view, this particular kid was, today, a JackAss.

So. JackAss looks to be about 6. Coincidentally, he also looks to be bored. His mother is sitting on a nearby bench with another mother, talking a mile a minute with her hands, probably about the latest pair of designer jeans she is trying to pour her ass into. Needless to say, she doesn’t give a fig about what her son is doing.

JackAss looks at LM enjoying himself, thinks that it might be fun to put an end to LM’s enjoyment, and proceeds to turn on the splash pad. He then looks over his shoulder at Little Man, smirks knowingly, and walks away to another part of the park. Jack. Ass.

Little Man, hurt and pissed off simultaneously, runs to me, arms flailing, eyes tearing up in devastation. Yelling that he didn’t want the water on and that JA didn’t even want to play in the freaking water and oh, yeah, he didn’t want the water on, Little Man crumpled into me and sobbed.

Giving JackAss my evil stare (I think my  pupils might have been red), I wrapped Little Man into a tight, tight hug and rocked him back and forth, back and forth. (A soothing technique I’ve learned from all of my reading)

Finally calm and so totally over the splash pad, Little Man ventured to the climbing structure that involved a few different climbing methods, slides at either end, and a bouncy bridge in the middle. I know! We have awesome parks around us! Let me remind you that Little Man had a very strong hatred for slides up until this past spring. We even have a slide in our backyard that he still  will not venture down. But he likes the slides at this park.

There were probably about 3 or 4 other kids, all seemingly nice and calm and good at taking turns. Awesomeness, right? Well, not exactly.

Little Man, several times, made his way up either the stairs or the chain ladder (short, mind you, but really great progress for us!), and started toward the slide at the end of the structure. As soon as he saw another child within 5 feet of the slide’s top though, he ran in the opposite direction, shoulders hunched and head down. Again with this fear of being touched or jostled.

I was so angry with myself this afternoon when we came home, because of my reaction to Little Man’s behaviour at the park. Yes, I was understanding about the cat, and the older kids blocking our path and JackAss. But I fell short at the slide. Instead of just accepting that, for now, Little Man sometimes “needs” to avoid situations like this, I got really impatient with him and told him that he was “being ridiculous, look around, these kids are nice and calm and taking turns and why can’t you just take your (under my breath) freaking turn?”

So, on the one hand, I feel like I did a Good Enough Mothering thing with him today by even getting off my lazy ass and venturing to the park, but on the other hand, I feel like I failed to understand what it’s really like for him. All the books (SPD) say that once a parent has a grasp of what her child is going through, she will miraculously  eventually become more patient and understanding.

I’m still waiting on that miracle.