We don’t often see huge meltdowns from The Boy.  We are lucky.  Yesterday, we paid our dues.

We were at a big show in the downtown-big city, at a large convention center, and after being told he couldn’t do an activity because it was time to go home, The Boy started yelling.  I gave my purse to The Man and began walking The Boy to the front of the hall, towards the lobby.  He was yelling the whole time, and got away from me a couple of times, but I eventually got him out to the lobby.  I don’t know what I expected when I got there, but it surely wasn’t the full throttle, running, kicking, screaming (“I’m going to kill you!”, “I’m going to call the police!”), escaping, knocking-down-signs, knocking-down-mom kinda thing I got.

Yep, I got tossed, too.

The Boy is bigger, although he was plenty to handle the last time something like this happened.  I cannot just pick him up (or even attempt to) anymore.  At one point, I looked at The Man and said, “I don’t know what to do,” and there was nothing we could do.  We let it peter out, got him seated on the floor near the coat check, and then my brain kicked in.  He was not listening to me (all I was saying was “stop” because I knew he was too far gone to listen to anything else), so I got on the phone and called people I thought he might listen to.  I got a hold of his ASD teacher, who agreed to speak to him, and within a minute, he was ok enough to get his coat on so we could head home.

The Boy spoke to Fantastic Babysitter in the car on the way home for quite awhile, which was an excellent distraction, and had the desired calming effect.  When we got home, I let him be for awhile, and then we talked about what had happened.  I’m not satisfied that we’ve processed it properly, but I’m going to keep working on it.

The Man and I were shaken, but he was perfect.  He held my purse, and followed us (but not too closely!) during the whole thing, even speaking with a few people who were concerned.  He said this morning like he felt he hadn’t done enough, but he did — he helped me with the aftermath, my aftermath.  I was wrecked, emotional, and exhausted, and he took care of me.  That’s what I need from him — I need him to look after me, so that I’m OK to look after my son.

It was an emotional day, but I was proud of myself for remaining relatively calm, and not resentful of The Boy at all.  I felt so bad that we had a breakdown in communication, and I felt bad that he lost control.  I can only guess what that feels like, and I’m sure I wouldn’t like it.  I was proud of him for coming out of it, and I was proud of The Man for how he handled himself.  Now I need to go see what I can do about these sore muscles…