Thursday, December 4, 2008

30 Minutes

Last night was dance. The kids get home from school at 3:35 and try to leave by 4:00 for dance, which is about a 25 minute drive. Akila got her dance clothes on and I was getting snacks ready for the ride. I even had Cheetos, which I have refused to purchase for a long time due to prior issues. Each week before dance, Akila wants to stop at a gas station and buy Cheetos, or some kind of treat. I think we did this once, my mistake!!! So needless to say, we often have a major rage over this.

Yesterday, she came downstairs with her dance clothes on and two quarters that Michael had given her this weekend for shoveling. She shoveled without being asked to and did a great job. Well she wanted to stop at the gas station to buy something. I told her no, I had Cheetos, we didn't need to, didn't have enough time, it wasn't enough to even buy anything anyway. Well, this didn't matter. Major meltdown. Major.

She wouldn't leave the house and get in the car. I had a brief moment of thinking we would just skip dance then. It was brief. Dance is for 3 hours, and she does really well once she is there. It is the getting her there that is the problem. We have a dance studio about 8 blocks from our house in Minneapolis, but we drive to Bloomington for free dance since I work part-time at the studio.

I finally got her in the van, she was sobbing and raging. Often, this will just last the first 5 or 10 minutes, which doesn't sound long. But trust me, it is. Yesterday, it lasted the entire drive, which took about 30 minutes. She threw everything at me that was in range, and swung her teddy bear up to hit me while I was driving. I had to pull off the highway and wait a bit until she could calm down. The entire drive, I just prayed, tried to stay calm (which I failed at a few times), and kept telling myself that I would have a 3 hour break if I could just get her there).

I of course ended up having to take the money away from her. I told her multiple times that if she could not calm down that I would have to take the money from her and not give it back. I called Michael while I was driving so he could hear her, and told him to never pay her again for anything. My friend Juli, her dance teacher, called while we were driving, and she said "For gosh sakes, just stop at the gas station". I did not. I wanted to.

Akila was saying that she was going to leave the dance studio and go to the gas station a block away or so. Thankfully, when we got to dance, she heard it was "splits" day. This is when those who can now do the splits, get a candy bar. She turned into little miss sweetie pie at this point. Told me she loved me, hugged me, she poured on the sweetness. This is after 30 minutes of sheer terror in which she called me every name in the book, told me she hated me, told me daddy is good and better than me, and a whole host of other things. I smiled, kissed her and told her I loved her too. I do love her. But this is so hard to show when I'm so annoyed!!!!!

When the kids and I rode home, it was a nice peaceful ride, Hezekiah even commented on how quiet it was.

5 comments:

Sheri said...

Aaahhhh! The joys of FAS.

Torina said...

Lovely. Don't you just love how they can turn it all off in a snap? Three hours is nice though.

A said...

Fantastic. And all the people in that dance studio see is well behaved Akila. How does she do when you pick her up and it's time to leave?

Lisa said...

My son just had a "tantrum" similar to this yesterday. He does this every day, multiple times a day and has for years. Yesterday, however, he finally let his psychiatrist see a little bit of it and BAM - he's now spending 3-5 days being evaluated in an adolescent psychiatric hospital!!! I was sick about it, but he was happy to go once the (stupid) intake worker told him there was a tv, foosball table, pool table, snack/soda machines, they get to stay up until 9:30 pm and on and on.... So, now he's on vacation and I'm trying to frantically catch up on all of the running I've been unable to do over the past few weeks because I cannot take him anywhere (due to his unpredictable raging anytime/anywhere). So, after 2 years of telling this particular psychiatrist exactly how my son has been acting, I've finally got validation, he now apparently believes it's as bad as I've been telling him - I HAVE'NT BEEN LYING!!!

I'd love the 3 hour break too - nobody can really understand how these kids go at you - demanding a reaction, pecking away at you over and over, day after day....

Anonymous said...

Just in case you haven't tried it and it helps, our psychiatrist tried different meds and now found some that greatly reduced the rage and anger. We were having a horrible time, thinking of disruption, had a psych hospital observation, migraines, stress, etc. And now its still hard of course but so much better and calmer.