Parade going while autistic
Today is Memorial Day. It’s parade day in my household! I naively planned not one, but two parades with the kids today – one in the next town over and one in our own little village.
Bright and early, we all (3 kids and I, Seth is working) piled into the car along with Sunny’s wheelchair and folding chairs for the rest of us and a backpack full of snacks.
Every few years there’s a reunion at my former school district for the marching band, and they get together and rehearse like mad for the weekend and then march in the Memorial Day parade that goes through the district’s village. It’s always a spectacle, and this year was no exception. There were about 460 former marching band members who came back for it. If you’ve never heard a matching band that’s 460 strong, you should try it. It’s a sight to behold!
My dear friend – a friend much beloved by the kids – was marching and playing in it so that was an added incentive to go. But honestly, even if she hadn’t been, I would have taken the kids to see it. I love a good marching band!
We arrived early enough to get good parking and decent seats but that meant a long wait for the start of the parade. The kids squirmed and whined about waiting “For-Ev-Er.” But we got through it, full of every snack I’d brought.
Just as the parade was about to start I realized I’d forgotten hearing protection. Dangit. I can’t comfortably do parades without hearing protection. I can get through them, but it’s so much stimulation that I find it very disorienting and uncomfortable.
I knuckled down, plugged my ears with my fingers like a 3-year-old refusing to listen, and got through it. I even enjoyed most of it, fire trucks excepted. They are too loud for everyone. I saw my friend and got a video of her playing, and enjoyed the heck out of the reunion band. Then we packed up alllll our heavy stuff, used the bathroom at the church (bless them for being open for that purpose!), and made our way back to the car and home.
I fed the children an oh-so-nourishing lunch of spaghettios, and dragged the smallest fry to nap with me.
I had to nap. I have to nap every dang day whether I want to or not. Most of the time I don’t want to. With my autoimmune disease collection, fatigue is a major factor, even with daily doses of stimulants. Add to it that I’d completely overloaded my tender autistic senses with a blaringly loud parade, and I was stick-a-fork-in-me done.
I slept like the dead for 2 hours and woke up utterly disoriented and still exhausted with three kids expecting a second parade.
Ultimately I had to tell them I could not do it. I tried caffeine and water and a snack, but nothing could make me feel grounded again. I offered to take them for ice cream at a nearby quiet ice cream stand instead, and they had to make do.
I can’t take another minute of it
Let me set the background for this next bit: the girls argued with each other all weekend. The older two (Kiddo -11, and Sunny – 9) ganged up on the little one (Sprout – 5) to exclude her. Sunny drove me bananas all weekend by repeatedly leaving bits of trash on my sitting room floor and making a general mess and refusing to clean up after herself. Then Kiddo and Sunny argued with each other about everything they did. It was honestly a long and not-so-fun weekend.
During ice cream eating at a picnic table outside, the oldest two got back into it. They were arguing, of all things, about whether Sunny had fallen off the picnic table while we were sitting there. Either she did or she didn’t, right? Not so fast. Apparently it was up for debate. Strenuous, nasty debate. I cut them off and told them if they uttered another word about it they’d both be throwing out the rest of their ice creams and we’d head out to take Kiddo home to her Mom.
After a brief moment of delicious silence, Kiddo muttered “She did, though” under her breath.
Something broke in me.
They threw out their half-eaten ice creams as threatened (thankfully Sprout had already finished hers), and we took Kiddo home.
At present, the sisters, Sunny and Sprout, are sitting in separate rooms. It’s a wise choice, because they started an argument in the car over whether it’s called “McDonalds” or “Old McDonalds,” and I threatened an early bed time if they say another antagonistic word to one another this evening.
I honestly can’t tell if I’m just in a bad mood because of autism overload from this morning coupled with my standard fatigue? Whether my Vraylar is not working on my autism irritability as well as Abilify did, as my psychiatrist suspects? Or whether my threats to the kids are reasonable given the level of nasty, snotty, snide bickering they’ve been doing?
Maybe I’ll gain perspective tomorrow morning and feel bad and apologize to them. Maybe not. Maybe I’ll wake up and find I feel like I wasn’t being unreasonable.
Honestly, autism and fatigue aside, there’s only so much bickering moms can take before we crack, right?! Gah!
Good news though: there’s school tomorrow! Thank the lovely gracious heavens above! I’ll have time to pick up the house and sleep a ton and recover. God bless public school education for taking my much beloved children away for hours per day during the week!
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