The Red Feather
“No it’s not that one, MINE was very fluffy and about this long.”
I wished Saturday evening that I had known about the red
feather and all it had meant to kiddo after tolerating an afternoon at a kids
party. I had to step out of the party with MacLeod to deliver a cake. When I
got back, the kiddos seemed to be enjoying themselves and I didn’t hear
anything about any problems.
We left the party and headed to the grocery store to pick up
a few items to make for dinner. In the seafood section there was a bin with ice
that had been used to hold raw shrimp. The kiddos immediately started to play
in it. Ack! I yelled, “Ugh! Get your hands out of there that was holding raw
fish!” There was a sanitizer pump, so we directed them to it. But I noticed
that kiddo had a wet red feather… I could almost see the fishy bacteria growing
on it. I told him to toss it and he glared at me and yelled “NO, I WON’T!” I
told him to come over to me and said that it was in raw fish, he HAD to throw
it out. He screamed in my face “NO!” MacLeod was not keen on his being
disrespectful and told kiddo he needed to toss the feather and sanitize his
hands. Kiddo screamed again, spiked the wet feather to the floor and started to
stomp off. Yes, this was all in the seafood section of the grocery store and
yes, people were looking. Silly, I had some strange idea that it would blow
over and we could grab what we needed.
Kiddo was standing near the meat counter and I approached
him, he started to tug at tuffs of his hair and hit himself in the head. Within
moments he was on his back on the floor, kicking his shoes across the aisle. I
knew that he was done. I picked him up off the floor as he bucked and put him
inside the shopping cart. I said to MacLeod, “let’s move!” Grabbing one more
item on the way, we headed straight to the checkout. Kiddo was sitting Indian-style
in the cart, shoeless, tugging his hair. I leaned down to try to talk to him,
putting my hand on his shoulder. He screamed “DON’T TOUCH ME!!!” Ok, too soon, I backed off. The rest of the trip, including the check out took us another 5
minutes, and he sat quietly while we went through the line.
Suddenly, as MacLeod was paying he looked up at me and said “mom,
how do you know that stingrays are dangerous? Just because people have been
injured doesn’t mean that they are really going to hurt you, they might be
protecting themselves.” What?! His face was clear, tears gone, anger gone and a
look of wonderment back in his eyes as he contemplative the nature of
stingrays.
It’s just like that. One minute he is far away from me and I
can’t reach him. Then he comes back.
Later that night I called my mom. She had been at the party
early on, but left right before I had gotten back to it. I called to see how
things were while I was gone. She said that when she arrived kiddo was having a
meltdown. Lil Sis had taken his red feather and lost it and he needed to find
it. He said he hates her and wanted to hit her if she didn’t. So my mom took
kiddo inside and started hunting for it. He asked the server at the restaurant “Have
you seen my feather?” They had not, only had a pile of some other feathers
which were clearly NOT the same. As I had told my mom we try to do, she
redirected him to playing with a ball with another child. He didn’t lose sight
of his lost feather issue, but he wasn’t falling apart about it. Eventually he
found the coveted feather and was right as rain.
Had I known the feather meant so much, I may have addressed the
wet fishy feather issue a little differently. Sometimes you can change things
that affect the outcome, sometimes it is just going to happen.
I know that people look at kiddo and think, “wow, look at
that boy having a tantrum. His parents must spoil him to death or not discipline
him at all.” Yeah. No that is about as far from the truth as can be. My child
has Asperger’s. I am not a terrible mom and his life isn’t horrible. I know
that when he has a meltdown, sometimes there is nothing that I can do. I have
to be able to be ok with knowing that and work through it with him or simply
wait. I also have to take ridicule from people who think that they are either a
much better parent than me or know better how to handle the situation. That’s ok;
I know my child and I love him. I know that I am doing the best that I can and
he is going to be just fine.
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