OUR CHRISTMAS

As Christmas Day draws to an end, I have to say ours has been very low key and pretty peaceful.

J woke up at 7am to a few stocking pressies at the end of her bed. She was happy to wait a bit until we were all ready to go downstairs. Even happy to wait further until we had made a fuss of our dog and given him his present too.

Next stop into the lounge. One big pressie wrapped up from Santa and a small pile from us, most of which were Minecraft related.... her current obsession!

Each present was opened and studied, with no pressure to open them all at once. There were several breaks in between in fact. We just sat back and took her lead. She thankfully loved them all and seemed genuinely happy.

Santa's present went down exceptionally well.... inline skates!

Lunchtime was not the traditional Christmas dinner for J, but we all ate together and even did a toast each, which made her feel very grown up!

She played Minecraft for as long as she wanted, she took herself off a few times to her gorilla gym and keyboard, and we even had a skate outside when it got dark, as the wheels on the skates lit up. Pretty cool! Well done Santa!

Bedtime rolled round and we could tell she was becoming more heightened. After being settled upstairs, about ten minutes later she came down to us in the lounge declaring she wasn't tired and was going to bake some cakes! 

We swiftly changed that idea to something else that pacified her for a short while before hubby once again took her back upstairs. She seemed to still be heightened.

Maybe there was a present she had wanted but didn't receive, we thought. Maybe holding it all together all day was to much for her. Maybe there was sensory overload. Maybe the day went differently to what she had anticipated even?

None of the above. Do you know what it was? 

After eventually confiding to hubby by writing it down, she had started to feel angry as, in her own words, throughout the day she had forgotten she had ASD, PDA and ADHD, and when something triggered and reminded her, she said she felt upset that it was still there, inside her!

Heartbreaking!