Actually, it started off as a pleasant day. We snuggled up under a blanket this morning and watched Curious George, we read stories, played with blocks and dinosaurs, and changed the sheets together on our beds (which Ben thinks is a big game). We giggled and had a fun, lazy Sunday together.
Then, while I was drying my hair, I looked up from the hair dryer to see Ben's hands covered in something that definitely should have gone in the toilet. I grabbed him and scrubbed his hands, took off his shirt to scrub the rest of him, and asked him what had happened. "I pooped, " he replied. "Where?" I asked him, afraid of the answer. "The living room," he said, "The dining room. The kitchen." So I headed into the front of the house to see just how bad it was.
An hour of scrubbing later, I am still not exactly sure what happened or where it started. I think he was trying to clean it up with a kitchen towel and got it all over himself, so he tried to wipe the uncomfortable texture off of his hands. On things and furniture not intended for that purpose. I'm sure you can imagine.
I was angry. I was frustrated. I was sad, because I had thought we were finally making progress with pottying after three years of training. I yelled "No, no!" at him and said I was going to spank him.
I have never spanked him. Never. I personally believe it does more harm than good for any child, and I think it would devastate mine. Ben's dad and I agreed when he was small, even before his diagnosis, that this was not the way we would discipline him. But when I said those words, Ben's eyes grew big and he began to cry. As far as I know, he has never been spanked. We know he knows what it is, because he has talked about it before, but he has said he has not been spanked. Daycare and school don't spank, and my parents have respected my wishes concerning it; however, he has been around enough other kids to have surely heard about spanking.
Regardless of what his knowledge of spanking might be, his little face crumpled in terror, so I took a deep breath, and picked him up and hugged him instead. I repeated my mantra about what to do when he needed to potty and reminded him of his social story and picture poster for pottying, and then put him in his room and made him stay there while I cleaned up the mess. That upset him enough, as he screamed and cried and asked for his daddy for the first ten minutes or so.
I scrubbed and cried. I am glad I didn't spank him. It wouldn't have helped. His pottying issues are beyond his control to an extent. He is making progress, but we do have set backs, although today's set back was pretty awful. And when I was finished and went into his room to get him, he immediately told me he was sorry and he loved me. I, of course, told him I loved him more than all the stars in the sky. We read his pottying social story together, and I think the trauma is behind him, though I just heard him tell one of his little astronauts not to poop in the space ship.
I don't know that I am over it, though. I'm over the mess. It was bad but not completely unprecedented; I'll just borrow my mom's carpet cleaner again. I am worried about my initial reaction. I am worried that I am not strong enough to calmly handle bad incidents. He deserves a mom who can keep it together and be there for him no matter what. I am trying, but I don't know if it's enough.
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