Travelling Sans Family…The Return

It didn’t go so well. I had a wonderful time if you ignore the random pangs of guilt. Reed did great not worrying me with anything while I was away. Once I returned, however, I got the full report. Trys did not want to cooperate from day 1. Her whole routine changed and all the progress I had made with her over the past year was quickly thrown out the window. She didn’t want to get out of bed, didn’t want to change into school clothes, didn’t want to brush her teeth, didn’t want to leave the house, nor get out of the car to drop her brother off at his school. Reed tried to troubleshoot on the go, but that is no longer so simple. She is bigger now. You cannot just pick her up and carry on like when she was a toddler. Negotiations and distractions must be implemented, and if you are lucky, one of them will work. The worst is if you are on a tight schedule and Trys will not budge on something, like on the last day I was away. That afternoon Reed picked Trys up from school with no fuss and drove over to Xayden’s school; that is when the fun began. When they parked the car Trys demanded a chocolate milkshake (they had gotten milkshakes once earlier in the week), Reed told her ‘no’ because they didn’t have enough time before they needed to pick Xayden up. This let to a full blown meltdown. She threw her tablet, snatched Reed’s phone, started running away from Reed, and started slapping and punching him. None of the negotiating worked this time and they were very late picking Xayden up from school. And that is how it sometimes is, Trys gets completely dysregulated and there is nothing to be done except to give her time to calm down.

I guess I have not much choice but to continue to travel once in a while. If I stop completely, Trys will expect me to always be there, and if I do ever need to go away she will have an even harder time.

Image by Thomas Mühl from Pixabay