Yesterday was early release day for Britton who is now 5 and in Kindergarten.  We've had many of these and he has this great idea in his head that he's so excited to be out of school!  On the contrary. Well, this particular day, he wanted to head to his schools playground with the HUGE parade of after school Y kids right in front of us.  I warned him it looked 'crazy' and asked multiple times if he was sure? Knowing very well our potential outcome.  During regular recess he knows who is there, he can predict what will happen and it's familiar.  This?  Chaos.

He did his typical swinging as high and hard as humanly possible for about 20 minutes.  Then, the bright orange ball came into his sight line.  That ball......oh that ball.  A few other boys were playing a combo game of tag/dodgeball.  Understand this, Britton does NOT at all understand or participate in these type of games.  They confuse the heck out of him and are hard for him to play in.  This is why we stay away from team sports mostly.  Back to the orange ball.  He hopped off the swing and ran for it as fast as he could.  Got it, threw it and went chasing again.  He then took it and threw it as high as he possibly could.  All the while another kid yelling at him, "NO Britton, you can't do that.  Put it down.  You hate me.  You're mean and aren't in the game.".  And this is where my heart was breaking.  But, buck up mom, here it comes......another kid got the ball and Britton just went for it. Britton? a foot shorter and a year or two younger.  He doesn't care.  When he desire and a little anger/rage come out?  He's bigger and stronger than anything.  He went to grab the ball from this kid as the kid was just about to tag someone, and....call it helicopter, call it what you will, I put my hand on that ball and with all my might got it from Britton (who was trying to muscle it away from the older kid), and looked at the older kid, handed him the ball and whispered, "take it kid and run".

Now I'm ready for what comes next.  30 minutes of a meltdown.  Here we go.  The crying comes first.  I can handle that, but this time?  Instead of being angry, which is very typical as he cannot truly regulate and deal with emotions.  He was sad.  He leaned into me and just cried and cried and cried.  I tried to explain that the other kids were playing a game.  That if he wanted to play he has to follow their rules and play.  He was still fixated on the freaking orange ball though.  More crying, and finally with huge tears told me "this is the worst Early Release day ever!"  I bet it was kiddo, I bet.  I got him to sit in my lap, and of course some screaming girls were having a ridiculous chorus of screaming, which was about to put Britton over the edge.  I yelled and got them to stop, but poor kiddo was just overwhelmed and hiding in my chest.  I hugged him, held strong and told him that it's ok if it's hard, it's ok that it's overwhelming and I'm here for you.  He at that point didn't want to do anything, so we just sat and held each other.  I finally got him to drink some water and start eating a snack.  And then, a huge breath of air came, all of the after school kids, went inside.  Whew......

His two friends came over and consoled him (2 girls), and we smiled and laughed and they finally got him to get up and play again.  40 minutes later.  He was having a great time with them and then? Time to go!  An accident.  Grrr............come on!  Ok, my frustration, and he would have never told me if I didn't see it happen.  So, playdate over, home we go.

And that's what we call a pretty good Autism Day in our world.  We walked home and talked about gestational periods of babies.  Man I love this kid!