Ah the weekend...

I am still not a cool parent and I am still okay with that.  I did send little friend home, no explanation just that it was time to go.  The Mom didn't seem surprised.

I found a used bunk bed for a really good price and it was a perfect match for Miss Fabulous' room.  Since she no likey change I never make a change with out consideration to how it is going to affect her and whether the change is worth the possible fall out.  I addressed the change with her.  Explained that her bed (meaning the mattress and sheets and animals and smells or scents) would all remain the same.  I had hoped she would want to move to the top bunk but she did not so we skipped it.

It is not possible for Miss Fabulous to share a room with Big Sis all the time but it is possible for Big Sis to sleep on the top bunk from time to time and when we have company, we have that amount of stability at this time.

I was very careful about the transition.  I gave her an activity to focus on but did not send her away from her room where we worked.  I showed her how her things were all there and staying.  She paced and entered and paced and entered and I made sure Dad and I worked as quickly as possible.  She helped put the unwashed bedding back on her bed, now the bottom bunk.  She immediately laid down and smelled her bed and rubbed the sheet, all very unconsciously.

I had given The Hubs the low down as to how we needed to go about this change and I explained about not changing the bedding and he looked at me funny and I explained the need for things to smell the same while she adjusted to the change.  So he actually saw her smell her bedding.  He told me, "Hey I saw her do that." 

When her room gets messy because we haven't done well at picking up as we go I go in and clean it up and organize it while she is gone.  When she comes in I show her that everything is where it belongs and we get back to working on 'things in their place' when we are done with them.  She has trouble with organizational skills and she gets over whelmed with the mess.  She isn't good at playing.  It is uncomfortable to her.  She seems lost and unsure what to do.  She is just as impaired as children on the autism spectrum tend to be in this area but for different reasons.  At this point in time Mr. Man has made loads more progress than she has in the area of play.

Back to the smelling ... I found that changing her sheets when she visited Grandma away from home was a big no no.  The smell of clean sheets was unsettling and made the change and transition more difficult.  The same thing applies when I clean up the room, I do not change the bedding because she finds great comfort in her bed.  It is her safe spot. 

And this room rearranging weekend got me to thinking about how different life is with children with traumatic backgrounds.  And why it is so difficult when they enter into our lives.  It took me a long long time to figure out something as small as changing the sheets on the bed was a huge upset to her. 

That was the only change we sent her way this weekend.  Otherwise we stayed home, half of us are sick anyway.  We played quiet activities and she gravitated to the mini tramp A LOT.  She didn't rage so as of right now I think we made it through this "project bed change" okay.

Ask me tomorrow.