I had visions of being a cool parent but ...

I have resolved with in myself that is not happening.  I'm okay with it.  Really not as disappointed as I might have imagined about it.

I have determined I can't be cool and be right, I'd rather be right.  I got sucked into the "can my friend come over" thing today.  I made it clear up front that we were going to have good behavior.  That didn't happen.  Not that it was anything terrible but I have a child on the autism spectrum and he is the least of my issues in this house.  We have to have order and a reliable way that things are done - consistency is our life line here.  And I could be cool and let the friend do what she will like using every piece of expensive equipment in this house in an unsafe way and without permission, but I ain't gonna. 

Yes I sacrificed cool to be right.  I told friend to call Mama to make sure someone would be there when I brought her home.  Looks of shock and dismay.  I had no time to deal with it because I was moving Miss Fabulous into the bath just moments after she had banshee screamed in the back yard and gave consideration to taking on the above ground pool in a karate show down because someone tagged her in a game of tag.  Go figure.

At any rate I didn't have time to deal with the tweens opened mouth shock and dismay.  Friend called Mama and Mama really didn't want her to come home.  Hmmm?  Asked if Big Sis could sleep over instead.  Nope.  But here's the deal ... and I explained to friend that they did things different at her house and that was fine but that here when someone comes into the house they have to respect the way we do things because otherwise the children here with special needs start to fall apart and I am not really into that, you can understand.  I pointed out the banshee scream episode outside with Miss Fabulous and reminded her that things can get ugly quickly around here.

She got it and admitted that she had not been behaving herself.  The tweens got one more chance and they pulled it together and behaved.  Go tweens!

Tuesday Miss Fabulous went to finish her testing at the university.  That evening her Behavior Therapist comes to visit.  She hasn't raged in front of him in months.  We all kind of thought she had moved him over into a teacher status Tuesday I said, "Good to know that you are still in the family." 

Miss Fabulous raged, all of the sudden and out of the blue because she got very angry at Lil Bro when he touched one of her toys.  Dad was home and he redirected her and blocked and redirected her but her brain left the building the minute that Lil Bro touched that toy.  Dad had to hold her and keep her safe and the CBA got a lovely report out of it and told Dad what an excellent job he had done.  Go Dad!

She also has had a 'swiper no swiping' thing going on for the past few weeks at camp.  She tried to leave with someone else's DS game and today all the kids got a special something for their hula day and she decided she would take 2 of those things after it had been explained that everyone only got 1.  She hides these things in her cubby and when Nan picks her up Nan inquires as to what it's all about and then asks the staff who are quite surprised that Miss has whatever in her cubby.

It will be interesting to see how that all works it's self out.