Another somewhat difficult day.  It was very grey and rainy, and I find the pressure in the atmosphere when the weather is like this has a MASSIVE affect on both DD & DS's mood and behaviour.

Then, no sooner had we finished breakfast and resolved one fall out, when we happened to see a rat in the garden! Eeek - bold as brass he was.  We've never had this before, but I suspect a combination of the fact that DS had (2 days previously) decided to empty the bird table and spread the food out all across the lawn for the Wood Pigeons and ground feeding birds (bless his good intentions!) and the fact that the neighbours dogs were not out today, meant he ventured in to our garden for a change, from whence-ever he ordinarily resides...

This was a "New Thing" - so the day was basically written off before it began as this 'new thing' 'interrupted' DS and it took him virtually the entire day to re-set himself.  Everything else went out of sync from that moment onwards.  He had a screaming melt down when he heard me (foolishly) mention the word exterminators (ooops!) - so we had to have lots of cuddles and reassurance and explain that the rat couldn't stay in our garden because he would not be able to be a pet, and may need to be moved somewhere more suitable.  DS's argument to this was "what if I were a rat? He jus' bein' a rat! We would do-a same thing if we were a rat!"   Darling boy :-)  

It took a while to calm down from this, then he flitted from one thing to another.  Very up and down.  It's as though you can actually see his jammed circuitry when he is like this. Something 'new' or 'different' or 'unexpected' has interrupted the order of his day and all his circuitry becomes jammed and needs re-setting.  

He decided himself he would have an early lunch, as I think he just wanted to move on with the day and re-establish a 'known' routine.  So around 11am I made him a  vegetarian bacon sandwich (he absolutely will not eat meat - gets extremely upset at people eating animals) and a strawberry milkshake (his favourites) and he ate those happily enough.  He kept asking for my Kindle (to play computer games) but I didn't want to give in to that as I felt he was coping enough, so we sat and played Lord of the Rings Stratego (which he loves, and takes aaaages to play!) but that was ok.  He was even happy to concede a draw :-)  

After this, curiosity was getting the better of him so we went to spend some time in the garden - but, much to his disappointment (and my relief!) no reappearance of the rat! 

When we came back inside, he looked so exhausted from the effort of processing it all that I relinquished the During-The-Day TV Rule and he watched a Tom & Jerry movie (also reserved for special occasions as they tend to over-stimulate him, but I think he needed it today).  He basically just zonked the rest of the evening. He wanted to play Lego with Daddy when he came home from work (we'd even sent Daddy a text at work just letting him know we needed him to come home as soon as he was able today, as DS needed everyone to be home in order to re-set) but when it came to it, all he could manage to do was just get his Lego box out and then he was exhausted again, came back down and flopped in front of the telly with me & DD until bed!  He even went compliantly to bed at bedtime - obviously worn out from all the brain effort today, bless him.

DD on the otherhand did the complete opposite - most of the day, post-rat, was spent darting around the house like a wild rabbit and being seemingly deliberately irritating by basically just doing the opposite of whatever was asked, needed or appropriate at any given time!  But we've managed this successfully with lots of physical interaction and feedback - tickles wherever possible, hugs, picking her up, clapping hands together - any sort of physical interaction seems to ground her, as when there is something 'new' or 'unknown' for DD she feels as though she is falling and becomes extremely hyper.  I guess it is just another method of trying to re-set herself, but can sometimes be harder to deal with due to the irritation factor.  I constantly have to remind myself that it's the same underlying need, it just manifests in a different way in her! :-)

And on that exhausting note, I'll say a well-earned Good Night all xx