Weekend wasn't great, but both small DC might be coming down with something which would explain a lot. We have sent them into nurdery today but I'll pick them up after lunch. No doubt this will be the wrong decision according to DS2!
He gets into this state a lot recently where (for want of a better word) he is "crazy" or "annoying", he just wants to wind everyone up and is a bit TOO MUCH all the time. I want to talk to him about it, but I can never come up with a good word for how to describe that state to him. I feel like any word I can think of either sounds too negative or it's too ambiguous. The only thing that we do is use the zones of regulation colours - DH will point out "you're in the red zone" but he does it in such an accusatory tone of voice it frustrates me because that is not the point XD
I was able to mitigate this a little bit this weekend by suggesting colouring. I should do this more often. Maybe I need a little list/toolbox of calming activities, that have a low barrier of entry for me, to suggest.
Then another issue I have noticed. Does anyone else find that they are reactive to how their DC are? I find as soon as DS2 (it's only him that does it really because it's an age thing, I think) gets into a whiny/complaining/contrary mode, I get triggered into this state where my voice raises up, my tone is combative, I say things like "Oh my god" and "What do you WANT" and "can you JUST" and I want to say things like "For fuck's sake" (but I don't, though sometimes I whisper it to myself)
I know this is unhelpful, but I don't seem to notice I'm doing it until it's already started. But I realised the other day that nobody else does this (at least that I have seen in public) so there must be some way to not do it. It's embarrassing as well because everyone stares at me acting like a toddler and I know I'm being a crap parent in that moment.
It's times like:
We have to change trams next to the customer service centre and they have a little display in there which the DC like, so when we have a longer connection we often go in there to kill time, and sometimes we go in anyway and just get the next connection. On this occasion, we were about to catch a tram and I wanted to go out, but he wanted to stay in and look at a different bit. I did some spectacularly bad management of this, because I spotted a fire engine outside and impulsively thought aha! This will be more exciting than the other bit of the tram display! But this was actually just tricking him, really, into agreeing to go out to look at a fire engine and then tried to just steer them to the tram stop. They both started to whine/cry and said "No but we wanted to look at the trams!!" (but in a more 2/5 year old way) and I got frustrated and stropped myself and said something like "Oh for god's sake! Yes, fine!!!" And I stormed them back inside. Then we saw the tram go past otuside and I couldn't help saying "But now look, we've missed the tram!!" Which OBVIOUSLY upset them again and didn't help, it's not like we could have run and caught it. I was just pissed off and I wanted to let them know that I was pissed off. (Not helpful, not helpful!!!)
This whole situation was stupid, and it was my own fault, because I should have just made a decision in the first place (go get tram/look at other part of exhibit, get next tram) and stuck to it AND I should have been clear in my decision instead of pretending we were looking at a fire engine and then actually no we were getting the tram. I'm very - this is a very ADHD thing, the flip flopping and split second bad decisions. I justify it in a millisecond in my head, and I expect everyone around me to magically know what I am thinking and follow me and they are all lost and confused and have no urgency and then I get into a PANIC BUT THE PLAN WON'T WORK and think it's their fault. But it's not really.
That is not the only time that it happens. I'll come back with more but I need to go and get them now.