Talking Her Down

Haley finally got to see her Grandparents...and the cow that lives behind them.

The day finally came.  She survived.  I survived.

She didn't say all of the things that she had practiced for three weeks.

"We're Here!" "Here we are!" "Love." "Hugs." "Nice."  "Hi, how are you?"  "Good."

She didn't say much, but from the look on her face I could tell that she was really happy.  She got to go to the Tree Farm and go on a long (tough) walk and ride Grandpa's tractor.  She spent much of the weekend doing what she does at home, playing on the computer, watching her shows, playing with her toys and eating, but she was happy because she was doing it at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

At the end of the weekend she sat on the couch with her Grandma looking at her railroad catalogs.  She ended up keeping one of Grandma's catalogs that she had saved for her in "the box."  Grandma said that she wished she had spoken more during the weekend.  She knows that Haley gets her voice back as soon as we drive away.  Haley's Grandma laughed about that.

When it was time to go she smiled and hugged and said "Goodbye" and then we got in the Yukon.

As we pulled away she started yelling "GOODBYE!  GOODBYE GRANDPA!  HEATHER!  GRANDMA!  GOODBYE!"

I backed the Yukon up and rolled down the windows so that she could say goodbye to her grandparents again.  They said goodbye.  Everyone waved and smiled.  We all turned and said goodbye to Heather.  Then I pulled away again.

Then it started.

She started crying.  Then she would yell.  Then she was quiet.  Then she yelled some more.  This went on for about ten minutes.  She started hitting the window.  Then her Dad got after her.  Then she really got upset and cried a lot. 

She was miserable.

We had planned to go to dinner not far down the road.  It was a restaurant that Haley's Big Sis wanted to go to and it was less than an hour away.  We had to get Haley to calm down.  I did the only thing I know to do.  I started reminding her of all of the fun we just had.  It seems counter productive, but for some reason for her, it works.

I reminded her that she got to see Heather.  I reminded her that she got to ride between her Grandma and Grandpa in their truck on the way to the Tree Farm and back again.  That was fun.  I reminded her that we got to walk among the trees at the Tree Farm.  She liked that.  I reminded her that she got to ride Grandpa's tractor.

"Was that fun, Haley?"

"Yeah."

"We had a lot of with Grandma and Grandpa didn't we?

"Yeah."

I thought about telling her that we were going out to eat, but I was afraid that giving her that goal as far away as an hour was going to be too much so I didn't.  She had basically already calmed down though.

I had talked her down.