Creative Plumbing

I'm getting fairly good at jumping the meltdown hurdles, riding the emotional roller coasters, wearing the "we're-in-public-pretend-we're-normal" face, playing defense in the blame game ("you made me mad because I'm in trouble for disobeying and lying and hitting and cheating and doing otherwise destructive things"), motivating behavior and speech toward calm bodies and calm voices in an attempt to help children stay regulated. I can walk on egg shells without even noticing it - or stomp on them purposefully depending the day. I can therapeutically talk and play a three year old through deep grief, fear and loss in one moment, redirect an anxiety-ridden eleven year old, make speech and occupational therapy lesson plans for a nine year old, and teach a phonics lesson to a 4 year old nearly simultaneously. No really, within the same 30 minute time period it all happens. It doesn't look pretty, but we're learning together.

Yesterday's life skill was called creative plumbing 101 - or reasons to not play with your feces. By noon yesterday I was certain that I should change my career path permanently to plumbing or being a corrections officer. Either would have been a step up and would have included a pay raise, I'm sure.

It all started when one of my darlings decided to play with their feces while using the toilet. I did rejoice in that it wasn't nearly as bad as many of my RAD mom friend's stories. We didn't end up with a chocolate colored bathroom or needing to use a dozen bottles of air freshener to remedy the situation. For that I am grateful. Oh, so very grateful. I can even laugh and smile and drink another entire pot of coffee.

There were reports yesterday morning that the toilet wouldn't flush - after a few of the other children had tried just to be sure. When I surveyed the damage I knew that no amount of plunging could solve that amount of toilet paper. You see, when you wrap up your feces in a third of a roll of toilet paper and then flush repeatedly you just get yourself into a big mushy mess. The hands-on teacher in me resorted to what I do best: teaching hands-on. Since everyone else was already buckled in the van to go to speech and OT when I discovered this, I called the poo-poo problem-maker back to the scene of the event and asked the child to push up their sleeves and empty the contents of the throne into the bucket next to it. This is when I found out that in the past year they have learned the difference between filthy and clean. Progress. Fixing the toilet was actually faster than scrubbing their hands repeatedly after the plumbing job was done.

I couldn't have imagined this a year ago, but it worked. Logical consequences where the child reaps what they sow and fixes what they break in a practical way 100+ times a day within the context of a loving parent/child relationship is exactly where we are at.