As I sit down to type this, I am unshowered, wearing very unflattering pajamas that are covered in crumbs, and I have no makeup on. My bathroom has bath toys and towels strewn about, and there is cat food from one end of the kitchen to the other, as I did not manage to sweep as planned. I planned to do several things today, actually. I accomplished very few of them. Today, Charlie had a full blown sensory meltdown, to a degree that we have not seen before. It came out of nowhere, and I mishandled it pretty much every step of the way. Remember me saying this wasn’t my first rodeo? Yeah well, I wouldn’t even have gotten out of the gate the way I handled things today. His tears and panic should have been so easily recognizable to me, but instead I got caught up in what I thought I knew and let my frustration lead.

I finally got him settled and to sleep for a nap, at 4 PM, which…yeah, amazingly bad idea as far as bed time goes, I know, but we both needed it. He didn’t even fight it this time. He just put his head on me and I rocked him to his song until he was heavy on my shoulder, his weariness collapsing into my own.

I am thankful that we have a plan in place, and are learning to navigate these waters early. But that doesn’t mean that the storms don’t toss us into the rocks every once in awhile. And I may not be the best swimmer, but I refuse to go under.

I am completely out of boat metaphors here, so instead of forcing it, I am just going to picture us as pirates. Because pirates are cool, and I look pretty bad ass with an eye patch. If I were showered or dressed I would totally go pillage something right now.  Arrrrrrrrr.