Obsessions

Rachel's bus comes about 7:05 in the morning, so we're usually in a hurry. I only get her up 20-30 minutes before she needs to leave because I want her to get as much sleep as possible. The easiest answer would be to put her to bed earlier, but that doesn't work because she doesn't go to sleep if I do. She gets up and plays, or lays there in her bed and talks to herself, which is honestly really cute, but not very restful. The biggest problem that I have with her in the morning is that when she's tired, her obsessive compulsive nature kicks in overtime. This morning when she got out of bed she wouldn't go in to the restroom until she had carefully laid her bunny, monkey, and dog that she sleeps with on her pillow. In a line. And it had to be straight. I kept telling her it didn't matter because I was just going to move them to make her bed, but she "couldn't" let it go.

She has gotten a lot better at dressing herself again. I can lay out her clothes and she will usually get them all on in the right order relatively quickly. At night I can even just ask her to go get ready for bed and she will go use the restroom, find her pajamas under her pillow and put them on. She even puts her dirty clothes and shoes where they are supposed to go, and hasn't even had too much trouble if her pajama top was wrong side out. She was able to fix it and put it on by herself. I am thrilled and happy for her. It certainly makes my job easier, but even more important, it gives her a sense of accomplishment and independence that I know she enjoys. So this morning she was getting dressed, but it was taking forever. I finally went in and watched her and realized she was doing the "pull up, adjust, pull up again, readjust, pull up again, adjust once more" thing with her underwear, pants, socks, pretty much every item of clothing. I finally sat with her while she dressed and finally got her fed, her hair combed, teeth brushed, etc., just as the bus pulled up. I was trying to grab her coat and backpack to put on her, and I realized she had disappeared. I found her in her room, trying to hang a balloon on a knob on her dresser. She brought a helium balloon home a week or more ago, and so we looped it on the knob so it wouldn't fly up to the ceiling where she couldn't reach it. It's been laying on her bedroom floor for awhile now, and I was trying to decide when I could get rid of it without making her sad. This morning she was determined to hang it on the knob so it would float again. How do you explain to someone who can't really understand, why a balloon won't float anymore and that their bus is here and they have to leave right now, when she's obviously having an obsessive compulsive kind of a morning and "needs" to have the balloon put away to feel comfortable? I finally got her coat and backpack on her and got her out the door. She wasn't complaining on the way out, so hopefully she mentally moved on and can have a happy day. It's so tempting to keep her home when she's not super happy. I don't know if I'm trying to protect her or the people with whom she will interact, but I feel the need to be the one responsible for her if her world isn't in order. I've had to let go of that a lot because she needs to get out and be with other people. It's not healthy for her to be home with me all day, and I love that her horizons are broadening, so I give her a hug and a kiss and send her out the door and hope for the best. For everyone. She waved goodbye, so I'm hopeful.