Forty-five minutes. That’s how long it took for Tanner to
stop crying over our recliner today. Not the sniffles…not crocodile tears…but
the kind of crying that leads to hyperventilation and soaked bed sheets.
Our recliner was a generous inheritance from my parents this
year when they retired to Florida. After countless hours of kid-cuddles, Sunday
naps and cartoon marathons, hubby and I decided it was time to retire our
battered brown baby. The family fixture
had seen better days (see photo) and it was time to part ways. Soooooo, my
husband told Tanner to sit in the chair one last time before we took it out the
door.
We were NOT prepared for what came next. Tanner ran to me,
grabbed my legs and began to scream and wail. This began an absolute emotional
meltdown of drastic proportions. Suffice it to say that Tanner was MUCH more
attached to this piece of furniture than I could have ever imagined.
I explained the overall condition of the chair and the
safety issues it posed (obviously grasping). My husband promised a Father-Son trip
to the recliner store. I even called my mother in on speaker phone for
assistance. Tanner wasn’t having any of it. He continuously begged, “Please don’t
take it away!”
I began to process this turn of events with my husband:
“We just totally disrupted Tanner’s schedule. We should have
prepared him for this.”
“This recliner was his favorite place in the house. It
provided security and we are jerking that out from under him.”
“How could we not have seen this coming? Tanner hates
change. We are horrible parents.”
Once Tanner began to calm down (waaaaay later), I asked why
he was so upset. He began to cry, “BECAUSE IT REMINDS ME OF NANA!”
For those of us dealing with autism, we have conditioned
ourselves to scrutinize atypical details, to constantly uncover triggers of our
kids’ behaviors, to “think outside the neurotypical box”. Sometimes, we miss
the forest because we are dissecting the trees. Tanner missed his Nana and
wanted to keep that piece of her with him - A touching response from any child.
The happy ending is that, visibly upset, my husband called a
local upholsterer and dropped off the recliner this afternoon. His plan is to
take Tanner to pick it up next weekend. :)
Being the Nana of Tanner, I felt badly that he had missed me so much that he became attached to this chair.
ReplyDeleteI tried to talk to him on the phone and he really didn't change his mind about not wanting to lose his/our chair.
It is a very special chair as I purchased it when the boys came along.
It was in this chair that we read their favorite books; rocked and cuddled the sick one; watched cartoons and favorite movies; did crossword puzzles; crunched Nana, Tanner and Luke ALL together!
There were many naps, many songs, and much love shared in this chair. I guess it was easier for me not being there to watch it being hauled away.
I would not trade a second in that old recliner/rocker for anything in the world. I can still feel those little bodies lying across my chest when they fell asleep; I would hold them, smell them, touch them (and sometimes cry with the joy of having them) rather than put them down in their playpen or bed!
So, I am happy to know it is being reupholstered and touched that my son in law chose to do this for Tanner.
I will be ready to sit with the boys when I return home in a few weeks!
I am also proud of my daughter for starting this blog!!
Nana