Overwhelmed

When the hubby brought Dominic home from his Confirmation Preparation class a few weeks ago, he told me that his teacher (Mrs. W) mentioned he had cried during class.  My husband said he asked Dominic a few times on the car ride home, "why were you crying?" No response.  I tried asking him a few times too and got no answer either. When I reached out to Mrs. W later, she told me,

"Dominic seemed quite pensive the entire class, as if he were thinking of something else.  We asked him a few questions and it was obvious he had something else on his mind.  It was absolutely sweet that the other kids had such concern for him and wanted to know he was okay.  What a tender moment!  One of his classmates wanted to know if he needed a hug, so we asked him and 3 volunteered to give him a quick hug.  He didn't seem to mind, and I know it did them more good than him."

Wow, what empathy Dominic's classmates had! Still, I didn't know what was bothering him, so I waited a day or two and then asked him again. His response this time was, "overwhelmed." I thought well, he had a full day of school and then his bus brought him home an hour late. He had a little less than a half hour to get a snack, etc. before the hubby took him to class. I relayed the story to Lauren this past week and she said something like, "that's pretty good he could tell you that!" I have to also remember that Dominic is a "tween."  Puberty and Autism can sometimes be a challenging "duo."  I have to keep in mind that he might not always be able to tell us what's wrong because he might not know himself until he has had some time to think it over.

I wondered how he would do today at school (he missed all of last week since we were out of town). Yesterday, we drove for 10 hours straight. With it being daylight saving time plus Lauren leaving to go back to college this morning, I wondered if I would get a call from his teacher that he was having a tough time. He made it through the day fine and he even had a substitute bus driver this afternoon!!  Right now, I hear Dominic in the family room "scripting" scenes from both  Little People and  Barney. He does that when he is over stimulated. I'm letting him have that time in his "world," to relax before we head to his Confirmation Prep class in about an hour! We all need ways to "decompress," right?