Round Two

After spending a lovely late morning and early afternoon with Hannah, shopping for paint for Alex's room and looking for paint samples for her room, she had another meltdown. She already knew that she was grounded from going to Busch Gardens today with Alex and a bunch of their friends. When we got home from Home Depot, we had about 45 minutes before we had to leave again to pick up some stuff for Alex's new room from a freecycler, pick Alex up from Wizard of Oz practice and take him to Busch Gardens to meet his friends. She started in on me about 5 minutes after we arrived home. "Am I going to be able to go to Busch Gardens?" "No." "Am I going to be able to go to Busch Gardens?" "No.", etc., etc. etc. You get the picture. Then it turned into a tantrum. She was sitting on the stairs, nagging me and suddenly we heard large items being thrown across a room. It sounded like they were coming from Alex's room. Great, it turned out she threw a can of oil base primer several times. The can was dented all over, the handle was coming off and dented and it finally spilled all over the floor. The can also hit the newly primed wall in one spot and left a huge dent in it. She also pushed over a huge, $700 guitar amplifier that belongs to Drew. We had a drop cloth on it and were using it for a painting supply station. Ceiling fan blades, chairs and painting tools were also thrown everywhere. The damage was minor, considering the sound that was coming from the room. I thought it was going to have to be gutted!

Mike was mad at me because I wouldn't let him go up there and try to stop her. Been there, done that and it doesn't work. It just escalates her and that is the last thing we needed. When she was done trashing the room, she came onto the stairs and was demanding that I talk to her. I told her that I would when she calmed down. She screamed hysterically at me that she was calm. I got her second dose of abilify and brought it to her and told her that if she took it and went in her room to calm down for a while, that I would talk to her about it, but that did not mean she was going to Busch. She took the pill and went to her room, shockingly.

Oil based primer spill

The smashed can

The tipped over amp, chairs and thrown fan blades

Then it was time to leave for the freecycler's house, so I took her with me. On the way, she asked me if she could go to Busch. I asked her what she would do if her daughter had acted the way she did, would she let her go? She said, no she probably wouldn't. So I told her she was going to be a very good mother some day because that is what any good mother would say. Then she said, "Am I going to Busch?" Duh! I calmly said, "No, you aren't going to Busch, Hannah." She then gave up, shockingly, again. The abilify must have taken effect by then.

When we got to Busch to drop Alex off, she said, "Bye, Mom", but made no attempt to exit the car. She behaved just fine when we got home, she even helped me finish painting the trim in Alex's room.