I didn’t mention this earlier because I don’t like advertising to the world when I’m going to have an empty house, but we took our trip up to Quebec City this past weekend.

And, so as not to bury the lede, it did not go as planned.

The chaos began when we stopped at the Wal-Mart just before the Canadian border to pick up some snacks and meet family to caravan the rest of the way to Quebec. (Safety in numbers from those spooky Canucks.) Daphne was not thrilled that Grammy walked off and didn’t get into the car with us, so she cried.
And screamed.
And threw her head against the back of her seat.
For 45 minutes straight.

Which made for an interesting conversation with the border agent as we crossed into Canada, but then again I’m sure we weren’t the first car with a crying child she’d seen that day…

Anyway, Daph eventually calmed down and the rest of the 3 hour-ish drive was uneventful, but our nerves were pretty raw at that point.

We got to our hotel, Le Chateau de Pierre, and despite having requested it multiple times the staff still hadn’t sent us the passcode to enter the building, nor the keycode to get in our room.
I think they happened to catch me glowering on the lobby camera and had an, “oh $#*@…we forgot to email those people, didn’t we?” moment since the email with all the info arrived while I was in the process of sending a WTF? text.

And the room was…fine. I did mark with concern how thin the walls were, though, and hoped that we’d have a calm and easy evening with Daphne. Alas, that was not to be.

We caught up with family and headed out for a walk, and Quebec City is quite lovely.

We all agreed that we were hungry, so I spent a few moments researching places I thought Daphne might eat, and landed on “Le Chic Shack.”

And it was quite good. I mean, it’s just hamburgers and french fries, but still very good.

And Daphne, for a fleeting moment, calmed down and was happy.

We went on a short walk then headed back to the hotel and went up to bed at around 8:30. At which point Daphne attached herself to Jen’s phone and would. Not. Let. It. Go.

Each time we tried to redirect her attention somewhere else, she’d shriek at the top of her lungs and hurl herself against the bed.

Fast forward to 1:45am, and she’s still awake. Still listening to the first 12 notes of “Row, Row, Row, Your Boat,” on repeat (for the 3,000th time). Still stimming by scratching her toenails against my leg.
And her parents are on edge, expecting her to scream again if we try to take the phone away and make her go to sleep.

Eventually I hit the “enough, come what may” moment and took the phone from her before it could run out of charge and she had a full-on meltdown. I plugged it in, set a Mozart lullaby on repeat, and hoped for the best. And by 2am, she’d finally gone to sleep.

It’s hard to say who awoke in a worse mood on Saturday, Daphne or her parents. Still, we took a quiet walk around the city to try and salve things and calm everyone’s malaise….

We also wandered through the Fairmont Le Château Frontenac which is the castle-looking building from the earlier pictures…

Alas, after it became clear that things were not improving, the thought of spending another night concerned about Daphne screaming and stomping through a boutique hotel was too much. So we packed it up and headed home a day early.

Now I’d be lying if I told you that my initial reaction wasn’t, “we are never attempting anything like this, ever again.” But on the way home cooler heads prevailed, and better strategies began to form for traveling with an autistic child with sensory processing disorder.

And that strategy is, AirBnB.

By that I mean we are never going to try to stay in a hotel again. (Or at least not for more than one night, anyway.) We require a separate building, with no shared walls or floors, in order to travel. That way we can enforce bedtime, which comes with a semi-regular meltdown or two, and we can also feed Daphne effectively. (She ate a bag of Goldfish, 64 oz. of water, half a milkshake, and a dozen french fries in 24 hours.)

And so expensive lessons were learned. But hey, we did at least got to walk around Quebec City for a day. It’s a very pretty place.

j.s.