And then, there are some that leave a wake of paper and ribbons so messy, so chaotic, that people rarely stick around to see what all the ruckus was about.
That is how I best describe Youngest. He is on of my biggest gifts, making me so much more of a person and mother than I ever thought possible, but the journey to get there has been, well, less than cherished.
I have written of Youngest often here. While high functioning, he falls within the Autistic Spectrum. While doing research on Celiac disease when he was 5, I found several links for behavior in children. What I found was links upon links of case studies describing him in detail. Within 3 weeks of going gluten free nearly all of his ASD symptom disappeared and he was able to come off all but one of his medications, and even that remaining dosage was significantly reduced. His journey of becoming strong socially and academically has been extremely difficult, but highly successful.
He has many, many friends. He enjoys all types of activities. He independently camps with Scouts, participates in team sports, and can stay home alone for short periods of time. Once several years behind his friends in writing he is now on grade level, and for the boy who never wanted to read chapter books, he now feverishly reads everything he can get his hands on. In fact, one of our biggest struggles right now is that he is sneaking a book into bed and staying up until 1 or 2 am reading on school nights. Not the worst, I agree, but when he refuses to get up for school at 7 am, it causes quite a hiccup in our routine.
The stress of my getting sick was not lost on any of us, as it seemed to be the catalyst that started the obsessive reading. It also seemed to be the start of puberty that is *eye roll*
just oh so much fun. Youngest is a snacker, so getting his calorie count high enough to even start puberty has been an enormous challenge, causing several "starts" and "stops" over the last year or so. Needless to say, we think he finally has started making his way up the hill judging primarily by the attitude, eye rolling, and nasty sarcasm that emanates from his once sweet 12 year old body.
He's also decided that I am indefinitely stupid, annoying, and always up his butt. Apparently he's even doing a persuasive essay about it for English.
Well played, boy, well played. Having been though the early stages already with Oldest, I decided to give him a bit of slack. When he wants to go for a run alone, provided he stays in the neighborhood, he is allowed to go. I ask if he has homework, he tells me, and he gets it done on his own time table during the evening. This was working well, until I checked his homework scores online and found 3 zeros. So now we have to devise a plan to get homework and his other obligations done with minimal stress, on time. He's loving having be back on his butt for schoolwork
letmetellyou.
He also wants to come off his medication, so much so that he was outright refusing to take it in the morning. Now, I'm not completely unreasonable, I can respect that he wants control of his own body, but I
know he needs this medication right now. So I suggested he have a civil conversation with his doctor on Wednesday when we went for a medication check. His well thought out, self advocating talk consisted of
"I want to not take my pills anymore, because I hate them."
*sigh*
So they talked, discussed why he was on the medication (two of them are just vitamins), and how and when we could try his coming off, which was NOT to be during the most challenging part of the school year.
Thursday he went back to school and came home with an enormous amount of homework for that night, as well as make up work from Wednesday. While he wasn't thrilled, he trudged though each subject one at a time. When he needed a break, he took it, and then came back to the next subject. He even completed a merit badge he had to finish for scouts. And then, he forgot the page number he needed to complete for Math, and it was all over. He grabbed his book, went down stairs and checked out for the night.
About a half hour later I went to see him, told him the page and the 9 problems he needed to do and gave him options of when he could do them. You'd have thought I had asked him to cut off his own arm.
Things were thrown.
Words were said. Yelled. Sworn.
Tony got involved. There was more yelling. Swearing. Physical-ness. It was not pretty.
A half hour later I found Youngest standing on the back steps in only a sweat shirt staring at the stars. It was 5 degrees out, so I told him to come in. (Secretly my heart sunk, as I never even heard the door open. He's always been a runner, and it scares me to death to think he could have been lost into the night, stubborn as he is, not coming home.)
Thirty minutes later I went back downstairs to talk. He was packing. I asked if he had a plan. He said "No". Truthfully, if he had had a plan to go somewhere, I'd have dropped him off. I was so done with walking around on tip toes, not wanting to set him off. I was done with the fighting, the disrespect, the all around acting like an asshat. But alas, he had no plan. We talked instead. I got him to lay down in bed and watch is fish. And after checking on him repeatedly throughout the night to ensure he was still there and that he had not hurt himself, I finally went to bed.
I got all of 3 hours of interrupted sleep. We have not had an episode like this in several years. I talked with the school therapist and she said he had actually been fine at school, socializing more with his friends, and while saying some things for "shock value", she's able to talk through a lot of things with him. On Saturday I noticed that he's been skipping many more days of his medicine than I had realized. We talked about how out of control the night had been, and that this is why he needed to be on them. They help him remain calm and make better choices. He's given me no trouble since about taking it.
These episodes with him are always difficult. He reacts different than other kids, and has to be handled differently than the norm. Grounding doesn't work for him. The loss of privileges does, but only if it correlates directly with what he's done, and sometimes it needs to be spelled out for him. He's still being allowed his books to "escape", but he's being held more accountable and being given less privacy.
On Sunday I was giving his room a good cleaning. I cleaned and changed the water in his fish tank. I picked up all the loose papers, checking for anything I should be concerned over. I pitched everything he had destroyed in his wake of nasty three days earlier, and I unpacked his stash that he had planned to take with him when he ran away....
....A bamboo stick he could use as a spear, his green plastic safe full of coins, one t-shirt for those cold New England winter nights, 14 pairs of socks, a fleece blanket, and 6 pairs of boxers. No tent, no fire starter, no pocket knife, jacket, food or boots. Just socks, undies, pennies, and a stick. Clearly, he had no real plan of running away, but I suppose there is hope in that he wanted to have clean socks and underwear while on his journey and oddly, I find real joy in this minuscule amount progress in personal hygiene.
Baby steps, my friends, baby steps.
