MinnesotanMommy's Journal

Oh my goodness! This afternoon was one thing or another with my son. I've not a single clue what was up with him and why he was acting out! If he wasn't acting out, something major had to happen to screw with our schedule!

So I go to school to pick him up. He had an appointment for a psych eval. His teacher goes to get him and kneels down to talk to him. I'm wondering what happened and she comes out to the hallway with him and here he'd taken a marker and wrote on his jeans, and took a scissors and cut a slit into his jeans! When asked why, he finally told me "because I wanted to" and that was all I could get out of him as to why he did it. So we finally get on the road to the appointment and he's crying his eyes out cuz he's in trouble and might not get to order the book he wants off his book order. I told him I didn't know what his dad would say about it and it was up to him, but that he had to go to bed early tonight as punishment for doing what he'd done and he didn't like that very well either. Thankfully when it came time to put him to bed early tonight, he didn't fight me. I even asked him if he knew why I was putting him to bed early and he said "cuz I wrote on my pants" and I asked him what else he did that got him in trouble and he said "I cut my pants" and I asked him if he was going to remember not to do that again and he said yes. I plan on asking again in the morning if he remembers why he had to go to bed early. This is how we get him to remember things he did and why he shouldn't repeat the behavior. He gets the punishment, then he will get asked once a day for a few days. It seems to work relatively well. It's how we got him to start listening on the bus when he was having trouble. It doesn't work in a fool-proof method sorta way, but it works relatively effectively. So that was just the start. He was worked up on the way to the appointment and I told him we weren't going to discuss the issue anymore and he needed to calm down so he could talk to Dr. Samuelson during his appointment today. He eventually calmed down. So we get there and he goes to the bathroom. No problem. He did that before we went in. About fifteen minutes later we're still waiting and he says he has to go to the bathroom again and I tell him to go quickly because it's his turn to go in for the appointment. So he goes in, comes out and I look at him and somehow, in a way beyond my mind, he had poop on the outside belt loop of his pants in the back. Well, I took him back into the bathroom as fast as I could before anyone would see it, and I looked at the toilet and there was no sign of anything, not a mess of any sort on it and he hadn't flushed (nasty habit and I don't know how to remedy it either!), and there was nothing out of the ordinary sitting in the toilet (no extra toilet paper or anything), and he was clean outside of that mess on the outside of his pants, so I'm wiping the mess off and am horribly embarrassed about the whole thing and it's still beyond me how it happened and he had no clue it had happened or how until I pointed it out, and he still didn't know how it happened and I still don't know! So that was taken care of and then we get back into the waiting room and he decides it's time to try to sit on the table, so I have to convince him that isn't a very good idea, then he picks up a kid sized chair (the ones that are made smaller so kids can sit in them easier) and he's about to put it over his head before I convince him that isn't a good idea either, then he asks me a question about going to the bathroom and I had to inform him that you just don't ask those kinds of questions because it's not nice. The appointment with Dr. Samuelson itself went okay I think. Dr. Samuelson asked me if it was okay to give Ethan a dollar as incentive for completing some testing. He mentioned he wanted to see if a strong motivation would keep him on task or not. So I'm guessing that was a part of his testing. Not sure how or why, but he did it and Ethan got his dollar and he even told me the test was fun. He really liked Dr. Samuelson. He's a very nice man and is very good with kids. This was the first time either Ethan or I had met him. I had no clue who he was before this appointment. I'm glad Ethan likes him because next week he has to have Ethan in once more for the rest of the testing and then two weeks after that (so 3 weeks from now) he'll have me come in for test results. So, hopefully, at the end of this, we can determine what Ethan is up to and what makes him tick, in a sense, so we can help him progress the very best that we can! He has so much potential and he's a very loving and a very good hearted little boy. If we can just get him to focus on that and move forward with things he knows is right, I think he'll move farther forward in his life in a very good way. I know it'll take time, but once we know his diagnoses, I think it'll help us to help him. Then tonight he was just pushing one button after another up until Carl came home. I'm not sure why he started to listen once Carl got home. He kinda does that though. He'll test how far he can go with me. He had two really good weeks where I really couldn't pinpoint one thing he was doing that was overly negative outside of normal "boy" behavior. But this week he turned over a leaf I don't like. I can't expect great behavior all the time in this process though. It's going to be both up and down and I know that. I'm embracing the up times and dealing with the down times. Right now we're in a slump of difficulty with him, but eventually it'll pass. He just isn't having a positive week yet. Monday was good, I guess, now that I look back. He was excited to go to school since he was out of school Wednesday from being so sick and then Thursday and Friday they had off from school and then the weekend came. He really misses school when he doesn't have it. I also think having so many days off outside of the weekend throws him off in a bad way and it takes us a week or two to regulate his behavior and improve it again. I think that has a big part to do with his difficulties right now. Hopefully by next week we'll have him into a routine again, one that will help him behave. I'm trying to keep a relative routine right now in that after he gets home, he does homework, and a snack time in there, and then he is free until supper and then it's supper time, and then he is relatively free (in that he can be inside doing his own thing, helping his dad outside weather permitting, or visiting up at grandma and grandpa's if he wants to) and then around 7:20 or so he has to come in if he's not in and start getting ready for bed. And believe it or not, even though, on average, he's asleep by 8:15 at the latest most nights, he sleeps all night until we wake him at 6 AM! This week he hasn't been overly cooperative when we wake him, but hopefully he'll fall back into the routine as the week goes on and by next week hopefully he's back to his old self (or rather, the better behaved boy I've been seeing recently). He's going to be crushed when he isn't given the money for the book order this week though. Carl says we just don't have enough money. I really want to make it happen though. I remember how I felt as a kid and all those times my parents wouldn't get me books and all the other kids got books and I didn't get anything. I carry that into today and my persistence with Carl in getting Ethan books like that. I know I need to get over it. I need to deal with it on some level. I didn't realize it until this week, so I suppose that will be therapy material next week. We'll see I guess. Depends what happens between now and my next session. Anyhow, now I'm going to go and go to bed. I'll lay and watch TV until I fall asleep anyhow. Hopefully I can sleep a full night though! Last night was a restless night where I got up twice and one time stayed up for around an hour. Those nights leave me feeling so very drained. Anyhow, I'm off.