Today was interesting. M came home this morning from his friends sleepover birthday party early this morning while I slept in for Mothers Day. He's been waking really early since coming home from the hospital...must be the meds. Apparently he's been waking around 5 am, which makes for a very tired boy come mid-morning/early afternoon. I woke around 11 am and when I made it to the living room, M was asleep on the couch. He must have just fallen asleep, because dh hadn't noticed.
The report from his friends house was that he did well on the sleepover! :) It sounds like they were kept busy and there were plenty of kids to play with, which is good. He's never really had any problems over there, other than being a little obsessive over wanting to have his video games over there and inflict his video games on their low-tech household, which is good. I found out through a phone conversation with the mom earlier this week that apparently they were aware of M's emotional/mental issues and difficulties at school to some degree, as they had asked if he had stabilized and if he would be allowed to return to school. Not sure HOW they found out or HOW MUCH they know, but I was simply impressed that they were still willing to invite my son over for a sleepover! Bless their little souls.
Anyway, you would think a nap would put M in good spirits, but rather he woke up in quite a sad mood, which struck me as sort of odd. M doesn't normally present as sad. Chronically irritable, OH YES. But, sad? No. But, he woke and just laid there and pressed his face into the couch and said he had nothing to do and of course nothing I had to offer was appealing enough to motivate him to move off of the couch. He eventually fixated and OBSESSED on a few things that were simply not options that threw him into total meltdown mode. It was our first real meltdown since hospital discharge on Wednesday night. First he was telling us about a computer game that his friend has on his computer that he really wanted...some Harry Potter game. He asked us to buy it for him...many, many, many times. Then he asked if we could go to the library to see if they had that game or another game he could borrow, but our local library happens to be closed for renovations and we don't have a card for the library in the next town. He obsessed, but would drop it and come back to it. It was also lunch time. We had chosen to get lunch from Outback Steakhouse for Mother's Day...M wanted Taco Bell. They're not even in the same town. When he realized he couldn't have either of the things he wanted, he just totally melted down. Repetition, hitting himself in the head, pulling his hair, and when his father came into the room he started throwing things at our faces...stuffed animals, pillows, blankets, etc. DH ended up having to restrain his arms because he was being unsafe.
While DH was on M duty, I went upstairs to his room. I cleared out his main closet, which is of a pretty decent size, and vacuumed it and then I put a large bean bag chair in there. I got a really soft blanket and put that in there as well and the closet has its own light and light switch. Well, by the time I had finished, M was being really unstable in the living room, so DH brought M up to his room and I tried to re-direct him so we wouldn't have to restrain him and I introduced/explained the "special room" to him. In the phosp day program and in the phosp, they always advocated that the kids "take space" by basically giving themselves a time out in a separate area whenever they were angry, which M is simply not capable of doing because he really gets too worked up that he ends up in the quiet room. So, I was sort of going off a combination of the two concepts here. I told him that I created this space just for him and that he was welcome to hang out in it at any time. That it had it's own light and it's own door, so any time he needed/wanted to escape from us or his brother (his brother is a big trigger for him), he could come here. Of course, he said that his brother could just open the door, so I told him maybe we could replace the doorknob with one that would lock. I then told him that he could bring in a book or just lay down with the blanket and relax and take some space. He could have the light on or off, the door open or closed. I even told him that if he wanted to paint the walls in there a special color we could go pick out paint at the hardware store one of these days! Well, wouldn't you know he got right in there and laid down on the floor with the blanket and I asked him if he wanted the door open or shut and he said shut. I told him he was welcome to open the door and rejoin us at anytime and he came back downstairs calm and collected within minutes!!!!! IT WORKED! I think he found comfort in the close four walls. I think it may have felt safe and familiar and special. (Is it bad that all I kept thinking was "now if only the walls were padded and the door had a lock?") I just hope he continues to use the special room in the future!
He ended up having yet another meltdown later after dh left for a business trip, so I was on my own to deal with it. This time M wanted more video game time. This is a recurring trigger for him. He is very obsessive over video games. He is only allowed 1 hr on school nights and 1 1/2 hrs on weekends and we do not allow video games after 8 pm (bedtime is 9 pm). Well, he did not finish his game time today and it was almost 8 pm, so he was getting upset saying he needed more time and he wanted to play after 8 pm. MELTDOWN! Luckily, this one wasn't as bad as the first. I just ignored it and kept going on with the routine. He followed me where ever I went throughout the house to whine and rant, but he took his bath and went to bed on time. PHEW!
Tomorrow is the first day back to school since the hospital discharge. YIKES! It is, however, a field trip and I was sort of made by the principal to promise I would attend. I don't foresee any major triggers other than the lack of routine in the whole field trip thing, so it should be OK. He's looking forward to returning to school and I think bumping his return to Thursday, which the principal suggested, could have adverse affects, so we're going with the field trip. So, unless he wakes up Monday and says, "I'm not going!," we're going!
Tuesday is our in-take meeting at the Day Program. It should be interesting to find out how much it has in common and how much it has in contrast to the Day Hospital program he used to attend. I feel pretty anxious about it, so I can only imagine how he feels. I'm trying to play it really cool so my anxiety about it doesn't reflect onto him. I know how contagious that stuff can be!
Wednesday will be the first official real day of school M has with true school expectations and the surprise to him is that he will have a substitute. We already have a plan in place to have the Social Worker and Special Ed teacher check in on him throughout the day. He *is* only on a half-day schedule anyway, plus we'll know when he'll be leaving for the Day Program by Wednesday too...so hopefully Wednesday won't be too bad.
Thursday will be his first official real TRUE day of school with his teacher and true school expectations! Yeah...that should be fun. Think we'll make it? If not, we'll have to call a PPT and see if we can get a home tutor written into his IEP for the rest of the year and it looks like an Alternative School is on the docket for next school year.
Ah the joys of parenting!
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