A challenging evening...

Hoo boy... yesterday was a bit too exciting/exhausting for B & we sure felt it last evening...

B had a great day at camp. He likes his new counselors/teachers, learned some Flash code, had a well-balanced (for him) lunch at the cafeteria (this was a great concern, since B has been known to overdo the fatty foods like chips & make himself sick, so we'd coached him a bit beforehand & it worked!), had a nice time swimming (he'll swim every day at camp, which is fabulous!), & then had the added excitement of knowing his best buddy was coming home with him to play. They had a snack when they got home & then had a great time doing the spy thing with all B's equipment. They were minimally annoying with it all- a bonus. E's dad came over around 5:00 pm, but spent quite a bit of time helping me goof around the new backup hard drive he'd helped me pick out. This purchase has been about a year in the making, since I started worrying about the 1000 photos stored on our older desktop computer last summer, & finally got my act together a couple weeks ago to seriously look for & buy one. E's dad is a software designer & loves the challenge of working with a mac occasionally :) so he has helped me do a lot with our home computer network. We had to reformat the hard drive to work with the mac, which took some time, then he showed me how to do the actual backup using the desktop. I did the laptop on my own later. So the boys had about 4 hours of non-stop playtime (B played the Dr. Demento cd for him, with great glee, too :).

After E & his dad left, B just melted down :( Dinner was a bit late & B was getting more conservative by the minute about what he'd eat (ended-up with crackers & peanut butter). I was very concerned about B's out-of-control-ness. He was ticcing so loudly that it was like screams & he looked just miserable. It was likely a mistake to approach him about it all right then... but I tiold him that, although I did not mean it unkindly, I thought that maybe having a play date after camp was too much for him. That did it- B became furious with me & wouldn't speak. We did get him to nibble some food, & after a while I tentatively said that, to me, the tics looked as though he was in emotional discomfort, so they worried me... but I wanted to know if my perception was accurate. B had a closed, angry look on his face, but he started writing in the air (a communication tactic he occasionally uses). I read "n-o-s-e..." & said "nose?", which was quite a non-sequitur considering my question... B actually cracked-up laughing then (so did C & I), but persisted & the word came out "nosey". In other words, he found my questions nosey... but the ice had been broken & the mood lightened enormously. He kept writing in the air for the next half-hour, at one point waving as though he were shooing a fly, to much hilarity, & that turned-out to be an apostrophe (gotta love 4th grade... he got his contractions down by the end of the year :). I struggled to figure out what he was writing, which B seemed to enjoy greatly. Finally, by dessert, he was ready to speak again & we all shared the leftover rhubarb crisp...

Later, B hugged me & apologised for getting mad. I explained that I probably had chosen the wrong time (C would strongly agree with this statement) but that it affects the whole family when he loses control like this, & I worry about him. We agreed that he may go to Ethan's after camp today, but I'll make sure to get him by 5:00 pm, & he promised to do his best to stay calm at dinner.

Also, the last week or so B has had more & more trouble getting to sleep. C thinks it's probably B out-growing his seroquel dosage again, but we've decided not to raise the dose & to see if we can find behavioural strategies instead, to help B manage falling asleep. Until recently C or I would read to B until he fell asleep- from 1/2 hour to an hour usually. A few nights ago I read for 2 hours (ok, it was the exciting end of "Pigeon Post", so that was a factor) & then had to stay for a 20-minute "quick minute" before B was settled-down enough to sleep. It was 10:30 before I left his room. C took over the following night... Last night, C suggested that, if we were going to survive this phase, we'd better take it in shifts, so I read for the first hour, then C took over for the next 1/2 hour of "quick minute" until B was settled. This was much easier on both C & I, so it looks like we've found our new bedtime strategy- for a while at least :)

This morning, on the way in to camp, B was ticcing very loudly (he sometimes "gets it out of his system" before doing something stressful) & I reminded him to try to keep the tics silent. B has a head-jerk kind of tic, but it often escalates into an accompanying loud, exploding noise &, in response to B wanting to keep a lower profile in public (to avoid feeling self-conscious) we've been trying to remind him to keep the tics quiet. He told me that he told his counselor yesterday that he has Tourettes, to explain the tics. I was floored & very pleased. Another wonderful instance where B has advocated for himself! I told him that I was very happy he'd been pro-active, since people feel much more comfortable with behaviours when they have names for them. B seemed to think it was "no big" :) I did not make a mom-fuss, but the glow lasted quite a while...