A calmer day...

A good night's sleep sure does wonders... Other than a perfunctory "it's a school day", B did not protest going to school at all this morning. Big sigh of relief :) He was quite calm when we got there, going about the usual business of unloading his things into his locker & finding someone to play chess with. Cherie & I talked about our conclusions from yesterday's difficulties, & particularly B talking about hurting himself again. We decided that, until further notice, she would call me if B's tics & anxiety became overwhelming & I would come & get him. I kissed him goodbye, already immersed in a chess game, & went to find Paula & chat. Grocery shopping came next, remembering to turn the cell phone on, then home to put things away & deal with laundry. I called B's psychiatrist when I got home, & left a message to let him know what was going on & that we'd reduced B's zoloft dose in the attempt to get his equilibrium back.

After doing chores I felt restless- it was hard to get interested in anything that took concentration because I didn't know if/when the phone would ring with either school or B's psychiatrist on the line... Fortunately, I have been trying to stay ahead of B with the InuYasha dvds, so I watched a couple episodes (deciding that one of them was not appropriate for B) while knitting on another pair of socks for B (just 3 socks to go & he'll have the 6 pair he needs for the winter :). No phone calls came from anyone, though, which was good & bad...

I picked B up at our new, earlier time (2:00 instead of 2:30) & music class had just finished. B had had a much better day & everyone was relaxed. It was really nice to leave the building for once with B in a good space, chatting about his day :) He asked if I'd bought ramune for snack, since I'd gone shopping (& I had), & then asked to watch more InuYasha, which we did. Afterward, though, he had a tough time figuring out what to do next. We sat on the sofa & he leaned against me for comfort as we discussed what he might like to do. I apologised for still not feeling very well (mostly it's a cough now) & told him that I want to get started weaving another throw as soon as I'm feeling better, but for today I just wanted to rest. I suggested some computer games that he hadn't looked at in a long time, which he vetoed, but eventually settled on an older & easier bionicle game.

While shopping today I bought some tofu & tempe & TVP- I have been seriously thinking about how to better handle B's veggie-ness since he's obviously sincere about it & not going to revert to burgers any time soon. I have a bunch of veggie cookbooks, but had only dabbled in tofu dishes because C doesn't care for tofu very much (I do like it, though). Now that there's two of us that like tofu, I decided it was time to get tofu-adventurous again :) So I decided to fry some tofu for dinner, with edamame & bagels on the side. Unfortunately, I didn't actually look up how to fry tofu in any of my cookbooks (I did after dinner, hee hee), so I used too much oil & didn't dry off the tofu before putting it in the oil, so I had hot oil cascading everywhere (needed 2 rags on the floor to clean up the splashes). I was able to dodge the splashes & didn't get burned, although it was quite a clean-up after... but it really tasted great! We ate it with soy sauce & B was so happy to have tofu, he wanted to eat all of the leftovers. I told him he could take them for lunch tomorrow, though :) Having looked up the right way to fry tofu, I think we'll be having it a lot more often... maybe even C will get in on the tofu renaissance :) Next- tempe!! As we were finishing dinner B started ticcing loudly, but when we asked what was setting him off, all he could say was "a thought". C & I said that this wasn't the most helpful of responses, since it's hard to modify the environment (if possible) if we don't know what the problem is. B said that the thought trigger was "free floating", & C & I were imagining it as if it were a balloon- C asked B if we could just blow it away, which made B grin. I said we should pin it to the wall & vilify it. B wanted to know what vilify meant, so we told him it meant to say mean things about it, which made him grin even more. He & dad started telling jokes about the thought, in the vein of the Prairie Home joke show ones ("Your mama's so fat...", inserting "thought" for "mama") & before we knew it the tics stopped. A breath of fresh air :)

B & C played bionicles again this evening & then I read to B for an hour before he fell asleep (trying not to cough too much as I read). We never heard from B's psychiatrist today, so I hope I'll hear tomorrow & get his advice for where we should go next. All in all, it was a very nice relief of a day. B was ticcy & driven by anxiety at times, but not so much that he was in agony. A welcome calm in the midst of the storm...