Changes

MrD is now 15 years old. He is a big brother to a new baby in our home.  He is dabbling between the worlds of young teenager & physical adulthood.  We appreciate it is a tough place to be.  He remembers how it feels to be bullied, yet he enjoys dabbling in it himself at times.  This week has been tougher.  Spring is coming, but not quite flourished.  He is dabbling in interpersonal warfare.  Verbal banter/sparring is our latest vexation, coupled with negative attitude and ticks.  Relentless grunting and armpit fart noises are his normal.  Thankfully the forced air between his lips bellowing-like-an-elephant noise has subsided.  Ticks seem to relieve built up tension and drive us crazy, so no real reason for him to stop or control them, right?  The solution eludes us.  I am tortured with the usual mothering worries in between exhaustion:  Is he eating enough?  Is he getting enough nourishment?  Is he getting enough sleep?  Is he fatigued enough from daily exercise?  Is he getting enough love and attention?  How much is enough?

He messed with a girl on Monday, "set her off" so to speak.  She wasn't innocent either, blasting him that he has no friends & no-one likes him.  Who knows what MrD was doing to help stimulate her verbal blast.  Last year she blasted him for sitting in "her" chair.  Like it has her name on it (it doesn't).  He purposefully sat in her usual spot.  She ordered him to get out of her chair.  He replied, "woof"  which was taken as calling her a dog (bitch), which he did indeed mean to imply.  MrD does not swear, but he dances around it cleverly.  We talk about these events, thankfully he will give me the pieces & eventually I get to the bottom of the story.  I suspect she may have been blasting him this round because of his relentless armpit fart noises, but MrD wouldn't tell me.  Tuesday we talked about ways to get better communication.  Like if she is talking like that, he could tell her not to talk down to him.  He could go with the classic hands over ears lalalalalalalala to draw attention to her behaviour if an adult is near.  He told me on Wednesday he held out his hand & said, "truce" and she accepted.  I told him that was a great choice & I'm glad he thought of it.  Wednesday he waved his (stinky) shoe into another boy's face.  Sigh.  When asked why, he said he didn't know.  When pressed that he must know why, he admitted he just felt like it, it was funny.  I reminded him that the school does have an anti-bullying policy & it can & will be used against him if he keeps it up.  He said it was, he got detention.  I have asked at the school that the detention be altered to time with the counselor but agreed that he did earn himself a consequence.

My goal this year is to continue to use this blog as an unloading & thoughtful zone for positive & negative events.  There is a lot of positive forces in MrD's life which I am thankful.  He is still progressing in Taekwan-do & is over the half way to getting his black belt.  He is passing his courses for grade 9.  He is doing well at Sylvans & almost at grade level.  An adult male friend has expressed interest in a platonic friendship of sorts.  MrD can help with odd jobs and our friend can help model communication & problem solving while gently guiding better choices.  Like a big brother, with the flavour of Behaviour Interventionist.  I have had it as a goal for a few years to get a BI for MrD, but it just hasn't been panning out, at all.  I am grateful that we have a gentle compromise in that direction now.  When it is tough, I white knuckle it.  When it is nice, I just have to remind myself to enjoy it, not to take it for granted since those are such precious short time spans.

feet?

creeping feet

MrD has been growing, fast.  I noticed among the grade 7 boys, the taller ones did something unusual with their feet.  They would reach out with their foot to touch something or someone, almost affectionately, for lack of a better word.  When I think of it, its creepy, who wants someone else's nasty creeping feet touching them?  It seems to be some indirect way of making contact, or possibly just bugging.  I've been noticing that MrD has less of a need to "hang" from monkey bars and goal posts.  That's possibly because its winter, and grade 8 highschool does not have playgrounds like the elementary schools do.  Now he's all about stretching, really stretching, complete with pathetic drawn out horrible noises.  If he's not stretching, he's flopped out upside down on the recliner or sitting on his bean-bag chair intently touching the blinds or walls.

Another fun observation lately is the obvious.  If I ask MrD to go get something familiar on the counter among 6-15 other items, it can be right under his nose & he can't find it.  Strange but true.  A conversation with another Mom who's son is all grown up mentioned pointing.  Its common to point at something in the distance as a conversation reference.  Something in the spacial cue and vagueness makes it impossible to pinpoint what is being pointed at, therefore, meltdown is imminent.  Reflecting on this conversation I recalled a similar event.  Driving MrD downtown, I noticed up along the upper skyline was a blinking orange light moving along the hill.  It was likely snow removal equipment or a tow truck.  I asked MrD if he saw it and he did not.  He proceeded to get very upset by something that was directly ahead in both our line of vision. He really & truely could not see it and demanded repeatedly where is it, to show him, louder and louder.  I know his vision is excellent by how he brags of playing "punch-buggy" with his bioDad and frustrating because he wins a lot more points.  It's just interesting observations for a child who is so detail oriented to miss something right in front of him.

Another day, day by day, every day

When MrD was small he was very tiring.  Every day was like the movie “Groundhogs Day” with Bill Murray.  It took forever for him to integrate basic every day things.  I understood then that that is how a child learns, with repetition, familiarity, and deviations from the expected.  It makes sense that every day is a clean slate to repeat pretty much everything.  From the endless toys and messes, to the repetitive noises, tantrums, trials & tribulations of potty training, basic manners…  That didn’t change the sheer exhaustion I felt from having to wield patience like a shield.  I’m human, at times I just wanted to scream or shake him to “C’mon, get on with it already!!!”  I didn’t, I couldn’t treat this precious little soul to such cruelty.  His bio-Dad is another story. I’ve mentioned about sharing MrD’s time with his father, there’s an old legal document in place and scheduled time reflects that bio-Dad has the right to spend time with his son.  There is a complex background story in play and very good reasons why we split up.  I will try not to get into details that would slag MrD’s father as that would be disrespectful to MrD as well. 

The short version is that I could not raise MrD in that environment based on how bio-Dad was treating me.  Bio-Dad is not perfect, and neither am I.  My fear ever since we split has been that MrD will absorb his father’s communication strategies and possibly suffer because of them.  Now that MrD is a full blown teenager, some of bio-Dad’s less stellar qualities are filtering through.   Before we split, bio-Dad would have flare temper episodes, often because he couldn’t seem to have his way.  As long as there was agreement, then I could do as I pleased & just not tell him.  Not exactly couple healthy, but when in an unbalanced environment, I was striving to survive.  Bio-Dad would get into a rage at me for being so exhausted that I wasn’t doing anything at home other than the minimum of looking after our son, the minimum of my own self care and a daily walk with our son.  That meant the dishes, vacuuming, laundry, and general cleaning would back up.  Those are pretty normal things to leave when a new Mom doesn’t have any help.  When I got some energy built up, instead of resting, I would dig out the biggest messes.  Of course, that would deplete my energy stores so I would be into zombie mode the rest of the time.  Most people know or are familiar with zombie mode, it’s a slow autopilot that looks like depression.  I very likely was in post-partum depression but was too exhausted to deal with it.  Bio-Dad would flare into rages at me with ruthless name calling and try to push me around.  When the storm cleared, he would sometimes apologize.  At one point he admitted he was trying to shake me awake because he couldn’t stand seeing me being so useless.  He grew up where both his parents worked, a lot, and he never saw his parents in any prolonged health crisis state.  He had no concept that I am not the same as them, that I am my own person.  When someone is in a wheelchair, it is unfathomable to yank the chair out from under them and scream at them to get up & walk & stop being so lazy.  It wouldn’t occur to him to rip away someone’s cane, or to kick crutches away from one with a broken leg.  Post-partum depression is invisible; the person more or less looks fine to an average observer.  Autism is mostly invisible too.

When I think back on these moments, all I can think is that each stage was preparing me for the next.  Being pregnant prepares the mother for frequent bathroom trips, broken sleep, and chronic fatigue that a brand new baby brings.  Screaming colic episodes prepare for the endurance needed to white knuckle through really tough situations.  Repetitive days of a toddler prepare for the breaks in memory that an autistic teenager is surprised with, every day skills that are necessary for independent living.  Planning a daily outing with a small child after all physical needs are met builds a feeling of happiness and familiarity to everyday experiences that life isn’t scary or overwhelming.  Bio-Dad taught me that I don’t have to go by others rules, I need to run my life by my rules, my way while allowing respect and wiggle room for another’s perspective.  If Bio-Dad freaked out on me for being in zombie-mode, MrD has been treating me to similar cries for attention when I am depleted.  This has been the blessing of blogging, allowing me reflection and growth as a Mom and a person.  This is a really good reminder to myself to set the expectation that I will be respected and treated with care when I am occasionally unwell from sleep deprivation or illness.  Every day I am thankful for the love and care of my family & friends for helping me to pull through.