Weekend Aftermath

I've just finished up a weekend alone with J-Man. So watch out, I'm going to vent. I can't stand to stay at home with him for an entire day...he'll drive me batty. So that means that I'm going to take him out in public where I risk embarrassment, humiliation, or worse.

Let's start with keeping track of him in stores. Have you ever taken a 2-year-old into a china store? Now imagine that he's bigger (like, say, 5) but still acts like a 2-year-old. He will touch and break anything. He dances and spins wildly in the aisles. He runs into people and things. He wanders off. Add to that, that he would go home with ANYONE because he thinks I'm a big, bad monster and anyone else is sure to be nicer. He's a cute little boy, and this really concerns me. He either has to be in a shopping cart where he gets no exercise, or my hand has to be on him at all times, making it very difficult to shop. Now, I want to know, what is wrong with putting this child on a leash? How is this different than putting him in a cart or hooking my finger in his shirt collar? He would be able to walk, and I would have my hands free. But no, social conventions don't allow that. Never mind that its for his own safety and my peace of mind. Someone would post a cell phone video on utube, I would be labeled "bad mother of the year", and social services would break down my door.

Now how about his mouth. Do you remember the oldest character on The Golden Girls? The mother (Sophia) who had lost the part of her brain (stroke, maybe?) that censored what came out of her mouth? That's J-Man. He will point to someone in a store and, at the top of his lungs, "Hey, that guy looks like a girl." "Hey, why doesn't that guy have any legs." (ironic, right?) "Hey, that guy is fat." Why does it always start with "Hey"? Just to make sure everyone in the store is looking and listening?

And how about the temper tantrums? The therapist has given us a technique to deal with these, which we use effectively at home. It involves physically restraining J-Man. Oh my, that's a no-no. We've had to cut several trips short so that I could come home and deal with a tantrum. Judging eyes just don't let me properly handle his issues.

And, of course, he has no cause-and-effect thinking processes developed in his brain. So we deal with the same crap every time we go somewhere. Over and over and over. It does not matter what consequence he receives, it does not matter how much we review appropriate behavior in stores, it does not matter if I bribe him. He is unable to put it all together. Here's a small example. J-Man was watching TV in the living room on Saturday while I was somewhere else in the house. I heard a loud bang and then silence. He had crawled up on the arm of the couch, fallen over backward, and whacked his head HARD on the piano. I think he may have been knocked out for a few seconds. I can't even tell you how many times I had to tell him to get off the arm of the couch for the rest of the weekend. A hundred, maybe? No joke. Frustrating.

So that, in a nutshell, was my weekend. I'm looking forward to a meeting tonight with J-Man's therapist and the psychologist who did J-Man's comprehensive testing. I'm hopeful that we will develop a plan to improve things around here.