I love my son Jake – but sometimes he makes me so tired. And frustrated. And irritated. Like taking a picture of him. How many tries does it take to get a decent picture where he is not being silly? Or mad. Or wild-eyed. Or not even in the picture because he suddenly had to do something when I snapped the camera. It seems that there are so many more steps in getting simple things done with Jake. Especially when his routine is messed up. Like today. He did not go to school today because his special ed teacher was not going to be there and his aid recently left the school. So he is home with me. I got his pills lined up on the table for him to take along with a beverage for him to wash them down with (it cannot be just water, or milk, or orange juice because those are “gross” to take pills with). So today he has Gatorade. I also washed some fresh strawberries for him to use as his “bites”. When he takes a pill, he has to have a “bite” of something after he drinks his Gatorade. Unfortunately before I got this all set up, he turned on the tv. I should have had him immediately turn it off because I knew it would delay him taking his pills. But I had dishes and laundry and garbage on my mind so didn’t say anything. Now he is supposed to take these pills with breakfast. I reminded him several times to take his pills. At 10:50 am I told him he HAD to take his pills at 11 am. I removed myself from the room because he takes his pills better when I am not in the same room. I also told him where his shoes were because after he takes a pill, washes it down with Gatorade and takes a “bite” he has to run outside to get a breath of fresh air – with each and every pill. It got to be 11:15 and he still had not taken a single pill. I reminded him again. He just pulled a blanket over his head and growled at me. I reminded him that the longer he takes to take his pills the harder it is. If he took them now I would quite bugging him about it. Nothing. Around 11:30 he got up and went to his room. By then I was rather irritated with him. I stuck my head in his room and said, “You can stay in your room until you are ready to take your pills.” and shut the door. He was not happy and said that it didn’t feel like I was his Mom. I shouldn’t shut him up in his room.  Half an hour later he came out, put his shoes on, and his hoodie and took a pill – drank his Gatorade, took his bite and ran outside. It took him another half hour to get all his pills done (on a regular school day he can take them in about 5 minutes flat – because it is his morning routine). Today was different. We both slept in knowing that he didn’t have to go to school. I suppose it would have been better if I got us up at the regular time and made him take his pills. But I doubt that would have been much better because he didn’t have to go to school and that changed his routine. When he has a regular routine it makes life a lot easier – for both of us. He knows what is expected of him and I know that he will do it because he will follow the rules of the particular situation that is involved – no questions asked. You would think that I would get with the program and figure out a routine for non school days, but I so love to sleep in and relax a bity on those days. Sleep is a wonderful thing when you have a child who is constantly in motion when you don’t want him to be and moving like a slug when you need him to hurry up. At least now, he has his medicine in him and the day should go a lot smoother – until he goes off playing with his friends this afternoon and forgets to come home when he is supposed to take his next pill. I am so looking forward to tomorrow when he goes to school – even though I have to get up earlier – because he will be back in his routine and will take his pills just fine and I don’t have to fight with him. Yep – it will be a day to relax and breathe. Breathing is nice. And I will have four wonderful days to breathe – until the weekend, when we sleep in again. Oh well – four out of seven days isn’t bad.

24 Feb This entry was published on February 24, 2014 at 9:01 pm. It’s filed under Uncategorized and tagged ADD, ADHD, anxiety, aspergers, Autism, disorder, medicine, ODD, pills, routine, school, spectrum. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.