Another Morning in Paradise

Max woke up cranky this morning. He was upset about everything from where my hands were when I caught him as he jumped down from his bed to me to how difficult his pj pants were to take off to his pants being too short for him to breakfast not being what he wanted and on and on. He cried, much of the time bordering on screaming, for a good 40 minutes out of the 50 we spent together this morning.

Sometimes I feel so down because there doesn't seem to be an end in sight.

Max and I went to see his therapist yesterday. She said he's looking well, but that, of course he's going to continue to have issues because he has attachment issues (but she won't label him as RAD - I know other therapists would because many therapists label kids as RAD, but then go from mild to severe. He's definitely not severe, but on the strong side of mild. As a by the by, we'd said NO! to any attachment issues, but oh well), there's something organically wrong with his brain (we all suspect prenatal alcohol and most likely drug exposure) and he has a very strong, controlling personality. I don't think I can express how much this sort of talk drains my hope for the future.

Max's therapist also suggests that I stay well out of the discipline for infractions at school. She thinks that me enforcing their rules is bad for a couple of reasons that make sense to me. One is that they'd really just be shooting themselves in the foot with the "wait until your father gets home" sort of philosophy. They wouldn't be in control over him at all.

The other reason is that she feels it'll interfere with our bonding. I'd say this is true. We have enough issues at home without me having to further inflict punishment for school misbehavior.

I went in to talk to Max's teacher this morning about that, plus give her a form to fill out that his therapist sent (looking for possible needs for medication) and discuss with her a mysterious book that showed up in Max's room. She didn't recognize the book nor know where it might have come from. It didn't come from where Max says it did - none of his confused explanations make sense. So, I don't know where to return it to, but he won't get to keep it, either.

As far as what to do about him misbehaving at school (running out of the class room, taking things, exploding anger), I told her what Max's therapist had said. She says that she just doesn't know what to do. I said that I knew where she was coming from and it was very frustrating. I did offer a couple of idea that they could maybe work out. We'll see.

In other news, Davan and I went skiing for the morning yesterday. It was cold, snowy and windier than had been forecast, so it wasn't a great weather day. I still had a good time, though, and got in a few runs on a course that had been set up for ski races over the weekend, which was a blast. Davan is loosing interest in skiing for the season. Sigh. She hasn't wanted to go the last few times and, mostly, even before that, has been just as happy if we didn't go for some reason. I'm debating about what to do about passes for next year. Not get them at all, just get one for me and find something else for Davan to do about once a week....I don't know.

This afternoon I get to look forward to another afternoon of herding Max through his chores so that he can go to flag football practice this evening. Joy. Hopefully it goes better than Monday afternoon, but with our start this morning, I'm kind of doubting it. How's that for the power of positive thinking?