We're just chugging along here, dealing with the same old stuff.
It seemed like we had a period of time - December through about mid February - that was a little better. Max seemed a little more at ease. And then it all blew up again, culminating in the week from hell last week.
This week has been better than last week, but still feels many steps back. Max is getting violent again. He has tried to hurt me more than once. No hitting, but elbowing, squeezing my hand as hard as he can, twisting my arm. He seems to be acting very, very young again. Today he was playing with a 3 year old at indoor play park at Davan's gym. They seemed pretty on par.
We were at Target yesterday. He told me, "I really want to steal a candy bar. I want to pick it up, put it in my pocket where no one can see and then run out the door." I said, "Well, thinking about it and doing it are two different things and, as you haven't done it, I'd say you're on the right track."
But, then he went on and on about wanting to steal stuff. So, we left without looking at toys because, well. I'm not going to take a kid who really, really wants to shoplift through any more of the store than necessary.
We had to go back to pick up a prescription a while later and I kept him with me, even though Davan got to go off and look at a couple of things close by that she wanted to see. He was very angry about that. Yeah. Again, I'm going to let a kid who wants to shoplift out of my sight at the store?
A (therapist) thinks that his inhibitions are still somewhat missing, and thus the running commentary about stealing at the store, as well as other things. Okay...so, is this a permanent thing? The drugs are out of his system now. If it was drug related, then why are the inhibitions still not in place?
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Last Friday he took a giraffe from A's when we were there. I'd taken it back from him and put it in my in-box to return. He stole it back from there earlier this week. When I told him he had to give it back, he dragged his feet. So, I gave him a time limit, after which we'd have to search his room, which involves dumping things out and he has to reassemble. Actually, the first time we did that, Anthony and I helped. This ended up being the second time.
He continued to drag his feet, stringing things out until the very last bit of his time. Then it turned out that the giraffe wasn't where he'd thought it was, so he ran out of time. We still searched his room, even though the giraffe turned out to be in the wash. If he'd gotten in and looked for it and then realized it was in the laundry without the time limit, we wouldn't have done the search.
The search turned out to be pretty easy to undo because his shelves were in such good order from the last time (meaning he hadn't played with any of that stuff) that we just visually inspected them and only dumped containers. He, of course, was still quite mad while putting his room back together - banging around and crying.
The search happened today. Afterward, as it's Friday, he got the black box back. I wasn't home for this, but at one point, because he was mad about Anthony asking him to not yell so loudly in the kitchen and Anthony backing it up when he wouldn't stop by taking a minute off the time Max had to take care of the black box, he told Anthony that he was all done with the black box. Anthony verified, "So, all the stuff that's still on the floor you don't want and is going to Goodwill?"
"Yes."
There was a lot of stuff, including, but not limited to, two light sabers, a bunch of Sports Illustrated for Kids magazines, a pair of boots (that he doesn't like), some clothes, some Playmobile stuff, a sports headband he'd bought with his allowance, and, sadly, both his cleats and his baseball glove. The cleats I think he is close to outgrowing, so I'm not overly worried about them. We replace things when they are outgrown.
The glove, though, was a present from my step-dad, probably Max's favorite person in our family. And it's a very nice glove. I'm heartsick about it. We can't give it back to him, but I hate to let it go.
Max was very angry when he realized what he'd done. For a little while - like 5 minutes. Now he's just fine. No big deal. Whatever.
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