So far, we've had a chocolate chip pancake breakfast and taken to the kids to slide and jump on some blow up things at one of the local fireworks stands. And, of course, we've had complaining, fit throwing, screaming and pouting, even though there were no chores this morning due to the holiday and Max did get to get in some video game time in addition to the above mentioned activities.
My best friend comes in this evening and I'm so excited to see her! Even with everything else going on and even if I'm stressed all weekend about what's happening with Max, we'll have a good visit and my stress levels will go down because she's around, not up because of having company. This is why we didn't cancel. I'm so looking forward to picking her up!
When Chris and I get back from the airport, we'll do some inexpensive (I don't believe in spending much on them) but pleantyful fireworks in front of the house. The kids will have a late night and, hopefully, will sleep in tomorrow.
We all, except Anthony who went on an early morning 50 mile bike ride, slept in this morning, which was good with the late night coming up.
We have come up with a rough game plan for the upcoming week for Max. He'll be here for fireworks tonight and breakfast with the family tomorrow. Then he's probably going to spend the night with friends tomorrow night.
He wants to do the spending the night thing, even though he also says he feels like we're sending him away because he's bad. Frankly, because of his self esteem issues, I think he'd think that anyway. He thinks we're letting him play video games more because we don't want to spend time with him because we don't like him. That's the first thing that comes into his mind, rather than, "Hey! Great! I get to play video games!" We tried to talk it out with him this morning, but it didn't go well and we finally gave up, after which he became clingy, where, while we were trying to connect with him, he was trying to get away from us. Yeah.
I know that going to school for him, even, was a double edged sword. After all, it meant I didn't want to homeschool him and spend the time with him. But, then, he did get to go to school, which he wanted. Most things are like this.
Then, next week, I'm going to sign him up for day camp again. He wasn't supposed to have camp next week and he was supposed to have one more week of swim lessons, but we'll just ditch the lessons. He liked camp at MHCC, which is where he'll go again, and it probably feels less like being sent away than being shipped off to other houses. I may even spring for the after care so he can be picked up by Anthony after work rather than having that rough hour when he first gets home, all wound up, and Anthony isn't home yet.
It's not that he is just fine when Anthony is here, because that's not the case. It's just that the extremes of aggression toward me and the behaviors like running away don't happen when Anthony is home - at least not yet.
Meanwhile, hopefully, our case worker will be working on a new placement for him. Of course, she doesn't work on Mondays, so we'll see where things are come Tuesday. And, it's possible that Alison will have talked her out of having him just stay here, but I kind of doubt it. After all, it's less work for her if he stays here rather than having to find him a temporary place to be.
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