Much Better

Today was challenging, but went a lot better. I have another factor to add to the mix of medication decrease + dad gone: a possible cold.

I enlisted my cousin to help me out today, and that really worked out well. She has a ton of problems on her own plate, but she's always great with Sunny, has a wonderful sense of humor and can handle his moods. She's a take-charge, helping-out kind of person. Sometimes too much so... which is why she goes to Al-Anon meetings a gazillion times a week. But living with my mother and having short-term, limited responsibilities like taking care of Sunny for a few hours is really healthy for her and contributes to her recovery.

I was teaching Sunny and some other kids in the morning, and my cousin was our classroom helper. His behavior was not very good, so I really appreciated my cousin being there right next to him: she kept his behavior from interfering with the class so that I could focus on the logistics and the teaching. I've been teaching once every other week for a couple months now, and like his first grade teacher, I've also seen the change in behavior patterns and attention span. Of course he's not the only kid in that class who's difficult. The worst is a girl who shouldn't be in the class at all because she's too mature for her age. She acts like a bored teenager and always has a bad attitude about the activities. I wish we could put her in the next age up, since she would probably have a lot more fun that way.

Right at the end of class, after my cousin left, Sunny started really pushing buttons... I'd say, "kids, don't touch that furry cactus, you might get a spine stuck in your finger" and he'd run over and touch the cactus. I put my foot down and said that he knew that was bad behavior, and if he didn't stop it he wouldn't get any playground time. I was careful not to do anything else to escalate, like asking him to look me in the eyes.

He stopped acting up without any fuss at all. I think he just wanted to see where the boundary was.

He behaved well on the playground and didn't melt down when it was time to leave.

My cousin took care of him for three hours while I took a parenting break. I didn't goof off though... I used most of that time to do volunteer phone banking for the Jim Martin campaign. She did the rest of last week's homework with him, but for most of the time he actually just played at a friend's house (a neighbor of my mother). I love it when he goes over to see that friend, because her parents don't believe in video games either.

Afterwards, I was ready to take him home. Sunny got very upset and started crying and going into "mom's not being very nice to me" mode. He wanted to stay at Nana's house.

I was sitting at the foot of the stairs and I just told him very calmly that we couldn't stay, Nana was very busy, I wasn't going to move anywhere until he was ready to go. He sat in my lap and hugged me and cried some more. It seemed like he wasn't really mad about having to leave... it was something deeper, and he really needed to be held.

He lay there, and lay there, and went to sleep in my lap! It was really uncomfortable, but I kept holding him. About twenty minutes later, I carried him out to the car. I distracted him by talking about all the things we were going to do when we got home, and he was OK about getting into the car.

I have never seen Sunny take a single nap. He's not the napping kind.

Back home, we played a few games of Chutes & Ladders, then I cooked him dinner, and he ate his usual huge amount: as much as my portion, plus extra rice. Then he had fun helping me wash dishes and clean up. I congratulated him a lot for being a good helper.

Then we started watching Harry Potter. After about 40 minutes, he told me he was ready for bed. He said his throat was sore so I gave him a few teaspoons of heated honey. He got a lot of hugs, an extra hug for Dad not being there, and then went to bed quietly, with no angry meltdown at all the whole day.

I'd given him a lot of limited bedtime freedom of choice, like "do you want me to read you some Fantastic Four first, or should we call Dad first?

Throughout the day I also tried being proactive about disappointment. With most of his meltdowns this week, he had gotten into a pattern of asking me for something, hearing "no", then asking again and again and getting more and more frustrated and angry with each "no".

For example, he asked me if he could have candy after dinner tonight. I told him he couldn't. Then I asked him, "Later tonight, will you get mad if you ask again and I say no?" "No." I asked several variations of that question until he got irritated, then stopped. The irritation was a lot milder than the disappointment would have been later on. After dinner tonight, he didn't ask me for candy... bullet dodged.

I'm also not looking him in the eyes anymore when I tell him to do things or not to do things. I used to ask him to look at my eyes because of what someone told me in some parenting seminar. But I realize it's almost always counterproductive with Sunny, so I'm throwing that tip into the trash.

Thanks to everyone who commented on my last depressing post and added some perspective. I feel a lot better now.

My new worry is what to do if he's sick. Sunny never gets sick. Is it strange that he's been with us for six months and has never had any kind of cold or illness, except for one quickly-passing stomachache? This is new territory for me. I've already established a backup plan with my mother for what to do if he's too sick to go to school tomorrow, because I just can't miss a day at work during this time.

Falling asleep in my arms like that was strange... the needing holding part was understandable, but napping is so uncharacteristic of him. He also wanted to go to bed early tonight.

Political note: I'd just like to close with a vent about a woman I talked to today who voted for Obama but was undecided about whether or not to vote for Martin. Disregarding the fact that Chambliss is pure slime, splitting a ticket that way just doesn't make a single bit of sense. But she said she "wasn't going to vote for Martin just because Obama endorsed him".

I understand that a lot of people vote on personality instead of issue, but that way of thinking seems so alien to me. Why would an Obama supporter (especially one who was probably African-American) even consider voting for Chambliss, who represents a position on the issues completely opposite to the person you just voted for? It's like baking a cake, but at the last minute substituting a cup of salt for a cup of sugar. A cup of racist salt. Bizarre! I mean, a lot of Georgians split their tickets in the general election by voting for Martin but not for Obama, but that's somewhat more explainable.