The kids and I were heading to get a few groceries last night when LJ pipes up and says "I wanna be a girl and be pregnant!" The girls and I burst out laughing. Silly boy. Trinity then proceeded to explain how being pregnant made your feet and legs swell, how you can't sleep comfortably with a bulging belly, how you have to do bloodwork and shots and then the fact that you actually have to HAVE the baby. She follows that up with "There's another reason you don't want to be a girl, but you can learn all about that when you get to middle school" Haha
So then the topic turned to periods and PMS. And Trinity says "Mama, you're never grumpy" Alyssa and I laughed then. If you know me, you know I'm always grumpy. I'm stressed to the max and as much as I hate it, I'm grumpy a lot of the time. What she meant was that she can never tell if I'm grumpy because I'm PMSing or if I'm just my normal everyday grumpy.
Wednesday at Cub Scouts LJ got to make paper airplanes and tin can telephones. He also got to be the flag holder. (He had a hard time keeping the flag high enough to not touch the ground)
The boys all made 2 paper airplanes and then they had a contest to see whose plane would fly the farthest. LJ's didn't fly very far, but it seemed to stay in the air the longest. Then the boys paired up and put together a tin can telephone and tried communicating through it. They had fun doing it, but afterwards LJ said he couldn't hear what Will was saying. I saved two cans from dinner the other night so we could make our own this weekend and experiment. I've actually never tried a tin can telephone. The boys then talked about different ways to communicate.
Today I'm off work and I did a little organizing around the house and a short 20 minute elliptical workout. Now I'm going to sit back with some knitting and try to relax. My mornings are so stressful and I'm about at my breaking point. The girls aren't bad, but LJ tries my patients from the time his feet hit the floor. I wrote out each thing he needed to do in the mornings to get ready for school and explained to him how to do each thing and then check it off. He liked the idea. We started this yesterday mornings. He wasn't so gung ho about it when the morning came. It was constant reminder to check the list and do the next thing. He really needs a good hour to wake up before he functions and I just can't afford that on a school morning. He'd have to get up at 5:00 to do that and that's just way to early for both of us!
This morning, I woke him up at 6:20. It took him 20 minutes to get out of the bed and then another 5 or so to get into the kitchen to take his medicine. I told him he had to get dressed and brush his hair and teeth before breakfast because he'd waited so long to get out of bed and that didn't go over well. He pitched a fit. It took him until 7:10 to get his clothes on and his hair and teeth brushed. He then sat down for a bowl of cereal with only 10 minutes to spare before leaving the house.
It's times that this that I just want to break down crying and ask "why can't I just have a normal kid?" I look at pictures of friends who have kids the same age doing stuff that LJ can't accomplish on his own and I am envious. I know I shouldn't be. Things could always be worse. He could be low functioning instead of high functioning. He could have some disease that confines him to a wheelchair or feeding tubes or any other various medical concerns that take more patients and money and time that asperger's. But I just long for normal sometimes. I feel guilty because I can't imagine life without him.
I need to get him back into OT and PT. He's almost 8 and still can't wipe himself after a bowel movement. He can't button his pants up. He can't tie shoes.
