Our Aspergers Teenage Boy

Tommy must have been wiped. Put himself to bed with lights out early tonight.

Tommy played on my computer, played PS2 and watched Simpsons DVDs today. Not a productive day, but no real problems either. Right now he is taking one of his marathon baths.

Tommy playing ps2. He’s in his own world now.

Tommy actually helped with one load of wood today. Pretty decent sized pieces too. We quick after I smashed my finger pretty badly and he declared that “[he was] exhausted!” A teenager his size should be able to do 2 or 3 loads working with an adult.

He seems in a great mood today but quickly turns rude and hateful when asked to do anything. That’s hard considering today is “cleaning day.”

All around we have a pretty likeable Tommy now-a-days.

I watched Tommy through the living room window. He is slamming an axe down on a log with all his might and it seems to make no impact on the piece of wood. Time and again Tommy raises it over his head and the axe falls to bounce off the log. Tommy tries so hard. A few nights ago we were sitting in the car listening to the radio while Doug ran in the store for groceries. The radio started playing “Nowhere Man” by the Beatles. Tommy listened quietly for a minute then said “That song is about me.” I wish I could afford to send Tommy to a private school where he could really learn and grow. It is so frustrating to know that his success or failure may come down to our poverty holding him back.

Dad reports:
* Glasses repaired. Tommy found a set of Dave N Buster screw drivers.
* Tommy laid in his bed and got over our earlier fighting.
* Talking to Tommy feels like such a waste of time sometimes. It’s like trying to shout in a vaccuum. No matter how much effort you put into it you words just aren’t heard. Unless its something that is totally rewarding to him.

Dad reports this morning:
* This morning Tommy seemed mellow so I felt I had to change that by grousing at him for the quantity of cheese slices he chose to snack on last night and just leave the wrappers all over our house. Then to add insult to injury, I showed him the STAR dismissal policy which says anyone overweight can be dismissed. The current upper bound is roughly 200 pounds but other things play a factor like height and balance.
-I think the mood can be re-covered.

Dad reports last night:
* Tommy so badly wanted to stay up later than he could watching James Bond. I let him but when his eyes were heavy and his face away from the tv I asked “don’t you want to go to your room” and he replies “I’m listening. Can I have a few more minutes?” I gave him about 2 minutes, turned off the tv, he never noticed, gave a couple more minutes then ushered him to his bed.