Our Aspergers Teenage Boy

Dad reports:
Tommy went to his psychologist who commented on Tommy’s improvement. We returned home and Tommy immediately turned oppositional and surly. Does he hate it here that much?

Dad reports:
Tommy called at 2pm asking to be picked up from school with coughing, sneezing and dizziness. I tried to get a doctor’s appointment and ended up in the wrong department. He seems feverish to me.

Dad reports this morning:
Yesterday Tommy slept 14 hours then sat in his bed 3 hours unmoving. Not reading. Not gaming. With elevated voice and complaints that his back and ankle hurt he moved to the bath and stayed there for 2+ hours only to yell at us when he got out to find everyone else had already eatten and gone to bed. I can’t imagine being on my back for 19 or more hours! He also wasn’t pleased with the meal of fried shrimp, and broccoli and cheese. I offered him leftovers from P.F. Chang and he didn’t want that either. After much bemoaning he finally ate the shrimp and at 8:05 was in bed with lights out.

This morning he woke at 5 for the restroom then returned to bed. At 6:10 I gave him his medicine and he whined in that tone that says “I’m going to get upset for no reason and you can’t stop me” that he “didn’t get much sleep last night” and his head hurts. I heard him coughing throughout the night so perhaps he is getting sick.

Dad reports this morning:
Tommy slept 14 hours and woke CRANKY! At 2:30pm he had a bowl of cereal and was asked to bathe. He yelled and pitched a fit wanting a second bowl of cereal but I’ve played this game before. Give him the 2nd bowl and his response is likely to be “no bath until I have a 3rd bowl” or “I said I’d get a bath but not when” or he’ll take his bath but it will last 2-4 hours. I put my foot down and said he could have a 2nd bowl after he is done with his bath. He screamed and screamed and said we were interupting him and accused us of being unreasonable.

We didn’t make him bathe yesterday and he’s in the same 5 sizes too small pajamas that he chose to wear on Friday night. He smells something akin to a farm animal and looks like the hulk about to bust out of his clothes. He now sits on his bed leaning against the wall refusing to do anything.

At least he is not yelling. The next round will be at dinner time when he is still unbathed and I refuse to feed him until he is clean.

Dad reports this morning:
Yesterday Tommy apparently had a good day at school. He was basically left to his own accord in the evening so we had miminal problems.

He sleeps in today. It is 11am.

Dad reports:
Tommy likes to wait until the last possible moment to get out of bed which sometimes..most of the time..means he is getting dressed after the short bus has arrived and tooted its horn. I used to let him grab a honeybun or poptart and eat it on the bus until the bus owner complained about all the mess Tommy was making.

Plan B. If Tommy was late, I would give him a dollar and let him buy breakfast at school. Not only was this going to get unnecessarily expensive, I felt it reinforced a bad habit and I am not sure that Tommy wasn’t turning it into an under the table allowance by taking the dollar and skipping breakfast anyway. I’m not paying my son $20 a month to sleep in.

Plan C. One day I told Tommy “if you want breakfast at school, reach into your wallet and take one of your dollars.” He didn’t like the idea. I said I wake him with plenty of time to get ready for school and have breakfast before the bus arrives.

Today he comes in the kitchen to grab a poptart on the promise that he would eat it at school and I refused him. I told him to get one of his own dollars and he walked out of the house angry, without breakfast and without money to buy breakfast at school.

It feels like the right thing to do but that doesn’t mean it feels good.

Dad reports:
The brand new, nice looking jeans that Tommy in his hysterics decided to roll around in the mud with are stained badly. Apparently the mud/clay mix we have in our yard is just nasty.

Dad reports this morning:
I think Tommy is starting to be happier. He seems to be waking up easier in the mornings also albeit he still lays in bed until the last minute.

Yesterday I checked Tommy out of school at the very end of the day and took him to STAR. We missed the first two of 6 classes (winter riding is short) due to missing a phone message. We arrived and they declared “There’s Tommy! And he brought hair!” (in response to his longer hair). STAR has a new horse that is perfect for Tommy. It’s huge! I joked that it was a Clydesdale. He had a good session. The instructors said he was his old negative self and they wouldn’t let him get off the horse until he said something positive and he chose “at least we are being rained, snowed, hailed or sleeted on.”

Apparently school went well yesterday too. Tommy’s Dana screen is broken now but they have called in for a repair.

Dad reports:
Yesterday was not a good day for Tommy and I. After missing his bus he was asked to put the clean dishes away. He griped and moaned and complained and begged to do it when he got home from school. Mom and I explained that another load would have to be done while he was in school. He started yelling and was sent to the porch but he was carrying a strainer and I was afraid that in his aggitated state he would fidget a hole into it. So I step out on the porch to ask him for the strainer and he freaks out and jumps off the porch landing on the wet ground. He may have actually turned his ankle some but he overreacted and dropped to one knee. He was dressed in new jeans and a good shirt and was actually looking pretty handsome. I barked at him to stand up and when I lunged toward him to help him up he dropped to the ground and started rolling in the mud.

I got mad and tried to pick him up but couldn’t budge his mass so I begged him to stand up. I begged him to get on the porch. He just lay in the mud yelling “my ankle my ankle.” I wanted to get him out of the mud. I wanted to check on his ankle. I could not move him and I could not look at his ankle positioned the way he was and I was getting angry. We were also in a time crunch as I had an appointment that would not/could not move. So I did the one thing I’ve been threatening for a long time. I took my belt off and let him have one across his right butt check. He howled and jumped to the porch. I said to get in the chair and he refused to move. I raised the belt and he jumped into the chair.

Mom and I talked about this later and how wrong it was. She is adament that the children should never be struck. Frankly, Tommy is so over the line sometimes that I’m not in agreement but I have agreed that it was a mistake and should not be repeated. I had to ask myself in post mortem, “would you have done that to a five year old?” It is so hard to remember that despite Tommy’s 44 inch waist and growing, his adult features, his intelligence, and teenage smell that he really is just a big 5 year old.

Tommy spent the day complaining about his ankle. The ankle had no bruising, no discoloration at all, no swelling, no nothing. I gave him a motrin to which, when offered another later, he groaned “I don’t want it. Why would I want another when the first one didn’t work?” Eventually Tommy got tired of not being able to move around the house easily and he discovered that if he walked sideways while dragging his foot he didn’t feel pain. Throughout the day the various things he did with his foot while “we weren’t looking” were to push the couch back a foot, roll a toy between his ankles, flex his toes (a fidget), among other things. His limp was exaggerated to Igorian dramatics.

Dad reports this morning:
Tommy missed his bus. I gave him a lunch check..oh yeah..yesterday he rushed out the door as I was reaching for my wallet and he didn’t have any money for breakfast or lunch and called home angrily. With one car and me in important meetings he had to make due. The school let him eat on the condition that he pay twice today. I was starting to hand him a dollar for breakfast when I decided to put the onus on him. I said, “if you aren’t going to get up when I wake you then pay for your own breakfast.” He jolts, “but that’s MY money. I’m saving that money!” (I still contend he has been saving it from other family members)

He missed his bus and instead of eatting breakfast or finishing getting dressed now sleeps sitting up on the couch.