Routine? What Routine? When Nothing Stays the Same

Lately I feel like I have been doing a crappy job at many different things.  I think all mommies feel this way at times.  It’s inevitable- how many hats can one person wear?  Forget about wearing them well. Just getting the basics done is overwhelming lately.  It doesn’t help that all of our routines seem be to flying out the window…

The past few weeks have been extremely complicated for this working mommy (and many other mommies too).  The boys have not had one “normal” day in the last two weeks.  This week school is two half days, two days off, and then finally Friday I thought would actually be typical but then I came to find out that it’s the last Friday of the month, and Nate’s center is closed in the afternoon.  Today the kids went to Cisco Center for the day, thank God, so I had just my job to do during business hours.  But every other day, they have been here.  I have been caring for them for part of the day while working, every day for the past two weeks.  This is insane when your job is telephonic.  Not only am I under tremendous pressure to get my job done, but I feel as though I am plopping my boys in front of the t.v. and praying they will keep quiet.  Bad mommy.  On top of that, all of the housework that I usually get done during my lunch break, etc., has gone out the window.  So the house is a mess.  Which stresses me out beyond belief. 

Jack has been off of memantine for several weeks now, and I think it has affected his sleep.  It is soooo much worse right now- it seems like every other night he is up for hours.  It started at 2:30 am yesterday morning.  At least every 20 minutes until, well, until my mom got here at 9 to help so I could get my calls in for work (I am required to make 30 outreach calls to my patients each day- try accomplishing that with my little aspie under foot).  He wakes Nate up during this process too.  And both boys really seem to like climbing on me, especially in the middle of the night.  I am freaking tired.

Nate is sliding backward a bit.  Less repetition, fewer words.  Although he is also messing with me- he keeps laughing and shaking his head no when I ask him to say something.  And if I push him hard enough, he does it, but we are talking five minutes to get one word out of him.  Much more pointing and “in there, in there, in there” where I am pulling everything out of the cabinet trying to find what he wants.  This is so frustrating.

I am thinking of some new interventions for the boys.  Reading a new book.  Thinking.  I have my mom reading the same book so she can tell me if I’m crazy.  I need a check person.  My next step is to remove soy from Nate’s diet.   Two of his go-to foods have soy in them.  This may not sound like a huge deal, but with a picky palate like Nate’s, rest assured, it is.  But it can’t be worse than removing dairy- that boy was addicted to milk- he was like a junkie looking for a fix for the first week we eliminated dairy.  If we can handle that, this should be easy by comparison.

We are also losing both of the boys’ private OT’s- they are both moving.  I actually think this is harder on me than it is on them- as a parent, especially when your child cannot tell you what goes on, you put an enormous amount of trust in these practitioners.  Especially because they are pushing your kids and urging them to do things that are uncomfortable at times.  Nate’s OT in particular has been with him since “the beginning”.  I don’t think he had even been officially diagnosed when they started working together.  He can say her name.  And just to show how significant that accomplishment is- her name is Amanda.  Not exactly simple.  Nate is also finally having his private speech evaluation next week.  I am totally psyched for this- I put it off for quite a long time, then we were on a waiting list for months.  Before this fall, he wasn’t ready.  His sensory issues were the primary focus- he couldn’t attend long enough to do anything productive in speech.  He can now J.  I am going to be picking him up from Cisco Center during my lunch hour, running him to speech (which is about 5 minutes away), and then bringing him back when he is done- that’s bound to cause some meltdowns.  Unfortunately, this is the only nearby practice our insurance will cover, and it’s the only time they have available, so we will just have to make it work.

Onward!  Right??  Maybe, just maybe, everyone will sleep tonight.  We are DUE for a break in that department.