Hi All,
I haven't written in a while, so here goes. Liam has had a rough go of things lately, the start of the school year is tough for him. A new teacher, new room, some different kids in his classroom, ect. I hear moms so excited when school starts, I don't feel that way because it takes Liam about 2 months to settle in, and his behavior becomes worse at home. On top of this, his doctor changed his medicine, just a the look of different pill set him off. Too much change for the poor guy. It is hard for me to have patience with this, but damn it ,I try!!!  Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I lose it and have a meltdown of my own, and trust me, its not a pretty site.
I took Maura to the doctor yesterday and she might have whooping cough. The test for whooping cough is to stick a q-tip like thing up your nose really far, she did great!!! This morning Liam woke up and he sounds like Maura when he coughs, great!! I called the doctor and asked if we had to do the test on him, we would need at least 3 people to hold him down and 1 to hold his head, and 1 to try to give him the test, great. We are waiting till Monday to see if he needs meds. He has been sleeping since 8 this morning and Maura is bouncing off the walls.
Jeremiah is another issue, he is starting to be very embarrassed by Liam. I get it, we were all embarrassed by our siblings, but he is in the same grade as his brother, on the same baseball team, has a lot of the same friends, he never gets a break. Jerry and I have been trying to explain things to him about how he is the only brother you'll have, ect. I hope we are doing the right thing. Jer isn't forced to be with Liam all the time, it just seems to work out that way. And yes, they are in different classrooms. I have been sneaking Jer out at night to have some alone time with me, I think I'm enjoying it as much as he is. One thing it has done is opened my eyes up to is how relaxed I am without Liam, I'm not always looking at where he is because he will wander away, get upset, scream, ect. I hope I never resent Liam for this, I know in my mind he can't help somethings, but I know people can have resentment without realizing it. I pray I don't.
Maura has also giving me a run for my money with school, she cries going into school, but is fine once she's inside. Last Tuesday Liam had a very bad morning, so I was talking to him in the car. Maura kept coming up to the van waiting for me to stand with her in line. When I rolled down the window for the 3rd time to tell her I would be right there, she said something that broke my heart,"Are you dealing with Liam?" Sometimes I feel bad that this disorder had robbed us so many things, other times I know this will help my kids have a better understanding of people with disabilities.
Speaking of having my heart broken, the other night we were coming home from baseball practice and Jer was being not so nice to Liam in the car. I told Jer, "the last thing Liam needs is you being mean to him, he has a lot of people being mean to him." and Liam said," Yeah Jer, when people are mean to me, I just go with it." Because he doesn't react when other kids are mean to him everyone thinks he doesn't care, or he can handle it, well he feels the same way everyone feels, he just can't show it. Also some kids just don't talk to Liam because "he's weird". He told me he wants to be the most popular kid in his grade, I am going in to his class to let some of the kids know how he thinks. Pray for me that I say the right things, Liam is excited about this, and so is Jeremiah. I'm hoping there will be a better understanding of Aspergers when I'm done, and I think it will relieve some anxiety that both boys have. We are lucky that the kids in the boys grade are really nice kids, except for a few.
Well I have rambled on long enough,
Thanks for letting me bend your ear!!
Dawn