Hope

Tom went to lunch, sooooo…I suppose I’ll update.  J  Today is a little bit better.  I went to bed still relatively early last night, but it was closer to ten, I believe.  I’m still a little tired, but I can feel.  Music has helped immensely – I always forget how powerful music is, until I accidentally hear a song I love and brighten up.  Yesterday, Medicine for the People was that little ray of joy for me.  Also, Joth has been so tender and loving and patient with me, which helps a lot too.  I was getting ready to post about how things were starting to turn around, and then I got a phone call from Joth that Tristan has to be picked up.  AGAIN.  This happened last Thursday, as well.

I am a little discouraged, but I still carry hope.  Why?  Because he had AWESOME days from last Thursday until now.  There are a couple of factors which we have identified – one, and probably the primary, is that Tristan doesn’t sleep well on Wednesday nights.  This has a huge impact on his behavior.  I can tell as soon as I wake him up in the morning if we are in for a rough day or not, and sure enough, I could see it in his eyes this morning.  Austin spends the night Wednesday nights, and Tristan fights sleep so he can stay up and play with him.  We’re going to set up Josh’s old room upstairs for Jewel anyway, so Tristan can sleep up there Wednesday nights too. 

Problem number two is that this is in gym class, where apparently several other students are having issues.  Joth and I met with Tristan’s teachers last week and they were talking about how the gym teacher just doesn’t really know Tristan or how to best interact with him.  Which is fine and everything, but Tristan can’t be coddled and catered to his whole life either.  He needs to learn to be responsible for his own behavior, whatever the circumstances.

I was really angry at first, but my anger doesn’t change anything.  If I yell and scream and threaten and curse, that won’t work either.  I’m going to stay calm and be very emotionless about the whole thing.  This was your action, these are the consequences.  He’s going to be ticked off, but better he learn this lesson now than grow up to think he’s someone who can break rules without consequence.  Also, Joth helped him a lot last week talking about different CBT techniques.  We just need to add in the meditation and possibly hypnosis so we can help him.  I only have him for another 9 years, after that, he’s going to need the tools to deal with these situations himself.

Last night, Joth’s mom took us out for sushi.  It was really nice, the kids were well behaved, and we all had a good time.  After that, we went and picked up Carlett (the snake).  We are changing her name, but it hasn’t been decided yet.  I was going to name her Sophia, but Tristan and Austin wanted to name her Athena, and Joth wanted to name her something Egyptian.  So we’re doing some searching.  Oh, Tom just came back.  More later.