He's a five boy....from hell that is.

Yeah, so much for posting a couple times a week...

I've been working a lot the last few weeks. Kind of funny...I'm still officially on maternity leave but I'm putting in more hours from home than I did before I had the baby. It's all good though as I'm enjoying what I am working on.

The Boy turned five on Monday. Unbelievable! He's a five boy as he says.

My parents were in town for a few days and we had family photos taken. I'll post some when I get the online link for them. It was two hours of craziness with the photographer, and getting both boys to smile was a challenge. It was tough for The Boy since he was in all the pictures, and as usual full cooperation from him was pretty much impossible for him to do. We made it through though.

Monday we took him to the Star Wars exhibit at the Franklin Institute. It was pretty cool. Lots of hands on stuff to do. It was kind of funny as we were walking through the hallways, which were kind of dark and bare, to get to the exhibit, The Boy turned to Amazing Daddy and said "I'm not so very sure this is a very great idea." AD had started to watch the movie with him over the weekend and it scared him pretty much right from the start. Even though we had assured him the exhibit was not going to have shooting and loud noises like the movie, he wasn't sure he was ready to believe us.

He had fun though and handled himself very well through the exhibit. After that we went to see the giant heart. It was pretty cool too. The Boy walked/climbed through it more times than AD and I could count. He was doing fairly well in it too, until several school groups came in. They were noisy and moving very fast. It was just too much for TB and he quickly became over stimulated. At one point AD lost sight of him so all four of us (my parents were with us) were looking. I wasn't so much concerned that someone would take him (hell, if they did they would soon be paying us to take him back) but that he would do something destructive. At one point I heard a couple different kids saying something about there being a boy in the heart doing something. I never heard exactly what "the boy" was doing, but I did know right away that it had to be TB.

We got him out and tried to take him to the cafeteria to get him to calm down. He ran away from us into the caf and was very wild. We cornered him at a table and tried to calm him. By this time he was yelling, pushing and knocking over chairs, etc. My parents were pretty much horrified, as they have never seen him like this out in public, and it has been over a year since they have seen it at home too. I was hopeful that we would be able to calm him and get him back in control, but it just didn't happen. My mom tried to talk sternly to him, and I had to tell her to leave him alone. Of course this pissed her and my dad off and they left. When TB gets like that talking to him just aggravates it, especially if it sounds like you are yelling or mad at him. He just acts out more in response.

We spent a good twenty minutes trying to get him to regain control, but he just couldn't do it. AD was trying to hold him so he couldn't push the chairs and tables around, but it was quite a struggle. He's 40 pounds of muscle this kid; very strong. We finally calmed him down enough that we could carry him out. As we were leaving the cafeteria I realized there was a museum employee (in a suit, looked very official) watching us. He left the cafeteria with us and walked towards the exit with us. He never said anything, but it was pretty clear he was watching us and making sure we were handling things appropriately.

We took TB out to the van and got him in his car seat, still somewhat hopeful he'd regain control, but he just couldn't. He was so worked up and angry about being strapped in that he tried to make himself throw up. When that didn't work he started blowing snot out his nose. The anger was so intense. Scary to see.

At this point I went to find my parents and asked them to please not say anything to him or talk about it.

TB never really did get himself back that day. I thought he would fall asleep on the ride home since he is usually emotionally exhausted after one of these outbursts, but he didn't. The rest of the day he was very bratty. Lots of talking back and demanding behavior. Great birthday memories for all of us.

Of course my mother couldn't keep her opinion to herself, and later had to give me her assvice. She read a book recently about difficult children which she brought for me to read. She seems to think all the answers to his problems are in there and he'll be "cured" if I read it. I will certainly read the book, but there is no book out there that is going to cure TB. I'm sure the book has some useful information in it, but TB needs more help than a book is going to give him or us. My mom thinks that a firm hand and some discipline is all he needs. I wish it was that easy.

We had started a new medication (Strattera) the week before, to try and get better ADHD control in the evening and early morning. Some of the side effects are irritability, mood swings and aggressiveness. We had hoped that they wouldn't effect TB, but clearly they did. We stopped the medication that day and he seems to be handling himself better as the week has gone on.