Part 42 ~ The Adventures of King Ben & Zeus the Big Dumb Dog

If you missed the start of this series, you can find it here. A lot of things will be the same or very similar.

Last night’s calmness was interrupted just as I was falling asleep. Daughter was at work, everything was calm and quiet and then my phone startled me awake at 11:00PM. Younger Daughter… uh-oh! She was in tears because her partner hadn’t texted when they arrived at work an hour previously. I tried to calm her down, told her many different scenarios that could explain beside the “Dead on the side of the road” she had worked herself up over.  She has anxiety and panic attacks, I get that part of this is beyond her control, but there wasn’t much I could do for her to help her. She cried some more saying “What am I going to do?”. I don’t think I was helpful by telling her that her generation is so used to instantly being able to contact people that it might cause more anxiety when they can’t. Before everybody and their grandma had a cell phone, delays were just accepted. Yeah, there was worry, but not this extreme. She got off the phone to try to contact Partner again.

I went to the Highway Patrol website and looked for accidents or incidents. I took a screenshot of the latest info and texted it to her. She texted me back that Partner had called, everything was fine.

So I lied… there WAS more Daughter Drama yesterday. OY!

Bounced at 4:00, not happy! Obviously I wasn’t able to go right to sleep after last night’s little drama. At least he was calm-ish. My bladder, however was not. Dang it! I had to get up anyway. I guess me going to the bathroom reminded him of their use, because he was beating on the door saying “Ben to go potty!” Yeah, yeah… He practically knocked me over when I opened the door. I guess he really had to go. I went and grabbed my stuff since I knew it was pointless to try to lay back down.

He jitter jived all over the house, never really settling down. At least it was fairly cool, though a bit humid with all the clouds. I gave him the Black Gloves that I had ordered, hoping that would give him something to focus on. It did. For about 2 minutes. Then he was shooting the water gun or smacking Zeus with the unicorn…

Finally at 6:10 I began getting his meds ready. Yep! I was gonna dope his face early! It was like 5 minutes early by the time my crossed eyes and uncooperative hands got the job done. Then it was just hanging on until they started to work. I uncovered Sven and turned on his lights. He looks so funny with that bit of skin unpeeled

I HAD to see if it was loose. I couldn’t look at him like that…

YAY! It came off! Sven wasn’t very happy with me though, so I let him be.

Older Daughter texted that they had a meeting and she’d be a little late. She still got home earlier with the ride than if she had walked. Ben was still pretty amped up.

Ben was excited to show her his gloves and he asked her for the costume. I guess it’s nice that he believes we are magic and can just make things appear. I explained,  for the 47th time that morning, that the costume was ordered, it would come in the mail in a few days. She told him to grab his chalk and come to her room.

I topped up my coffee and went with Zeus to my room. I had to shoo Diesel Cat out of my spot, telling him to go get his person, I was not his person.

Next thing I knew it was almost 10:00AM. I guess I just konked out. I needed it! I could’ve easily gone straight back to sleep. It was a struggle to get myself to stay awake. I texted Daughter and let her know I was (semi) coherent. I figured she’d be ready to go to sleep.

At 10:30 I took Ben’s meds to him in Daughter’s room. She thanked me and told me that she’d gotten the email requesting her references, but she didn’t have the information for one of them. She was frantically trying to find someone who had the info. She has 48 hours to get back to them, but she wants to get it sent NOW. She wants the job very much and it’s a flashing neon sign in her brain. I get it.

I decided to put Sven in the shower while I got him some fresh food.

In the meantime, trouble was brewing inside Ben’s brain, or his body, or both. He was slamming the refrigerator door open and Daughter was telling him to close it. I’m not sure what started this particular contest of wills, but I could see it was going downhill fast. I intervened when he went from refusing to close the fridge to kicking the front door. I tried to get him away from the door but he wouldn’t be deterred until he’d kicked it enough to jiggle the lock loose so he could open the door. Which of course he did. I got him to come with me to Daughter’s room to pick up his chalk to move it to the living room. He didn’t help, but he sat down and watched me. I kept asking him if we could close the door, telling him it made me afraid to have the door open. (just closing the door would cause him to open it again… it’s part of his autism) I told him I was sad and I was afraid. He didn’t say anything either way, just watched me picking up the chalk.

Daughter decided to go close and relock the door. Ben, of course, followed. There was a package on the doorstep. I had told her earlier that his vest was arriving today. We had thought, at the time, to wait to give it to him, but since he’d followed her out, she decided to let him have it now. Better to give it in a calm-ish moment, try to distract him while waiting for the meds to help.

He was happy with the vest (and matching tie! Cool!) but wanted a white shirt (which is why we were gonna wait. The shirt will come in the next couple days). I told him the shirt was coming. Everything didn’t come at the same time. I reminded him that I’d ordered the gloves and they came. I ordered the vest and it came, so the shirt would come too. Daughter ran to her room and came back with a white long sleeve V-neck shirt of hers. He wanted to change into it, so off with the jacket, tie, vest and other shirt, then on with the white v-neck and everything else. Then of course he needed long pants, socks and those dag-nabbit hard soled shoes. By the time he was fully dressed he was calming down.

I had pulled Sven out of the shower while Daughter was putting the vest on Ben the first time. I knew I was going to be too busy and distracted to check on him. He was happy to see blackberries in his kale

so he forgave me for the short shower.

A little after noon Daughter came out to use the bathroom. Ben and I were sitting on the couch, relaxing in the AC (I turned it on when Ben put all those clothes on. I noticed he was sweaty when we put the white v-neck on him). She asked if I had given him the half dose of Adderall? I hadn’t. My alarm didn’t go off and I wasn’t paying attention to the time. So I doped his face and she went back to her room.

At 1:00 she came back out and asked if I was ready for her to take over Living Room Duty. I told her it didn’t matter to me, that I knew she was tired because she hadn’t slept yet and that Ben and I were okay if she wanted to stay in her room longer. She got exasperated with me. I guess she wanted a different answer. I don’t know what I was supposed to say?? No, I dont want you to sit with your son? Anyway, she got her stuff and took over.

Ben came to my room with me and Zeus and hung out for 45 minutes or so, then took off for the living room again. I started trying to go through my WP reader. I was very much behind.

Around 3:00 I went to get something to drink and noticed that Daughter was passed out. Ben was still happily playing with his chalk. He came into my room for a few minutes, messed around with Zeus, decided that wasn’t much fun and went back to his chalk.

At 4:30 Younger Daughter stopped by to drop off cat food and some Trader Joe’s frozen mac & cheese bites (nom nom) and to pick up mail and the half pound box of See’s Truffles. I haven’t opened my one pound box yet. I’m still delaying gratification. She, on the other hand, texted me 5 minutes after she left that she had already eaten 2 truffles. Older Daughter and Younger Daughter actually exchanged a few civil words… amazing!

Ben’s half pizza is getting ready to go in the oven. The evening is winding down. I’m ready for Ben, Zeus and Daughter to go to bed. I’m ready to have the house to myself. Some quiet time. Hopefully…

Thank you, as always, for coming along on our adventures. We had a few bumpy moments but life is like that. Even life on lockdown can get bumpy!

Tonight’s exit song is something that just popped into my head and bounced around there all day.

See you tomorrow. Take care of yourselves and let me know if there’s anything I can do to help make these days easier for you.

Hugs!