Part 112 ~ 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.

The evening routine went okay. Ben was still getting into anything and everything and Daughter was getting irritated. I reminded her that he gets wound up at the same time every night, she wanted to debate. I tried to keep things light, but she kept on until finally I said “You tell me the correct answer then. Obviously I am wrong. What is the right answer?” She stuck her jaw out, and got her stuff and stormed to her room. I continued straightening the house and checking on Ben who was outside.

I took care of his meds, giving him his pizza (Daughter cooked it) and doing his bath… getting everything ready so I could drive her to work. Everything was done and she was dropped off on time, still in a pissy mood. Whatever… not my problem. Ben and Zeus were tucked into bed, kissed goodnight, and I collapsed on my bed until sunset.

Blah, blah, blah… pill around 10:00pm, yadda, yadda, yadda, homeless hacking guy, cats, car alarms…

Yelling run-by sometime before 5am. On the couch after gathering the stuff at 5:02. And so begins another fun-filled Casa Cuckoo day.

Ben was jitter-jiving and pacing all morning. He could NOT be still. He tried to do chalk, he tried to set up his city, he tried to watch his tablet… two minutes was the limit, then he was up pacing again. He was grunting and making Happy Noises the entire time. I seriously considered doping his face early, but that would’ve messed up the schedule, and he was in a good mood, he just had “ants in his pants”.

Meds at 6:45, and Sven uncovered.

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7:10 I told Ben we needed to get ready to go get his Mama. He grabbed an armload of kitties, two Big Ben clock towers, his hat and his tablet. I got his shoes and socks on him, then grabbed his water bottle and my stuff and we were out the door at 7:15 to go get Daughter from work.

Daughter said work was very busy last night. She noticed one of her patients had left right around 1am. She asked the Charge Nurse where the patient was and was told she self-discharged. (Daughter said they are getting a LOT of people with alcohol withdrawl) She took her thirty minute break and when she came back there was a new person in the room. She joked to the Charge Nurse that they don’t waste any time there, and was told there were over one hundred people in the E.R. …at 1:30am… The hospital she works at is the only one in the area. It serves several smaller cities on the outskirts of San Diego.

Back home by 7:40 to see Dogzilla barking his head off in the window. In the house, cleaned up the mess, Daughter to her room, Ben and I to the couch. Then Ben went to do the chalk thang at 8:15 and I drank coffee, trying to stay awake.

Ben got up and bounced around a few times, had a snack, but went back to the chalk, where he pretty much stayed until 10:30ish. Then the ants got back into his pants and he was pacing and pinballing and jitter-jiving all over the place.

Med was delivered at 10:45 and Arts and Crafts demands followed approximately every three minutes. Finally around 11:30 he started to chill out. He was watching his tablet and relaxing. I put some food nearby, healthier snacks, in case he was hungry since he doesn’t always realize when he is hungry. And when noon announced itself via the med alarm, I doped his face.

(His meds are staggered to give him coverage throughout the day. The pill he takes at 10:45am is not the same med he takes at noon, and the meds he takes at 2:30 are meds he hasn’t taken since 6:45am… It seems like a lot, but its four medications: clonidine, seroquel, trazodone and Adderall.

The clonidine was first given to help with sleep when we’d maxed on melatonin when he was 4 years old. He then was trialed on the two “approved for children with ASD” meds and had side effects from one and no improvement from the other. Trazodone was added for sleep and to calm him, same with seroquel. He tried ritalin when he was 7 or 8 and we stopped it because it made him more aggressive. It’s only been since the beginning of this year that he’s taken Adderall and it really seems to help him focus and not bounce all over the place.)

I write about Ben’s meds and I know that some of my readers may be interested in what he takes and why. Especially since it seems like he’s taking something every other hour. It’s not quite that often. If any of you ever have questions, please ask. Nothing will offend me or seem intrusive. I want to share what I know or what I’ve done for entertainment and education.

We now return to our regularly scheduled program.

Ben went back to the chalk and came back to the couch. Making Happy Noises, grunting and singing Let’s Go Fly A Kite in his Death Metal voice while doing the chalk thang and scripting or just quietly watching his tablet on the couch. I was losing the battle to keep my eyes open and my back was getting achy from the dag-nabbit couch.

Daughter came out at 2:00 and took over. At first Ben followed me and Zeus to my room, but he went back to the living room about thirty minutes later. I actually started to doze but it must’ve activated Ben’s “Gramma Senses” because he came and Bounced me. He didnt want anything in particular. He just wanted to make sure I was awake. Bless his heart.

We had a bit of trouble around 4:00. Same time as yesterday and it started with the same thing… Ben snatched Daughter’s phone to take pictures with it. I never leave my phone anywhere while he’s awake. I told her that yesterday, and in fact he snatched up her phone while she was in the bathroom when she came out to take over at 2pm. Yes, Ben knows better. But, Ben has very poor impulse control, especially in the late afternoons. She snatched the phone back from him. He, of course, didn’t take that well.

I got him to calm down a little bit, we went outside and did some sweeping but that wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted to take pictures and videos with a cellphone. I offered to do some Arts and Crafts for him… anything to de-escalate the situation.

We came in the house and I went to get the bag with the stuff and Daughter held out her phone and yelled “Here! Take it! Take the phone and go sit down!” I went back to my room with the bag, Ben followed with the phone. He took pictures and video of me and I ignored it. He said “Gramma, look.” I told him I didn’t want to look when he was doing something he knows he’s not supposed to do. He left for the living room a few minutes later.

And that’s gonna do it for today. Daughter doesn’t have work tonight so we won’t have the time crunch stress. We just need to get peacefully through the next couple hours.

Here’s a silly Blast From The Past

Thanks for hanging out at Casa Cuckoo on this mostly chill day. We’ll be doing laundry tomorrow, you know you wanna be here for that. Younger Daughter will be bringing Kris for her final injection too. Very exciting adventures planned for tomorrow… coffee will be hot and ready.

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HUGS!!

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