Part 131 ~ 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.

Ben woke up and took his meds, went to the bathroom after several prompts and went to his room to put on clean jammies and have a wipe down. Back to sleep with no problems. Then I relaxed and waited for sunset.

After sunset I did my Night Things and waited for Younger to bring my car back. She had said 9:30ish. But at 9:15 she called and said she needed another hour, she had a monetary goal she was trying to reach. I was tired, but wasn’t dozing off so I told her okay.

I don’t know exactly when she picked me up. We went to drop her off at her house and she wanted to show me all of her plants. Then she wanted me to interact with her snakes and of course the dog wanted attention too. I didn’t get home until 11:30.

I took my pill and prepared for sleep. It didn’t come until sometime after 1am… I was awake from driving and talking. SIGH!

Ben Bounced me around 5:15am and I really thought he was going to get in bed with me for a minute, but he had “ants in his pants” so laying down wasn’t an option. He wanted me in the living room, so I went.

Daughter got up and took over Couch Sittin around 6:00am. I got more coffee and uncovered Sven. I peeked under the blanket but his head was turned so I couldn’t see his face. I did zoom in and take a picture from the other side.

Then I went to my room. Ben, still in SpazmaTaz Mode, followed me. I tried to go through my email and WP reader but HRH was interrupting me approximately every other minute needing “help”, so I wasn’t able to concentrate on anything. He was in and out of my room, bedquakes were common. I was going through the “news” headlines and konked out.

I woke up a little after 10:00am and focused on staying awake. Ben was in my room again, watching his tablet. A bunch of his Kittys were also in my bed and various other toys were scattered all over. Zeus was at the foot of the bed with a stuffed animal he was “disem-fluffing”… there was fluff everywhere.

Daughter heard me wake up and came to tell me that Ben’s med doctor had texted back. She will send the Adderall prescription and have the nurse call to set an appointment. She also reminded me of Ben’s Zoom meeting at 11am. I tried to talk to her about the meeting but she walked away, not listening or not hearing…

The nurse called and set a phone consult for tomorrow (Wednesday) at 11:30am. Daughter started to complain about not getting to sleep after work tonight and I reminded her that she’d need to be awake anyway since I would be gone to pick up the PPE she’d signed up for. (The Special Education Department is giving away masks, face shields and hand sanitizer to families with “Special Needs” children)

Anyway, 11:00 and time to Zoom with Ben’s teachers. Ben was excited and wanted to show them his stuff. I told Daughter she should explain to them, let him have five or ten minutes then get into the learning. She either didn’t hear or didn’t agree, because she kept telling him to put his stuff down and pay attention to his teachers. They were trying to engage him, but he was getting more and more upset… scripting, using his angry voice, etc…

I stayed in my room, partly to keep Dogzilla out of it, but mostly to make Daughter handle this part. It was a very short meeting and Ben had some “behaviors” after it was over. (“behaviors” is what school calls acting out. Running away, throwing things, knocking things over, anything up to a full meltdown is a “behavior”)

I startled him as he was moving the stuff from the gate. I got him to sweep and I played with him and brought him back down. He got Fully Dressed in the midst of coming down, but even Fully Dressed is better than a full meltdown. Daughter was extremely frustrated and angry so her vibe might’ve tipped him even further into negative.

She ordered food for herself and asked if I wanted anything. I didn’t. She gave Ben part of her order of fries. He asked for more so I went and asked her. She gave me the rest of the fries to give to him. She hadn’t ordered anything for him since he hasn’t eaten the chicken nuggets from that place the past few times we’d gotten them.

She was in her room and when Ben noticed the living room was empty, he ordered me to join him in relocating. This was around 12:45. At 1:00 Daughter came to tell me she was going to sleep (I guess laundry is postponed) since she has work tonight and tomorrow night.

Ben and I sat on the couch. He watched his tablet and played with his gears and I worked on catching up with my email and WP… my schedule or routine or “Groove” or whatever was definitely off… Llama Face!

We just chilled on the couch for a while. I got up and picked up all the stuff all over the place, swept up the chalk dust, etc. Ben enjoyed the cleared space with some ummm… interesting… moves. I’m not sure if it was dance or a form of martial arts. He was making sounds that were sorta musical and a few of the moves looked like Tap Dancing but then he got the boxes out and was doing (or trying to do) a sort of jump kick to the boxes to send them flying to the floor. It was BIG play for a small, overcrowded space, but it was inside the AC cooled living room and it was within the “acceptable” range so I told him that he had impressive moves.

Dlaughter got up a little after 3:00 to take over, saw the boxes all over the floor, said “Okay…” and went to the bathroom. Ben went to my room before I was even done talking to Daughter and explaining about the boxes and letting her know that I gave him an ibuprofen with his 2:30pm meds. If I hadn’t explained about the boxes she would have assumed a stabbing spree or a “fight scene”, and probably would’ve expected a grumpy mood leading to a self-fulfilling prophecy. She laughed as I recreated some of Ben’s moves, so she’s in a more receptive mood because she understands he was playing. Goofy play, not angry play.

It seems complicated, writing it all out, but simple thing can make a huge difference. She has work tonight and that means the countdown, the routine, and Driving Miss Daisy. For all of those things to go smoothly, its easier if everyone is chill and in a decent mood.

By the time I’d given the report, picked up the boxes and let Zeus out and back in, Ben was tired of waiting for me and went back to the living room. I got Horizontal and enjoyed the Happy Noises coming from the front room, while I continued to try to “catch up”.

Ben just came in and told me to “get dressed and go to the store” then he pulled my jackets off the hook and hit his head on the dresser. He started going through the top drawer looking for stuff and only found a pair of Hello Kitty socks (still wrapped… obviously there was other stuff in there) so he was getting even more upset. It’s THAT time of the evening. I was able to bring out the other Cars 3 car he HAD to have and everything was better.

I better go ahead and publish and go keep him occupied.

Thank you for hanging out in another weird day. Weird is normal for Casa Cuckoo though, so… yeah. Sorry about there being no laundry today. Maybe tomorrow… then again, maybe not. I truly never know what is going to happen from one minute to the next. I guess it’s good that I’m flexible and Ben’s autism doesn’t require Super Structure or we’d have more problems than we already do. I’ll see you all tomorrow. Hot coffee and ice cold Sweet Tea will be available… laughter, adventures and hopefully a chill vibe.

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HUGS!

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