Part 157 ~ 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 started dozing around 5pm. I woke him up and herded him to the living room. Daughter was starting to cook his steak. Around 5:30 I came out of my room and found Ben holding Daughter’s laptop and both of them with angry faces. Daughter was trying to get Ben to take first meds, but Ben was ignoring her and trying to sign into the laptop.

I managed to get him to take the meds and return the laptop. It took some intensive talking to bring him down. I was just glad I caught it before they pushed each other too far.

Ben ran off to my room and was on my tablet searching through Amazon. “How ’bout this one?” as he points to a train that lays out dominoes (Thanks, Goose for putting that idea into the Ether…ugh!) Anyway, he browsed and I fed him. He is perfectly capable of feeding himself, but the Schedule, the Schedule…

At 6pm the alarm went off for bath time. I told Ben to keep eating (yeah, right…) and went to run his bath. It took a few minutes to get him headed to the bathroom and just as we were on the way, Younger arrived. Utter chaos! Zeus was doing the whiney wiggle “look at me, look at me”, Ben was back to refusing to get undressed… he was still wearing ALL the clothes.

Younger was trying to take over cuz I was Huffing and Puffing but I wanted her to stay out of bath time, she’s not always going to be available, especially if she gets hired at the latest place where she interviewed. I got ALL the clothes off him, got him in the bath, where he immediately pulled the plug, got him cleaned up and then into his bathrobe. Younger was still trying to take over, so I just gave up. She’d moved ALL the clothes and he was looking for them, I decided she could deal with making sure he didn’t wear them to bed. She got him tucked in, I made Zeus go into Ben’s room, then got the rest of Ben’s meds to give him. Younger took it in to him… fine, whatever…

Younger then spent the ten minutes or so before we left to Drive Miss Daisy sniping at her sister in a very unsubtle way. Why?!

Older, to her credit, didn’t respond. We left, Older even thanked Younger for coming to sit with Ben while I took her to work. Older let loose about Younger on the drive to the hospital. Sometimes when they are complaining about each other to me I want to say “You’re absolutely right! I’ve never really liked her either. Let’s just shoot her and be done with it.” Sheesh! What am I supposed to say? Anyway, Older was dropped off, wished a good shift, given my love, and I was headed back home.

Younger had Sven out for cuddles when I got home. She proceeded to unload about Older… She stopped after she’d gotten it out of her system. She needed to get back home so she and Partner (?) could go grocery shopping. Hugs and love and thanks and the door was locked and I was alone… except for Sophie Cat who was demanding her treats (“Kitty Cat Crack” at the Casa)

I took Sciencey pictures and pictures of the pretties and tried to relax.

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I wound up losing track of time and didn’t take my pill until 11:30pm or so. I probably konked out around midnight. I woke up a few times, like I always do, but was able to go back to sleep. Then at 6am I was awake.

I got up and let Zeus out of Ben’s room, looked at the sunrise from the bathroom window, then the kitchen window while making the coffee. Ben was on the couch when I came out of the bathroom. I got the stuff, did the meds, and uncovered Sven… still awake, YAY! I got some fresh food for him, with TWO grasshoppers

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I guess the food wasn’t to his liking cuz he climbed on top of his house and glared into the Judgey Corner

Then it was time to go get Daughter from work. Mission Accomplished and back home to Dogzilla. Daughter asked Ben if he wanted to lay down with her. He ran to her room. I stayed in the living room, I was sure he’d be back shortly, and he was. Daughter texted that he’d tucked her and “Monster Bear” (stuffed animal from infancy), in and kissed them for bedtime. AWWWW… So sweet!

Ben came back out, told me about putting Mommy bedtime and went into the baño. A “score”! Hurray! I got him cleaned up, and he went to play with his chalk while I mixed up a fresh gallon of Sweet Tea. I’d brewed it last night, but fell asleep before I’d mixed the sugar and extra water in.

Then I settled down to Couch Sittin and my first cup of coffee. A busy morning!

Ben decided to do chalk for a while then switched to dominoes. He made sure to tell me “chalk AND dominoes” so I wouldn’t pick up his chalk. Okay, no problem… I can deal with it, for a while… Things were cruising along fine until about 10:45 or so.

I’d given him his med and an ibuprofen. He sat on some spilled water or something so I told him to go change into dry underwear. He came out in the white button down. Dang it! ALL the clothes again… and of course he needed help. His clean underwear was inside out and backward, the dress shirt was inside out. UGH! So I helped him put ALL the clothes on. I’m pretty sure I upset him by telling him I wish he wouldn’t wear so much on a hot day, and that sometimes when he wears ALL the clothes he does things he’s not supposed to and I don’t like that either.

He kept running into Daughter’s room, turning off the AC, turning on the light, grabbing at her stuff. He was suddenly doing all the things I’d just got done talking about. He started kicking the front door, he went outside and moved all the stuff from in front of the broken gate. He was actively searching out each and every thing to do.

I don’t know if he worked it out of his system or if the 10:45 med finally kicked in, but he started to calm down a little by 11:30. Daughter had gotten up, but I told her to go back to sleep. I told her I thought we’d be okay, that I could deal with yelling and stuff but she’d hear if he went at the door again.

He watched his tablet, sitting next to me for a while then decided to do the chalk thang. It looked like he was making another “credits” creation. When I asked what movie it was from, I got silence. He was very focused on what he was doing.

2:30 meds alarm reminded me to not only give him meds, but go wake Daughter up. Her sleep had been interrupted but she also stayed awake after work to watch some shows. She told me this morning that she was setting her alarm for 2pm because Ben’s bus, when there was still a bus, would come between 1:45 and 2:15, depending on the route. She wanted to get in the habit of “waking up to meet his bus”. I told her that was an excellent plan, and agreed to come get her at 2:30 if she wasn’t out by then.

So, part of me felt bad because her sleep got interrupted, I care very much about my friends and family. But the other part of me didn’t feel bad at all. This is her son. She chose to change jobs and work twelve hour shifts. She chooses to stay awake after work watching shows. She only has to work tonight, then she’s off for a few days.

She came out and took over Couch Sittin. Ben stayed in the living room a few minutes then joined me and Zeus in Horizontal Time. I told him he had to stay awake. If he started falling asleep, I’d wake him up and make him go back to the living room. Then he pretended to snore so I’d “get” him, which made Zeus bark. OY! So much for relaxing quiet time…

I texted Younger to make sure she could come tonight. I didn’t want to chance things going bad again. Ben had been fine since noonish, but it changes so fast anymore. We did ask his doctor about bipolar and she said that it’s super rare in kids. He’s going to be twelve (WHAT?!) in a little over a week, but I guess that’s still young. It’s probably med related, he metabolizes extremely quickly. Anyway, back from the tangent, Younger will be here tonight when it’s time to Drive Miss Daisy.

I went out to tell Older, correctly guessing that she didn’t have her phone with her, and Ben followed and stayed in the living room. Good! He needed to be in the AC since he was Fully Dressed. I went back to my sauna.

It’s getting to be that time, Pregame Show. Ben still seems to be doing okay. I just walked over to the market to get a Monster Energy Drink for Daughter. Gag! I think those things even smell rank, but whatever… it’s not for me. It is so gross hot outside. The weather Guessers app says its 91°F (33°C) with 45% humidity. Groady To The Max! Okay, no more whining… let’s listen to the late, great Tom Petty

Thanks for hanging out with us at the Casa again today, and every day. Sven is still awake but he didn’t eat. It got crazy around 11am and by the time things were chill again, it was too hot to run a warm shower. Daughter is off tomorrow, so I’ll plop him in the shower early. He probably needs to “score” too. Silly lizard slept for over a month. We don’t have any plans for tomorrow, but who knows what might happen. We’ll find out together. Hasta mañana.

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HUGS!

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