Part 166 ~ 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 continued to play with his chalk until Daughter started cooking his steak. I think the smell made him realize he was hungry, plus he was getting tired. He’d been at the chalk pretty intensely for many hours. Anyway he came into my room and was flopping around on the bed, causing bedquakes and talking about mud volcanos… whatever that meant. I had a bit of a headache, my back was achey and I was tired too… if I had a beard, it would’ve been black.

He ate his steak at a steady pace, he really was hungry. Then I put him in the tub after bringing him in from the backyard… (why??) As promised last night, he played in the tub as long as he wanted to. Then Daughter tucked The Boys in when he was done.

I’d been waiting for the sun to get a little lower, but was taking occasional pictures anyway, when I heard that beloved squawking. The Parrots were doing another flyby. I was super stoked! Flybys in the morning AND at Sunset.

My phone camera froze up at one point, because of course it did. I restarted my phone and took more pictures. I was also able to note what time the Sun was at the “horizon”… 6:39pm. Good Sciencey data gathering, right?! Its gonna be a problem on nights that Daughter works, it’s right in the middle of Driving Miss Daisy time.

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After the Sun was down, I went to look at the moon. It looked yellow coming up, but my phone camera didn’t pick it up, even on the cool “pro” setting.

I asked Daughter if she was gonna order food, she asked me what I wanted. I told her I didn’t care, nothing was grabbing at me, I could just nuke an Amy’s Bowl. She decided on Applebee’s. I still almost passed, but knew if I didn’t pick something, she’d switch places until I did. I got a side of mac & cheese, and a side of loaded smashed taters.

I did the things, ate the food, took the pill and konked out.

The sound of Ben kicking the front door, BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! at 6:15am this morning, is how I woke up. NOT a good way to start the day! I ran out to the living room, not awake at all, saying “Babylove! Stop! If you wanted Gramma to get up, you should have used your words. No kicking the door!” He stopped and sat on the couch. I went and got his tablet and water bottle, and my stuff and sat on the couch. A fabulous beginning to September…

Once Ben was settled, I got my coffee and uncovered Sven, fresh food, yadda yadda yadda…

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Daughter got up around 6:30. I told her about the door kicking. She said she’d heard it, but was waiting. I hoped it was cuz she didn’t want to possibly make things worse, that she would have come out if things had gotten bad.

Anyway, she took over, and I went outside to look at sky, which was very overcast. Nice and cool, but boring. Then I was looking at my wild pecan tree and saw a dead branch. I was pulling on the branch to break it off, it was over my head, laying across what’s left of the roof of the small deck area. Anyway, being me, I somehow fell and hit the ornamental metal railing along that side. I hit the curved top with my abdomen, right side just below my ribs and luckily above my pump. It hurt pretty bad. I decided it was time to go back in the house and lay down.

As soon as I was Horizontal, Ben came in to Bounce me and goof with Zeus. They were playing which is nice, but they were shaking the bed and bumping into me, which wasn’t so nice. Ben must’ve left at some point because I konked out.

I woke up again around 9:30am. As soon as I moved, I knew I’d hurt myself worse than I thought. I was in PAIN! I took a couple morphine tablets, and tried not move. I was listening to the house, trying gauge the mood. It seemed pretty mellow. I heard Daughter put Sven in the shower, so after a few minutes, I got up to paparazzi him.

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I got more coffee, reattached Sven’s hammock and picked up the food he’d scattered everywhere. Then I went to lay back down. I read and wrote email, played a game and waited for the morphine to help.

At 11am Ben had a Zoom meeting with his Speech and Occupational Therapists. He took his 10:45 meds but was having a rough time. He was probably picking up on Daughter’s feelings about the whole Zoom thing. She put the AC on and he was knocking the cardboard out, and scripting Angry Words. So at 11am, getting him to sit in front of the computer was a huge challenge. I stayed in my room to keep Dogzilla out of the way.

She finally got him to sit down, but he wasn’t interacting the way they wanted him to. They both tried, but Ben wasn’t having it. All he wanted to do was talk about V For Vendetta and dominoes. They eventually gave up on their plan and tried to work with him using the dominoes and V. It was a wasted, rough thirty minutes. I heard the whole thing from my room.

Then at 11:30am Daughter switched to a new Zoom meeting. That was a “group” teaching meeting. I don’t know if either of his classmates were in the meeting, all I could hear was Ben saying “The End” and “All Done”. The teacher or aide, who ever he was, was trying really hard to get Ben to engage, to at least watch. He was talking about weather, clouds, and rain. Ben was still stuck on V and dominoes and wanting to be done. They set a two minute timer, and when it ran down, they let him go. Fourty-five minutes of wasted time, with “behaviors” before, during and after.

He started to settle down a little bit once he was playing with his dominoes again. After he’d been calm for a while, I took a smaller box of chalk out to him to thank him for trying. He could’ve been SO much worse. He could’ve flat out refused, he could’ve thrown things or started hitting. Plus, it’s always better to ignore unwanted things as much as possible, and reward and generously praise the good.

Noon med alarm was hollered out and Ben was banging down the hall side to side, then falling down. He was yelling “Gramma, Help!” I got up, slowly and painfully, went to him in the hall, and told him for the tenth or fifteenth time that I hurt myself, I can’t “help” him get up today so he needs to try not to fall down. He was really good about getting up using his own muscles instead of pulling on me.

He came and laid on the bed with me for a while, asked me to get his diet coke for him, and watched his tablet. Then around 1pm he went back to the living room for chalk time.

I got up a few minutes later and Daughter decided to go to her room to “charge her laptop”. I didn’t bother asking about times or any of that. If my pain got too bad, I’d go get her. I got my stuff, took more morphine and settled into some Couch Sittin.

Ben grabbed his tablet and sat next to me for almost two hours. I think he was absorbing my Zen. Older Daughter is what I call a “Broadcaster”. That means her emotional state is very obvious, even if you’re not sensitive to those things. Even when she’s trying to mask anger, stress, fear… it’s easily felt by me, and I’m guessing Ben too. The Zooming this morning made her anxious, which upset Ben and made him act out, which upset her… and the cycle went downward.

Ben needed to calm himself and sitting with me, chillin’, gave him the time and atmosphere to do it. The meds probably helped too.

I straightened up the chalk areas (there were three!), into one neat area, and swept up the dust. I also neatened up the dominoes. Then I went through my WP Reader for the first time. A very late start for me!

Daughter came to take over Couch Sittin around 3:15pm. Ben had been doing chalk for a half hour or so, and told me to stay in the living room. Actually, his exact words were “Gramma, sit on the couch.” Bossy little stinker. I told him it was Mom’s turn to sit with Ben. We take turns cuz we both love him so much. I don’t think he believed me. I went and got Horizontal again.

Around 4:15 he came and joined me and Zeus on the bed. He was surfing his tablet.

Ben asked for Blue Ramen so I got the bowl that had a little left. Daughter is cooking steak for him again. He likes his pan fried in butter with garlic steak. Daughter will have to do his bath tonight. I don’t think I can do all the kneeling and bending and reaching required to wrestle the octopus. I still hurt and have a feeling it’s gonna hurt for a few days. I’ll probably need to make a run to the grocery store tonight after he’s in bed for birthday stuff… balloons, cupcakes, glow sticks… whatever.

Thanks for Zooming with us and watching me find a new, creative way to injure myself. It was definitely a Casa Cuckoo morning, but the afternoon was better. Tomorrow (Wednesday) is Ben’s birthday. Come by and hang out with us. I’m still not sure what we’re gonna do, and we may just play the whole day by ear, ya know? Murphy and Sod love when we make plans, it’s better not to. ¡Hasta mañana!

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HUGS!

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