Part 181 ~ The Adventures of King Ben & Zeus the Big Dumb Dog

~ King Ben's Grandma

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

Everything was going great last night, Ben was eating and I was doing Sciencey Data Gathering. I started Ben’s bath water running and went to take another picture… and forgot the water. Thankfully Daughter saved me from creating a flood. I was trying to wrangle Ben into the tub when Younger walked through the door.

Chaos and hurt feelings… I said something about Ben’s bath and Younger said “Why doesn’t she do it?” I told Younger that her sister is usually getting ready for work at bath time, plus Ben always says “Gramma to do it.” So I just do it.

Younger got the mail she came for, got her ring and I gave her part of the mustard greens, kale and blackberries I’d bought for Sven. Then she hugged me and left.

Older gave Ben his bath and washed his hair. I told her I didn’t want him to associate hair washing with her, that wasn’t fair. She’s stubborn and her sister hurt her feelings. UGH!! I wish I could put them both in Time Out!

Ben went to bed and I finished taking pictures. I missed a chunk of the sunset, but that’s life at the Casa.

Ben was awake late again. He stayed in his room, so all good. I had another discussion with Daughter about seeking Mental Health treatment. She told me she is still functioning, and “talking about my problems won’t solve them”. I tried to explain that there are different kinds of therapy, and yes she is functioning, but she’s miserable, and that affects Ben and me. I quickly added that I wasn’t putting blame on her, that it made me unhappy to see her unhappy because I love her. I told her I don’t reccomend therapy out of judgement, but out of experience. It really helped me. I want her to wake up happy, not crying. We ended the discussion when she said she can’t handle one more thing right now, and I told her there was always an excuse, right? She laughed, as I knew she would.

She ordered food and they brought what she’d ordered for me and part of her order, but not the main item. So she ordered from somewhere else, and that order was better than usual. She was happy.

I took my pill around 11:30 and konked out. One brief wakeup and then it was ear sniffing at 6:30am. Ben was up, but where was he? Then, The Bounce! I was rocking with the Bedquakes, when wonder of all wonders… a cuddle. WOW! Ben hadn’t gotten under the blankets for a cuddle in a long time. It lasted all of thirty seconds, but that was still nice.

Off to the living room and his meds. I opened the divided pill container and it was empty. Dang! Daughter forgot to do his meds last night. I had to look at the bottles because I kinda know what he takes and when, but wanted to be sure. I got his whole pill and half pills and Doped His Face, then went to look at sunrise. I took one picture of the sky before the sun was up, then back inside to get Sven lit up and fed.

I gave Sven worms this morning. They were smaller than the ones I usually get, so I started with six. He went crazy nom nomming those worms. Poor Sven… starving for protein. I gave him a few more, then a few more. I don’t know what the final count was, but I gave him mustard greens and a blackberry after that.

I think he wasn’t too happy with the salad after the meat. Poor Sven…

Daughter got up as I was brewing a few cups of her (gross, yucky) Pumpkin Spice coffee. Ben was on the couch watching Peppa. I was running back and forth trying to get the sunrise and missed a chunk. I got a few good pictures though.

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Daughter’s coffee was done, so I poured a cup for her, poured the rest into a travel mug and started MY coffee brewing. I’d been grinding beans from a gifted bag the past few day. Not my favorite blend, but it was coffee. This morning I was looking forward to my regular coffee and with creamer instead of milk. Poor, poor, privileged me… I DO know how lucky I am.

Daughter’s delayed check was an irritant, but we weren’t devastated. We ran out of a few things, we had to be careful with the money we had, but it wasn’t like when we were literally hungry with no food and no money. Or searching the couch for change trying to get $1 so we could but cheapo TP that had chunks of wood in the paper. I know poverty. I grew up in poverty and have been homeless, sleeping in my car. When my ex left we went without food for a few days because every dime we had went into paying rent and deposit on the apartment we moved into. Daughter was receiving food benefits from WIC but it didnt cover much. We had both applied for food and cash from the State, aka Welfare. But again, it wasn’t much and had been exhausted. My mother found out and bought us some food. We hadn’t asked her because she had already spent so much while we lived with her before he left and we were trying to make it on our own. Anyway, to wrap up this tangent, I know poverty and hunger, Daughter’s check being late wasn’t going to devastate us. Being out of my favorite coffee wasn’t the end of the world.

Anyway, Mr Murphy and his cousin Sod weren’t done yet. Daughter couldn’t get her laptop to turn on. It finally worked, but then she couldn’t sign into her work’ system. She got that sorted out too. But then Ben brought his tablet to me and said “I need help.” It was completely dead. He had unplugged it while he was goofing off last night and it was dead, dead, dead. I gave him my tablet and plugged his in, hoping that was the end. I got my coffee and went to get Horizontal. Crazy morning!

Ben’s 10:45 med was moved to 10:30. We left the house at 10:45 to Drive Miss Daisy to Employee Health. Ben and I did a few laps around the parking lot after dropping Daughter off. It was supposed to be a quick check of her arm. After two very slow laps, I decided to park. She came out after a few minutes, and we were off to the next destination… The Golden Arches.

We arrived and there was a very short line at the drive thru, YAY! One Happy Meal and twenty extra nuggets and we were on our way home, learning about left turns and right turns along the way. The temperature, according to my car, went from 88°F (31°C) at 10:45am when we left, up to 94°F (34°C) at 11:30am when we got back home.

We went into the house to get the Zoom set up. His session was at 11:30 and we were running late. Ben plopped on the couch with the intention of staying there indefinitely. Daughter moved the laptop to in front of the Zoom Chair, and I got him a Diet Coke, moved his food, then moved him to the Chair Of Zoom. He had his tablet still and his earbuds were in, but he was in the Chair. I took one earbud out, bent down and put my face between his and the tablet screen, then quietly told him to look at the laptop screen. Then I exited, not stage left.

Are you wondering where Dogzilla was while all of this chaos was occurring right after we walked in the door? Well, I’ll tell ya… Dogzilla was hiding and wouldn’t come when called by me. I was standing in the kitchen, next to the trash can… and the trash on the floor. Big Dumb Jerk! He knows better, and this time knew he’d messed up BIG TIME! There was food in his bowl, he was being a jerk. He finally peeked around the corner, saw me squatting down to pick up and sweep up the mess he’d made. I told him “No trash!” then told him to go lay down. We were gone for forty-five minutes. He’s ridiculous.

Anyway, Ben Zoomed… kinda. Today’s Zoom was telling time by half hours. Teaching the kids to read an analog clock. Ben kept giving wrong answers on purpose. Playing around is better than Angry Words or straight up ignoring, but still… no learning. Or maybe he did learn. Ben knows a lot more than he shows. He’s very smart and has an almost photographic memory. He may be picking things up. And working with reading an analog clock was something they were working on Before… He ended the session in a good mood and came to my room, jumped from the doorway for a cannonball Bounce, and laid down with his tablet while Bedquakes receded.

Ben left my room around 12:45pm and went to play in his room. I took his tablet out to the living room and put it on the charger and cleaned up the mess on the couch Dogzilla had made. The 1pm med alarm went off, so I told Daughter, who then took the med to him. He stayed, playing in his room until 1:30 or so, then went back to the living room with Daughter.

Ben spent the afternoon in the living room with Daughter. There was a lot of laughter heard from that direction and it made me very happy to hear them spending time together and having fun. Daughter made the effort to participate in the neverending scripting back-and-forth that Ben loves to do. It can be exasperating hearing the same phrase over and over, even more saying the same phrase. But that’s part of spending good times with autistic kiddos. You have to do the things they love. In truth, it’s the way it is with all kids.

Not much left to do. A quick bath and bedtime in an hour or so. I have to do a grocery pickup from WallyWorld between 7pm-8pm this evening, but that’s just driving over, letting someone load the stuff into the car, and driving home. Easy peasy.

Disturbed OWNS every remake they do! They are quickly becoming one of my favorite bands.

Disturbed – If I Ever Lose My Faith In You

Another rollercoaster day. Crazy morning, followed by a relaxed afternoon. It’s good to get the crazy over and done with, IMO. Thanks for hanging out with us, riding along, Zooming with us, and stopping by every day to share our Adventures. Be careful though… anyone who spends too much time at the Casa winds up a little cuckoo themselves. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. ¡Hasta mañana!

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HUGS!

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19 thoughts on “Part 181 ~ The Adventures of King Ben & Zeus the Big Dumb Dog”

  2. I spent a year in the homeless shelter and transitional housing with my kids after things got violent in my marriage. Yep poverty. Makes us grateful. People talk about dreams and mine just always come back to a better anything for my kids. Can I be like an annoying daughter for a minute? Going to therapy actually made me worse. They kept having me talk about stuff that really depressed me in order to find solutions and then, they and I, would feel like shit when the conclusion was that there was no solution. I would start crying and couldn’t stop and EJ would say “mummy I want happy!”. Connecting with people online is really good for me. Every once in awhile I get emotional and verbal diarrhea and I’m sure people are confused when I seem hyper sensitive about certain things but I don’t have to try and fix the unfixable so that someone feels successful. The worst was when the professionals insisted that I could do it all. They could not have done it for one day. Professionals are so clueless about the day to day of dealing with autism. They can help with talking about abuse, bad relationships, self esteem etc. But what do you do when they say it seems you have situational depression and your situation isn’t changing any time soon. We just need friends. I’m sending out vibes to the universe for Older for genuine friends who want to try to know and understand her kid and time to actually spend with them. That’s just my opinion which fortunately if it’s wrong you can just totally ignore it, lol.

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    1. I agree with you regarding the situational stuff. I’m recommending therapy to her for things that happened to her when she was a teen, and my ex was an abusive alcoholic.
      It’s not Ben that’s the problem for her. I’m not gonna talk about all her stuff cuz that’s not my place, but I agree that talking about a situation that has no solution does more harm than good.
      Thanks for caring enough to share you input!💖

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  3. I too got super stressed over every penny when my ex left us in a condo we couldn’t afford and the NODs started coming in from the bank. My credit card was approaching the max because i used it for groceries. Almost all my income went to daughter 1’s college where I were paying full tuition. The one thing i was always hyper focused on was getting them great educations so they could support themselves and never have to depend on a man! Ugh memories 😢

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    1. Yep… ex left us with nothing. No income, no vehicle, no food and 3 months behind on rent. We got evicted after Ben was born… it was awful! Money worries are the worst, and people shouldn’t have to live like that.
      People have a responsibility to be smart about their money, but stuff happens. Younger certainly didnt plan on losing her job in the middle of a pandemic, the US mail being unreliable is ridiculous for America, I definitely didnt plan on becoming 100% disabled.
      And the ex never sent us a dime. Younger was 13 when he left.

      Sorry to bring up bad memories for you. We can both be thankful we got through it and both our girls are doing good and other than aches and pains, so are we!💪 strong women raising strong women!💞

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    1. Yes! It was good to hear Ben giggling. Real laughter, not the fake stuff he does sometimes. Overall a good day.
      Thursday will probably be another rollercoaster ride, but as long as we dont crash, we’ll have fun😉

      I hope your Thursday is off to a good start, and gets better!🤗🥰💖

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  5. Bob hates the scripting too. He will say, “Just once I would like to hear his own thoughts and not something he’s heard and memorized.” Me, well, you know. If it makes D happy than I am good. And I don’t think Bob could be guilted into bath time but it might be worth a try. Sounds like a busier day. And no meltdown after zoom – that’s good! Even if he isn’t getting anything out of it at least you aren’t feeling the negative effects the rest of the day. We didn’t have zooms yesterday, just a lot of work and me still getting all tense and mean trying to teach something to a kid that just wants to know when we are going to the Halloween store while he understands nothing I’ve said. I swear, I was not meant to be a teacher. I think I am just giving him learning anxiety. Well, here’s hoping for a good day for the both of us, whatever gets thrown our way!

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    1. Yeah… I forgot to mention yesterday that his school called and he needs a booster shot before he can go back. Daughter sent a message to his pediatrician’s office, then called our pharmacy to see if they did school boosters. They did, so she made an appt, cancelled the Dr office request and left a message at the school.
      Then the pharmacy called back and said they couldn’t. She didn’t ask why, but I’m guessing it’s a billing thing.
      She got herself all spun out about getting his shot before school starts on the 28th. I tried to tell her that if his Dr cant get him in, someone will do it for cash, but she didn’t wanna hear it. She was in Chicken Little Mode.🙄🤦🏼‍♀️

      Ben learns best when I tell him stuff as part of conversation. Like driving yesterday… left hand, left turn… right hand, right turn… holding my hand up. Or reading a street sign to him… whatever. Worksheets and all that… forget it!

      Good luck to you today! I hope your Zooms weren’t terrible.🤗🥰💞

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    1. Dude! Thank you! They’re awesome. I’m using one of their songs in tonight’s post.

      I sometimes wonder if the scripting is just an “earworm” thing, or if they like the way the words sound or feel… there’s SO much I wish I could understand. My one wish would be to experience the world the way Ben does. Just for a little while. To see thru his eyes, feel with his body… all of it.
      It’s even more difficult with Ben’s limited speech to figure out why… why everything really.
      💌💌💌

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  7. Lovely to hear your daughter and Ben were having fun together. She seems to be trying so hard and it must be difficult when Ben would rather be with you. It gives you a bit of a well-deserved break too! The scripting is fascinating but also exhausting. I worked with a young woman with autism and I had to remember different phrases exactly. If I got it wrong then the whole process would start again, or there could be a meltdown. I only did respite care, so a couple of days at a time. I can only imagine just how tiring it must be every day.

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    1. Yes, it absolutely MUST be exact! It is definitely exhausting. Ben does pretty well if you do it a few times then tell him you’re tired or need a break… He really IS a great kid. But he’s still a 12 year old child, stuck at home for 6 months. Sometimes he goes a little buggy🤪😂.

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  8. Glad Ben is making progress with his zoom meetings. I bet he is learning and having fun trying to fool the teachers with his shenanigans. But in my opinion, if he is sitting and somewhat engaged, then that is all you can ask for.
    My son remembers everything too. It’s extraordinary. And a hug. How special. He knows he is loved.

    All quiet around here. Got a text from Andrew yesterday. He wanted to join us to have a drive by retirement celebration for his high school music teacher and the pianist too. He could have chosen to go by himself. We loved his choir days. He was so happy singing with his friends.
    One time, he joined a musical in the theater program. He got married in this wedding (pretend) , (a dinner show to raise money) was the groom and even had a kiss from a sweet girl.
    I was one of the caterers, so i missed most of it, but Ken video taped it. Those were fun times.Drama kids are quirky and he fit right in.

    Have a good one

    Teri

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    1. I was a Drama kid in High School. And yes, quirky and very accepting! Rehearsals were long… but we did things like a neck rub circle. We got in a circle and everyone gave the person in front of them a neck/shoulder rub. All voluntary, of course and probably a major no-no these days, but this was back in the 80s.

      I’m glad that Andrew reached out. I know it’s hard for you when he isnt in touch.
      💕

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