Part 296 ~ 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.

Sunset was a bust…

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… it was probably a good thing, because Ben was still having problems. For whatever reason, he wasn’t happy with Daughter’s vibe or something. He asked me to go to the living room with him around 5pm, so I went. He told Daughter to “go to Mommy’s room!” I told him to be nice, we could ALL sit in the living room.

He ate his “orange chicken” and watched his tablet. After a few minutes of just sitting there, I got up and cleaned up all the chalk. Then I brushed and rebraided his hair and ran his bath. He got in, and I helped him get get clean, then he played and got out.

We took Daughter to work without problems, came home and I got The Boys tucked in, then texted Daughter to let her know we were home safe. Then it was Things, Stuff, food, meds, and sleep around 11:30pm.

Door kicking was today’s wakeup. I really miss the Bounce and “cuddle”. I went to the living room then looked at the time… 3:45am. Sigh… four hours of sleep was better than zero hours, but it was going to be a long day! I gathered his stuff, activated the Coffee Dragon early, (with apologies… it wasn’t supposed to wake until 5am) and texted Daughter to let her know I was awake and doing Couch Sittin Duty.

A little after 6am, I was getting more coffee and I looked out the kitchen window and saw that the horizon was starting to lighten up. I went out to check out the sky and look for Venus.

I noticed there were no clouds and it was like 35°F (2°C) so I took a few pictures with the Moon and Venus, went back inside and stayed there. Too dang cold for my SoCal self. I did go back out a little after 7am to see if the gulls were around, but I didn’t see any, and it was still too cold.

Ben and I left around 7:20am to go get Daughter from work. We had to sit and wait for five minutes or so for the frost to thaw off the windshield. Daughter was waiting for us and practically ran to the car, she was ready to get away from the hospital. We were back home by 7:40am, and met with a whining, wiggling Dogzilla. Rinse, repeat…

The morning was okay, but Ben was super jittery. He was grinding his teeth, something he hasn’t done in a while. I’m adding that to the list of things to bring up to his med doctor. The time release Adderall doesn’t seem to be strong enough or it just isn’t as effective as the instant release. Ben was in a good enough mood, but he was doing stuff like repeating a word or phrase over and over until it drove me bonkers. He couldn’t sit still, but he wanted me to get up and get stuff or do stuff for him. Intense and exhausting.

Around noon he started with the “get dressed… go to the store…” nonsense again. I gave him more chalk, but he wanted a “big box” now. I tried talking to him about the chalk. Then I talked to him about being patient. Then I talked to him about feelings and not being able to express them. It wasn’t one long speech, but every time he told me to “get dressed”, I tried a different approch.

At 12:30pm I gave him his half instant release Adderall and hoped it would help him settle so he could do his chalk thang. From 12:30 until about 1:30, he was outside and inside… back and forth. He’d tell me to get dressed, I’d tell him why that wasnt gonna happen, he’d start yelling some script in Ben-Jabberish, I’d tell him to quit yelling before he woke his mother, he’d grunt and go outside and yell. Then the whole thing would start again. Freakin exhausting!

He was able to settle down finally. Either he got it out of his system or the med helped. He started doing his thang with the three or four boxes of chalk he’s gotten in last couple days.

He was still shaving and arranging when the alarm went off for his 2:30pm meds. He got up on the couch with me around 3:15pm. Daughter got up at 3:30pm and took over. I gave my report and tried to decide whether to go to get my meds and the groceries then, or wait until tomorrow. I decided to get it over with.

So I got dressed and I went to the store… ugh! I got everything on my list except egg roll wraps. Daughter decided she wants me to make Lumpia for her birthday next week. It’s gonna be impossible if I cant find egg roll wraps. By 4:15pm I was back home, and putting the stuff away.

Now it’s time for sunset, then Pregame Show and Driving Miss Daisy.

In honor of the Word Of The Day, an excellent song… the video cracks me up too.

I knew when I saw how early Ben had gotten me up that it was going to be a long, trying day. It just felt like one of those days when a bunch of little stuff goes wrong. A dropping stuff day, a losing stuff day, a “get dressed… go to the store…” day. Self-fulfilling prophecy? Maybe. I think I’m just good at recognizing the signs. Daughter is off tomorrow night and several nights after. We have to drop her tonight and pick her up in the morning. I don’t think we have anything else planned. I hope not. I’d like a mellow day, please and thank you. ¡Hasta mañana!

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HUGS!

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