If there’s one thing that gets me about living in a house with three boys, it’s that I seem to be the only male capable of actually placing bathroom tissues on a holder. I suppose I should be thankful that the boys actually get a new roll when the old one runs out, but it’s maddening to have to search the bathroom for the new one when the time arises.

I mean seriously, they’ll put the bloody thing anywhere. On top of the toilet tank, on the vanity, on the shelf near the lavatory, on the clothes hamper or even (shudder) on the floor next to the facilities. (If you don’t know why that’s enough to make a full grown man shudder, you’ve never cleaned a restroom used primarily by pre-teen boys.)

And while they are good enough to get a new roll when needed, they aren’t always as good about making sure that the used-up tube finds its way into the trash.  These formerly useful cardboard tubes can be found strewed across the floor, in the bathtub or (even more violens shudders) being used as a “helosope” or as a horn for our four year old son. (Ack! I don’t know where that thing has been. Get it away from your MOUTH!!!)

There are days when I wish a demonstration like the following would work:

But then, they are boys and Pre-teens. so I doubt that that demonstration would stick with them for long.  Their minds are in other places, like plans to burn down my kitchen roasting marshmallows over an open gas flame or bungee jumping from the second story window into a mud puddle.

Such is life.

Peace. I’m out.

Summer is winding down. The kids go back to school next week. The lazy days and late morning wake ups are over. While I look forward to the impending peaceful mid-mornings, I dread these final few hectic days.

Now comes the imminent meltdowns in clothing outlets. The absolute need to have the most expensive pair of shoes that humans have ever produced. Now comes the arguments over whether a teenage boy really does need a pair of jeans three sizes too small… In purple. Or whether or not it’s acceptable to send a 10 year-old to school in that pink shirt he’s holding.

It’s last minute runs for pencils, pens, paper… And wouldn’t you know it; that new backpack we just bought is already broken, so add a trip to replace it while we’re at it.  All while making sure shot records are up to date, contact information is current and registration meetings are made on time, all in four days, because for some reason we weren’t ready.  For some reason we’re never ready.

I know what the reason is.  It’s my kids.  I can’t buy them shoes before the very last second or they will beg, plead, steal, extort or whatever else it takes to get those brand new shoes on. Then they destroy them.  New pants? Nope. Even if I hide them I have the paranoid fear that they will dig them out and put holes in them before the first day of school. They’re boys, that’s what they do.

So with school just a few days away my wife and I embark on what I have come to call the Bat-Shit Crazy last days of summer.  We’ll avoid the mall, certainly. there are thousands of other last-minute shoppers out there. The mall will be chaos. We’ll stick with a large chain store about 20 miles away, as it should be a lot less busy.

Of course we’ve got to add in a company picnic right in the middle of the whole damned show.

I can’t wait for Tuesday!

Peace. I’m out.

My kids are in terror.  They are two weeks from starting school.  They are living every moment they have left of summer to its fullest.  Staying up late, begging to go enjoy the last of the local summertime activities, dreading the school-time schedule that starts next Monday.

(What?  You mean we have to go to bed by 10!)

I, on the other hand, am ecstatic.  for me school spells a tiny portion of my day that is nothing but peace.  A time when the house is quiet, thoughts come easily and distractions are limited to the ones that I create for myself.

Lil’ B. is blissfully unaware that school is pending, but he, like I, will enjoy that he is going back.  He loves school.  He loves learning, and this year he’s going to a mainstream school, so he should have a much better time with the other kids in class.

For me this means that the chaos of summer will be replaced by some semblance of order.  That I will have time to decompress a little.  That work will not be constantly sidelined by someone else’s needs, no matter how pressing.

In short, it means I get to go back to being myself for a few hours a day.

Don’t get me wrong.  I love, adore and cherish my kids.  Unfortunately, since Mom is over 7,000 miles away, I have very little time to hide away and just be… Well…

Me.

I’m Dad.  I am the defender of puppies and slayer of bugs.  Cleaner of dishes, toilets, sinks and countertops. disciplinarian and buyer of new, cool stuff.  But I never just get to be jerry in the summertime.  I’m Dad.  Full time, 100% of the time.

Until school starts again.

And thank all that is good and pure in the world that the date is upon us very soon.  I need to find “me” again.

Peace.  I’m out.

In my mind all my kids are created equally.  They are given the same amount of love, devotion and caring.  I spend time with them as often as possible, have sat countless hours dealing with nightmares, scrapes, broken bones, bruises and emotional pain.  None is above any other in the eyes of our family. Unfortunately in a house with three kids someone has to be the middle child and the kid in the middle doesn’t usually see things that way.

Meet Lil’ D.  He is the middle child in a home with a pre-teen and an autistic little brother.  I’s hard enough to be the middle child in any family, but add a small child with special needs to the mix and he issues become a little more pronounced.

Middle Child Syndrome

Middle child syndrome can be subtle or pronounced.  In lil’ D’s case, it’s something in between extremes.  The definition of middle child syndrome is as follows:

The effects of middle child syndrome are numerous. The child may feel as if he or she does not belong, given all the attention given to the oldest and youngest. The middle child may also feel as if he or she is loved less, have low self esteem and suffer from a lack of a sense of direction. However, these symptoms are not limited only to childhood. They can linger in a person throughout their entire adult lives as well, making middle child syndromesymptoms serious, lifelong conditions.

The good news is that middle child syndrome can be easily identified and is not physical in nature and very treatable, especially if noted early. Therefore, just a change in the parents’ attitudes often will go a long way toward alleviating the situation. Parents should always be mindful that the middle born child often receives the least amount of attention. This is not to say the parents are bad. This is simply a natural reaction and often done subconsciously.

It is always up to the parents to make sure every child feels loved and appreciated. This is especially true when trying to avoid the effects of the middle child syndrome. Each child is unique and special. While it may be very possible to overlook some children, a concerted effort should be made to include all children in activities, as well as give each their own amount of individual attention.

From WiseGeek.com

The definition above fits my son very well.  It’s an unfortunate situation, especially since he came into being a big brother three years after the fact.  It’s something we’re working on from our end.

Lil’ D. does not make friends easily.  This issue is compounded by the fact that most of the kids on our block are either considerably older or considerably younger than he is.  This leads to a great deal of hard feelings on his part.  This makes the issue even worse at school, where he has come to expect that his friends will abandon him.

His older brother doesn’t help the issue.  he has an absolutely normal 11 to 9 year old relationship with Lil’ D.  That is to say, he really doesn’t want him around unless there’s no one else to be around.

The unfortunate reality

The unfortunate reality of Lil’ D’s relationship with his little brother is that because he’s autistic he does get special treatment.  This isn’t because we care for him more, it’s because his needs are different, but when you’re 9 years old and used to being the baby of the family, this can be difficult to accept.

I have been doing my best to make sure he understands that life at most times is not fair.  That others will sometimes have what you don’t.  That big brothers are usually not nice. (Though Lil’ E tends to take the not nice part to extremes in the case of his middle brother, just as he does with his little brother.)

Both my wife and I work very hard to assure him that he is just as important as his other brothers and that they both have things that they very much want (text phone, “M” rated video games, ice cream, cookies!) that they don’t have.

We try to teach him that the perks that his big brother gets will come in time for him as well, and that Lil’ B will have to wait even longer, if he is ever capable of doing those things at all.  The 9 year old in him still has a hard time grasping this.

Perseverance is key

Finding my middle child a place in which he is comfortable with himself is not a battle I can win today.  It may not be a battle that I win this year.  It is a battle that I will not stop fighting, win or lose.  There is no giving up.

As parents there can be no ignoring the issue or writing the problem off as “something he’ll grow out of.”  We have to help him find comfort in himself and with himself.  These things make a strong person later in life and they need to be learned early.

Do you know of anyone that has these issues?  Were you the middle child?  Any experiences that you can share would help us transition this great little kid into a happier and more well-adjusted person.

Peace.  I’m out

Lil’ B. is an escape artist.  He has, in his very short life, escaped cribs, playpens, car seats and homes.  He has mastered child-proof devices, can easily thwart deadbolts (from the inside) and can open the windows, though he hasn’t yet figured out that the screens come off.

He is also a runner.  He thinks nothing of taking his small three-year old self and walking a mile down the street with no supervision. He has no concept that what he is doing is dangerous, nor does he think it’s a bad thing to do. (No matter how many times we tell him that it is.)

Last week he managed to escape the house with no one noticing.  I was in the living room and heard nothing.  His brothers heard nothing.  W found him a mile down the road with a very nice grandmotherly type and her children, all of whom were very concerned (as was I), and trying to get him to show them where his house was.

Of course, as these were strangers, he wasn’t talking.  He rarely talks to strangers.  Even if he had, I don’t know that they would have understood him.  He is talking, but it’s still at the level of a two year old or less, and much of what he says is only understood by immediate family and close friends.

I have finally resorted to lock sat the top of all my doors.  I’ve also disconnected the inside switch for the garage door, since he’s figured out that he can get out that way, too.  The house is on full lockdown at any time that someone is not directly in contact with Lil’ B., because he can, and will, defeat even these measures someday.

We’re moving to Alaska, where running off could quite literally get him killed.  If anyone has dealt with and overcome this need to run that seems to be very common in autistic children, I’d love to know what you did.  I could use the help with this one

I’ve got to admit that i didn’t see this one coming.  I thought that I’d been staying on top of my oldest boys schoolwork.  His report card, delivered Yesterday, tells a different story altogether.  Instead of finding that he’d managed to pull himself out of academic suicide, the numbers prove the opposite.  He’s failing the sixth grade.

Had he been bothered at all by this, it might have been easier to handle.  Unfortunately it felt like I was sitting in a courtroom with a convicted felon who had no remorse for his crimes.  My son simply does not care if he fails.  As a matter of fact, he thinks that good grades are the sign of a weak individual.  His feelings on the subject are that “Cool kids don’t get good grades, only nerds and wusses do.”

Honestly, I don’t know what has had to happen to a kid his age to cause this attitude.  i haven’t been around while his mother relationship fell apart.  I’m not aware of everything, I don’t know that I want to be fully aware of everything.  I’m just left to pick up the pieces and try to put my kids back together.

All the while, I have to blame myself.  He’s gone through all the motions of doing his homework, but apparently only has just been scribbling random words on the page unless he thought I would be looking.  this is most definitely a failure on my part.  I got complacent and he took advantage of that complacency.  It is, after all, a child’s job to try to get away with things.  As a parent, I should have been there to make sure it didn’t happen.  I wasn’.

Monday will find me scheduling appointments with teachers and discovering if there is any chance that my son can graduate the sixth grade.  Routines at home have been modified to ensure that schoolwork is the only focus he will have until evidence points towards improvement rather than a complete disregard for his own future.  It may be a case of better late than never, or it may be a case of too little to late, but it’s all his mother or I can do at this point.

Peace.  I’m out

The scene above has been common in the Russell house for the past several weeks.  first it was a nasty cold that wouldn’t let anyone go, then I managed to contract a rather serious infection that dropped me like a rock for a full week and a half.  As it stands now the entire house is in catch up mode, from laundry to dusting.  Nobody has had the energy to do it.

It hasn’t just been me who’s been under the weather.  All three boys have been sick at one time or another.  If not they were all sick at once, which makes for a really fun day when you’re a father who’s already feeling like he’s taken a bullet to the leg that’s gotten infected.

Through it all I’ve managed to keep the basics of the house running.  Kids have gone to school, done homework, eaten the best dinners I could give them even though I spent a week sleeping the better part of 18 hours per day.  In short, i soldiered on, but the bulk of the housework suffered.

In that time our lil’ guy has begun speaking more and more.  he’s forming sentences and opinions of his own and, like all three year olds, is pushing for a bit of independence.  It’s life as usual, except that the kid that never spoke is now just the kid that doesn’t speak very well.

As far as his school goes, he’s doing very well.  He’s begun to take an interest in potty training as well, which thrills both me and my wallet.

As for the oldest boy… well, I have my hands full there, but that’s the subject of another post entirely, because honestly I could use some parenting pointers on that one.

Back o the youngest and his school reports.  I’m woefully behind on those, and since his other very much looks forward to them, I’m going to run them down in order here just to get caught up.  he really has made some huge strides over the past few weeks!

2-11-10: Great Day.  got right back into the routine of things.  He told a staff he had to go potty (gave a toilet picture to her). She took him in the bathroom and he sat on the oilet a long time and tried to go.  hopefully toilet training will be soon.

note: he’s been trying on-and-off at home, too

2-12-10: Good day. we’re working hard on getting him to play with peers.

note: Strange that it’s difficult for them there.  He plays fine with all the neighborhood kids, especially the older ones.

2-16-10: great morning. He said “Happy, happy, happy”.  i said, “Are you happy?” He answered back, “happy, I’m happy.”

2-17-10: Head strong today.  Everything was “No.” After short time delays he would do what he needed to do.

2-18-10: Still a few “no’s” but better today.  He talks all the time and verbally communicates with us very well.

note: this is nice-teacher talk for “never shuts up”.  Not that we’re complaining!

2-19-10: Good morning.  Started with “no’s” this afternoon. He looked tired during music time.  He does all the hand motions to the songs.

note: he fell asleep shortly after getting home that day… Hence the photo above.

2-22-10: Great day.  he followed directions very well. he is starting to show more interest in his peers.

note: He was a complete pain in the ass when he got home that day…  Must have used up all his great day vibes at school…

2-23-10: Very much into art today.  He requested dot art, markers, coloring books, gluing. We need more diapers for him.

2-24-10: Great day. Talked all day nonstop.

And I’m surprised by this because…

2-25-10: Loves helping to set up the individual scheduled the students have. He is very visual and will follow the schedule indepenently.

Yep.  loves helping around the house, too.  Especially if it means he has the chance to mess with the trash!

1-26-10: Very good mood.  Still working hard to get him to interact with other students.

I hope they do better with him and his classmates, but he was in a great mood this afternoon, communicated well, then fell asleep at 4:30.  he’s currently sleeping peacefully and I have no intention of waking him.

He’s just too cute when he’s sleeping!

Peace. I’m out.

I haven’t had the time or energy to post a lot here over the past few days.  Lil’ B. is home sick with a nasty cough and low grade fever and his brothers have decided to turn their attentions to killing each other of before heir next birthdays roll around.  For the most part I’m just trying to hold a routine together; a nearly impossible task with a sick three year-old, let alone a sick autistic three year-old.

At the moment blogging is a fever-pitched thing punctuated by the sound of a small cough, which sends “Dad” to his bedroom door to see if he is still sleeping or if I need to spend some time sitting with him while he dozes off again.  It’s not quite bad enough for a doctor visit, bit if it hods on another day or two, I’m going to call that necessary.

I’ll do my best to get something more cohesive put up here later today or tomorrow, but for now I’m on sick kid duty, so my time is limited.

Peace. I’m out.

The past few weeks have been hectic and a little dizzying.  Lil’ B. has been picking up language skills at a staggering rate, which at times is a bit overwhelming.  I’m just not used to him walking into a room, looking straight at me and saying “want pop-tart!”  It’s a 12 on the amaze-o-meter, but disorienting because he asks for a lot of things.

School is going well too.  He’s very much enjoyed the fact that the sun has finally broken through the dismal shadow of the Frankenstorm that has been plaguing Northern California for the past two weeks.  I know that the sun is definitely making me feel better.

The morning greeted us with crisp clear skies and just a bit of frost.  A perfect day for a light sweatshirt rather than a heavy jacket.  Lil’ B. boarded the bus with his usual enthusiasm and the day was off.

The report from school ws encouraging as well:

He was happy we got to play outside.  We were working hard on him pedaling the tricycle.  He wanted to spend the whole time on the bike.

Next thing you know he’ll be wearing a biker jacket and belting out “Born to be wild”.

Wouldn’t that be something!

Peace. I’m out.

I spend a lot of time writing about how well Lil’ B. does at school and at home here on this little slice of the web. I think a lot of why I focus on the positives is because that’s what both the school and I focus on the most.  That doesn’t mean that llife with an Autistic three year-old is always fun and games, or that every day is better than the last.

Yesterday was one of the not-so-great-days; both at school and at home:

Hard time sitting still at circle today. Said “no” a lot. He diffidently knew what he liked and didn’t like today.

This was followed by an extremely tired child returning home from school with a chip on his shoulder and a tantrum at the ready for any situation.  A nap would have solved the issue, but Lil’ B. hasn’t napped unless he’s sick since he was just past 2 years old.

Add a new overnight guest to the mix and it was a rather hectic evening right up until bedtime, at which time he was asleep within minutes and a sort of blissful dimming in the chaos of the day presented itself. (Not that is was quiet, there were still three boys in the house.)

As the title suggests, much of the little guys issues yesterday were due in a large part to a stubborn streak as large and unforgiving as a tsunami.  He comes by that stubbornness honestly.  Both his mother and I are just as stubborn, a trait I consider a positive if used properly but rarely a plus if used in the wrong way or at the wrong time. I’m sure he’ll learn to master this trait eventually but yesterday was just one of those “not so great” days.

This morning he’s a perfect angel.  I think he was just overtired.

Peace. I’m out.