Testing Our Boundaries

It's been a busy summer and I just started training for the Philly Marathon because I really need something I'm doing for myself. For the last three years it's been work work work and mom mom mom and there's been zero me me me. So it's time to change that dynamic a bit. It's been really busy and kind of exhausting but I am really finding that I have more energy and that I"m happier so that's good.

For the most part, Christopher's been great but we have had some challenges sprinkled in there as well.

For example, a rough day this summer was the day that I discovered that Christopher decided to secretly stop taking his ADHD medicine.

I was at work that day and I got a call from YMCA camp asking me to pick the kiddo up because he was having a bad day. It was noon and I was confused but I left work to get him. According to the staff, he was hitting, kicking, and licking the other kids and spat at a counselor. Fun right? Not really.

I picked him up and asked him why this happened today. All I got was a shrug and an "I don't know". 

I was driving home and kind of at a loss. Out of the blue I decided to ask him, "you took your medication today....right?" He puts his head down and says "no."
I said, "what do you mean you didn't take your medicine? I gave it to you this morning".

He replied with, "I wanted to see if I could make it a day without my medicine, so I hid it behind the TV."

"Seriously? Well guess what...we know what happens without your medicine now don't we???" Yeesh.

I took the kiddo home and got him into bed for a much-needed nap and I went back to work on the computer. He woke up and seemed to be better so I thought, great, crisis averted.

I decided to keep his normal babysitter for the evening because he seemed like he was fine. And I really needed a run! So the babysitter arrived that evening and I went off running.

After the run, I checked my phone and had several missed calls from the babysitter, which is never a good sign. Uh oh. I quickly called her and she was practically in tears because Christopher was acting so crazy.

The babysitter had asked him to do his summer workbook pages that I've had him doing. I guess it was a really bad day for that though. By the time I got home, he had thrown lemonade at the babysitter, torn up the house and covered himself in kiddie "slime" he found in a drawer somewhere. He was locked in his room and the babysitter was shaking scared because she'd never seen him like that. Sigh. 

Funny enough though when she left I was able to calm him down pretty quickly, get him to clean his room up, gave him a shower, put some lavender-scented baby lotion on him and then put him to bed with books. I think some of the behaviors must stem from separation anxiety because of how quickly he was able to calm down. 

So the big take-away here is....Christopher REALLY needs his medication. I know it's normal to test boundaries but this is just one boundary that cannot be tested. On the one hand, I was annoyed with him but on the other, I was relieved that the solution was simple: Just take your meds. I was really afraid the Concerta wasn't working anymore and that would be horrible. This is a relief thankfully. Lesson learned though. From now on I will be watching him physically swallow the medication every single day so I can be 100% certain he's taking it. Since then, we've had no problems (knock on wood) and I hope that continues!