I think we have to change up
Tomorrow is his last steroid pill. As the days have gone by, my youngest's behaviors have gotten more and more difficult. First, he's been sleeping in so late. Today was no exception. He was less compliant overall. Not horrible once he got going, but not great. He did work on school. He did clean up some of his room for a short stint. He did help with dishes today. We didn't go to the library, and I think that was not great because he became bored. Bored is a warning word around here. When he says he's bored, he wants to cope with video/computer/screen device games. He's obsessed with them on a very PANSish day. Today was that day for sure. He ate breakfast, shredded wheat cereal with milk. He took his pills this morning (late of course). Lunchtime has become a ramen/peas/string cheese thing lately. Our routine had been to go to the library in the afternoon, take cheese and have some drink of either water or something else depending. He likes corn chips that are chili spiced that are sold in the library vending machine. So, if he's hungry, I sometimes get those. We didn't go to the library. At one point he also had a piece of cheese pizza leftover from yesterday. We had Chinese food for dinner, he had chicken, rice, noodles, and beef, and an egg roll.
Later in the afternoon, he was agitated, and was just flat bored. He knows his buddy gets out of school and will be home around 3:30. He was clicking refresh on his messenger chat box like crazy hoping his bud was going to answer. I noticed this and said, "hey, you might have to wait a while for him to respond, he could be walking home or doing something required at home before he could talk to you." My son did stop refreshing, but opened up the drawing program and drew an angry character.
Now, it's a funny guy. He already draws this guy. He invented him, he's a kid who was left behind by his folks in a cow pasture as a baby. The cows raised him, and also a particular cow sewed him a cow poncho/hoodie. MooMan wears it, and also only speaks in cow language. Note the microphone. Yes, MooMan is a singer. In fact, the best singer in the pasture. It's really funny, but note, this is a MadMooMan right now. Yep, he was mad at me. When I asked him later why he was mad at me, he said he really didn't know.
He did get to speak to his friend for a bit. Then later, I can't remember what started it, but he began to pick at his sister. They were playing again, and he was chasing her. She's 11, and she handles it. I could tell he was ramping up. I may have asked him to do something not electronic, or some other thing he didn't like at one point. He began to stomp on the floor and threw a tantrum for a while. He said again he was mad, did not know why. But if asked to stop stomping, he just kept it up. Then suddenly, in the middle of all that anger, he paused, looked at his sister, and began to cry. He laid down on the couch leaning on her, and fell asleep for a little bit. He woke from that, and went in and did the dishes. Still though, he was obnoxious after that, and even when Dad came home, he was trying to slap his sister. I don't think hard, but he was doing it like it was some kind of game. When we were in the room, he wouldn't do it. But she told me when one of us left their sight, he was trying to slap her. So, we had her stay out of the kitchen while he did the dishes. We ate supper, and watched television together. He and my husband did roughhouse a little bit tonight. I think Dad thought he could work the energy out of him, or revert the aggression to him and not the 11 year old. At any rate, he was able to eat dinner, watch a show or two, and eventually brush teeth and take his evening medication. He went to bed. My husband sat outside the bedroom listening for a long while. It's 1am and so far he's still asleep. It didn't seem like food was a "trigger" tonight. My real theory is the steroid is reduced, and he's slipping back into the issues because it's not enough to control the inflammation.
He did ask me an odd question as well. When giving him a probiotic, he said, "what would happen if I took a bunch of these?" Oh great. Now he wants to think about what happens when he takes a bunch of pills. I am thinking we need to lock everything down for sure for a long while. I think we need a locked cabinet for the medicines, with a code or something. I did tell him, "if you take too much of any medicine, it can make you have a terrible headache or throw up or have your stomach hurt." I am not wanting to give him more information than he needs at this point.
Also, tonight he complained of stomach pain. :(