Obsessed

As the summer went by some of Armanno's behaviors started improving. I wasn't sure if it was due to the work I was putting in or the fact that he was maturing with age. Regardless I was hopeful,  maybe the others were right maybe he was just an active boy. Maybe I wasn't using the right discipline techniques before or maybe I wasn't consistent enough, maybe it was just me! I kept going back and forth, it was eating me up. I just didn't know anymore.

Although some of Armanno's behaviors were improving the major issues were still there! His behaviors at the park were improving. Before every visit to the park, we would go over the rules. We went over them so many times he knew them off by heart, no hugging, no kissing, no hitting and no throwing rocks! For the most part he was doing much better, sometimes he just couldn't resist but he was trying. At least he stopped trying to run. Instead of playing on the jungle gym he would just try to escape to the parking lot or the basketball court, so I would be constantly chasing him. Now he was playing within his set out boundaries. Even though he still wasn't playing on the jungle gym, he would at least go down the slide here and there but mostly just played in the dirt and rocks. It was a start that I was very pleased with. Also our transitions became a lot easier. I would give him a 10 min count down 10, 8, 5, you only have a few more minutes! And then finally it would be Armanno it's time to go. Would you like to walk across the parking lot with me or would you like to get in the stroller? Giving him a choice was key to preventing a meltdown. 6 times out of 10 he would choose to walk the parking lot.  2 times out of 10 it was the stroller. The other 2 he would throw a tantrum and I would have to pick him off the ground kicking, screaming, and biting, strap him in the stroller and go! This was a huge improvement to the his previous transitions from park to home, which 8 times out of 10 would end in a tantrum.

His listening had improved greatly thanks to 123 magic. But all of his other behaviors were still there and not diminishing at all. It was a constant battle to keep his hands off of his brother. Not only his hands, he would rub his mouth and face on him, his feet in his face and would roll on him any chance he got.

His obsessing wasn't slowing down. He would obsess about food, he would have a full breakfast and ask, plead and cry for a snack for 2 hours until snack time. He would get snack and want more, he would eat a full lunch and want a snack immediately afterwards. He would whine and cry over snack throughout the whole day. It wasn't like I was starving him he had more than enough to eat for meals and snacks. I didn't know how to deal with this behavior other than to ignore his constant requests for snack. The odd time I would give in just for a few minutes of peace while he chewed his food. One time when he was 2 we treated him to fruit juice freezie's! Never again! he cried for those freezie's minimum of 30 x a day for a month after they were gone. We would even show him the freezer and say, see there are no freezie's left. It didn't make  a difference it took a month before he finally gave up and the word freezie was banned in our house. He obsessed over certain pieces of clothing that he wanted to wear all the time. For 6 months straight it was his green pajama pants. If they were dirty he would cry and whine about them until they were clean. He didn't want to wear clothes just his green pants and he couldn't wear a shirt with these pants. One day I fought with him and forced him to wear a shirt because it was freezing in the house. He was crying and I said why is it that you can't wear this shirt with your green pants? His answer in a shaky crying voice was, because it doesn't match my green pants! The funny thing is he was right. Needless to say he was bare chested within minutes of me forcing the shirt on him, I gave up. Was he really going to freeze to death? No! Who was it hurting? No one! Did it make him happy? Beyond, lots of jumping and flapping of his hands when he got to wear his green pants with no shirt.

He obsessed over inanimate objects, things with no purpose or function. Things like small pieces of paper, pieces of plastic that were broken off of things, little plastic balls out of a broken toy that he kept finding in the yard, rocks, etc. He wouldn't be able to sleep if he didn't have them in his bed with him.

His unorganized hyperness & loudness. Armanno would just run around screaming and repeating things over and over and grabbing and touching things along the way. Often times knocking things over, making a mess and having no regard for stuff in his way. It was near impossible to calm him down. His worse accessory was blankets. He would roll around in blankets, knocking stuff over most times it was his brother on the receiving end. He would try to put the blanket over Emilio and roll around on him or push the blanket into Emilio's face! Obviously this was dangerous behavior and warranted time outs. often times I had to remove the blanket all together,  but this was one of the items he obsessed about. I would give him time-outs from the blanket for periods of time and he would get it back. But knew he would lose it if he was being inappropriate with it.

Inappropriate became part of Armanno's vocabulary quite young. I would never say he was being bad or what you did was bad. It was always, that's inappropriate or your behavior is inappropriate. It's sounds funny coming out of a little boys mouth but I never want him to feel like the things he is doing are bad or be labeled as a bad kid. He didn't have the ability to control this stuff he was only 2!

It now became a waiting game to set my my mind at ease to wether or not Armanno had Aspergers. We were on the wait list at the IWK for an assessment but it wasn't guaranteed that we would even get in. How it works is you fill out a ton of papers and from those papers they determine wether they believe he fits the criteria for Autism. If they do he would get in for an assessment free of charge. I didn't totally agree with it, what if Armanno's behaviors get overlooked? There were a lot of criteria he didn't fit into! I considered Armanno's behaviors to be mild when considering a diagnosis of Autism. Were his behaviors enough to get a diagnosis? If we did get in for an assessment  Would he exhibit these behaviors during the meeting? Oh no I was starting to obsess, I became consumed by thoughts and research of aspergers on the Internet. Nothing was cut and dry and it was becoming harder to deal with the situation at hand. Would I obsess for the next year waiting to get into the IWK?