Respite day today, and a busy one at that! We finished The Last Hero this morning, which was good timing because we have been handing the books onto Dxh to read too. It is a shame that he doesn't live here because he could listen to me reading aloud too!
It was one of those days where I didn't seem to get much done, and Ram just got more stressed. They played upstairs with the new Lego quite a bit. I believe that they play with dice just like Dxh would have done as a child with his toy soldiers. Ram has marked out what I do with him, which is read, and what Dad does, which is play some sort of game outside, and the Lego war games. I used to feel a bit left out and want to know how to play so I could carry on with Ram when Dxh left, but I now know that often Aspies make these distinctions.
This can make withdrawing a child from school difficult sometimes, because the child sees the mother as a mother, not a teacher. But the best way round this is to home educate autonomously and in an unstructured manner. That way there is no difference between education and life, it just goes on all the time. I think because I have home educated Ram from birth and he has never gone to school, that is something we don't have a problem with, but he still has things that only I can do, and only Dad can do.
In the afternoon I was trying to put up some of the new shelves in the study. They are the Ivar range from Ikea. I found out that another home educator has been using this range for around 20 years, which makes me feel very good about choosing this range! Dxh kept wanting to help, but I could see that Ram was getting more and more stressed, so I had to say no thank you. But then I got into trouble and needed an extra two pairs of hands!
It needed two people to get the second set of shelves attached to the first. The we had a bit of a collapse! Luckily no one was hurt. We then realised that they needed to be closer to the corner of the wall for stability, which meant moving the two stacks over by about a foot, negotiating the zone valves for the underfloor heating that were sticking out of the floor. We managed to start to move it, but then it got stuck because there was still a carton on the floor. I had thought it would have fitted into the three foot gap between uprights but it didn't!
We luckily had our 'rescue ferret' on hand! This is what Dxh calls Ram when he has to crawl into a small space to retrieve something that is lost. I think it helped Ram to feel better because we weren't just making a little job for him to do, but we really needed him!
Afterwards I sent them back up to play Lego. Later Ram wanted to come downstairs, but just then the plumber arrived to plumb in the last sink. Ram saw him and panicked and ran back upstairs. Poor boy. It took a bit of reassurance to get him back downstairs after the plumber left.
We then had to have an early supper because it was the annual evening at the local adventure playground for our local autism support group. Ram was really confused because Dxh stayed on to do some work on the wiring of the house, in preparation for renewing the home automation system.
What with plumbers coming late and unexpectedly in the day, Dxh still around, and Ram being generally stressed, we were late getting there. We arrived just before 7 and it closed at 8!
I would have liked to say that Ram enjoyed it, and he did somewhat, but I ended up talking to several people about home education, and he hated me talking to people. He tolerated the first person because I had actually arranged to talk to her and he knew I was going to do it. But then as I was chatting to another mum while I kids were waiting in the queue for the zip line, she just happened to say that she was having so much trouble at his school that she was thinking about home education! And then a third person came up to us. She already home educates but wanted to introduce herself because we already knew each other from the emails lists! The more I talked the more stressed Ram became.
All too soon it was time to go, and Ram was in tears. He felt we hadn't been there long enough, which was true because we were so late, but there was nothing I could do.
All the way home in the car he was talking about how everything was stupid and all people were stupid and he hated everything. I know that this is the equivalent of the toddler tantrum, so I just quietly let it run its course. But it is worrying. Ram seems to be getting deeper and deeper into the stress and is becoming more and more unhappy.
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