A Hop, Skip and a Jump Away: The Weekend Report . . . a little late!

This weekend was rough.

And Monday, even harder.

In Elliot's world, Saturdays mean you play soccer and you spend the rest of the day laying on the couch watching TV. Unfortunately, his evil mom limits his screen time on Saturdays, which I have always done, but is news to him each and every Saturday (before you feel bad for him, please note that he did watch the Iron Man 2 movie, rode his bike for the first time of the year, and went to MacDonald's for lunch . . . geesh!).

Then, to make matters worse, I informed him that we had to attend church that evening for a baptism of a woman that I have become friends with (Derrick and Zoe, my usual backups, were not home and so he had to come along). In Elliot's world, church is on Sunday, and ONLY Sunday. He is fine attending youth activities any other day of the week at the chapel, but once I tell him he has to put "church" clothes on and be made to sit, he loses it. And of course, as luck would have it, none of his buddies were there, and by the time we arrived home, it was bedtime. Double whammy!

Fast forward to Sunday, when Elliot went to church (with no fight because it was Sunday), went to his friend's house afterwards, and returned home to find Nanny and Grampy visiting. Sounds like a great day, right?

WRONG!

Let the melt down commence . . . .

and carry on . . .

That evening, as Derrick and I layed in bed shell shocked from the evening's multiple explosions, we discussed how we could avoid this in the future.

1. Implement new rule: No more "church" on Saturdays!

2. After returning home from a friend's house, he needs to be ushered into a warm bath before being expected to deal with the humans in his family.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing!

As you can see, we are still trying to get the hang of this thing they call NLD. Recently, I read that the brain of a person with NLD operates at 150% ALWAYS, which means they become overwhelmed very easily and need to have MANY breaks in day.

Luckily, Elliot was so exhausted from his crazy weekend, that he fell right to sleep.

Monday mornings are hard on everyone, but for Elliot, they are absolute TORTURE! He slept in until 9:30 am. After the evening before, there was NO way I was going to wake him. Not only was Elliot physically tired from his weekend, but he was mentally tired so he spent the rest of the day lost in his head. He had gone into the safety of his shell.

On days like this, I have to remind Elliot every five minutes about what he is supposed to be focused on. Breakfast took 2 hours to complete (he finished his last bite of kiwi at noon). By 3 pm, he managed to practise his piano, write out his new spelling words, and make a brochure on the Hopewell Rocks for his Language Arts project on New Brunswick, and that was only with the constant prodding of his mother and MANY Lego breaks!

At 3:30 pm, I laid down on my bed, absolutely drained.

Elliot, who had been playing with his Lego ship for the past thirty minutes, popped his head up and asked:

What are we doing now, mom?

Ahhh, my boy had finally re-emerged from his shell, and was ready to take on the day.

Absolutely nothing, love!

He was thrilled! He screamed and ran downstairs to tell Avery, who unbeknownst to Elliot had been finished for hours.

And I, well, I decided it was time for me to curl up into the safety of my own shell.

At least for just a little bit.

tee hee!

Good news report: Elliot sprang out of bed this morning when his alarm clock went off at 7:30, and he is having a great day!

He just likes to keep us on our toes.

In spite of the drama that surrounded our weekend, it really was awesome: