Josiah's Journey

The following arrived in my in box a few days ago.

Summer = Stress for many caregiving families.

Summer time is a favorite season for many families. It's a season of vacations, backyard grilling, pool parties, happy campers and other fun activities. However, the summer months for parents and caregivers of special needs children and dependent adults can be quite stressful.

With schools closed, lack of community resources and little or no relief caregivers' are becoming overwhelmed with the continuous and demanding care their loved one requires. The stress they experience is equivalent to the stress associated with soldiers in combat.

Wow. That explains my situation exactly. It's good to know that what I am feeling is not uncommon. I'm not alone. That helps, a little.

Today Josiah started summer school again. He had 2 weeks of summer school earlier in the summer, then 3 weeks off. A very L-O -N-G 3 weeks. (You'll notice there have been no recent blog posts. Now you know why.) Starting today he will go from 8:30-12:00 for the next 2 weeks. I can't tell you how much I was looking forward to today. I feel bad even admitting that. But I have been more than ready for a break.

Josiah did not sleep well last night. That means I didn't sleep well either. Which means I was not ready to start my happy day when my happy day was ready to start. Given the option, I would have crawled back in bed and slept for hours. That was not an option.

Josiah came home from summer school unhappy. I picked him up at noon and could tell right away he was having a horrible, no good, very bad day. He did not want to get out of my van. He sat in the driveway and screamed. He sat at the kitchen table and raged. He screamed and punched his head and pounded the table. He was very angry.

Josiah threw his brother's snow cone maker to the ground a couple different times, knocked over the trash can a few times, hurled tennis shoes up the stairs, then down over the balcony, whipped a heavy wooden cube his brother had made in wood shop down from the balcony, ran to the backyard and ripped off all his clothes. He put his pull up on the air conditioning fan to watch it whirl around. He raced through the yard grabbing a ball and a frisbee (still naked of course) attempting to place them above the ac fan as well. He knocked over my night stand in my bedroom and shortly after dinner had another screaming rage.

I was WITH Josiah today. The boy was not left unattended. He is however, ligthening fast. Keeping up with him is exhausting.

Today we took 3 different rides in the car. One of the 'request's' Josiah has been making with his ipad communication app is, "I want to go for a ride." I probably put close to 70 miles in today, just driving around, not really going any where. I think Josiah finds it calming.

I went to the library tonight after Rick got home. Actually, I didn't even wait for Rick to get home. I called him on his way and asked to meet him in a nearby parking lot. I passed Josiah off to his dad and drove away. I sat and skimmed through a stack of books on stress.

Not really sure I found any great answers. Maybe I just need to get some army boots.