Right now we are trying to come up with a system to help Paul with his clothes.  His laundry hamper is always full a couple of days after he does laundry.  We make sure that all his clothes are put away on laundry day but somehow they always end up back in his hamper.  By Wednesday of every week his hamper is surrounded by clothes that he has pulled out of the hamper to wear.  The only thing that I can think of the stop this is to keep his hamper in the laundry room and pick out his clothes for him.  I know that this will lead to a huge fight because it will make him seem different so we are reluctant to go there.  After all he is the one that has to wear his dirty clothes, so who is he really hurting?

I think we are having a hard time understanding why he does it.  It can’t be any easier to dig through the hamper when most of his clothes are hanging in his closet.  I actually wonder if in his mind the hamper is where clothes come from because when we make him change he goes straight for the hamper.

~Living With Paul

Our baby is learning to walk, and Paul is having a hard time letting go. Every time Paul sees Jack walking he either lunges at him in an over-protective way or jumps in front of him with his arms out. This always ends the same as Jack is thrown off balance and falls.  I understand that Paul is just worried that Jack is going to fall and is getting ready to catch him but I think he is actually making him fall more.  Ever since Jack was born Paul has played the devoted mother hen.  In the beginning it was charming the was he doted on Jack and helped us look after him.  As I sit here and watch the video of Jack walking by himself, I realize that almost every time he falls it’s because Paul tried to grab him or got in his way.

It will be a learning experience for them both as Jack learns to walk and Paul learns that he has to fall in order to learn how to catch himself.

~Living With Paul

As Jen’s maternity leave was coming to an end, we were unable to get Jack into daycare. Most places just laughed at us and told us that we should have put him on a waiting list when we found out he was coming. After some deliberation we decide that it would be best if Jen opened a daycare in our home. This decision was not at all supported by Paul, who has crippling shyness.

When the daycare was finally opened, Paul came around, he often neglected his morning routine to play with the daycare kids. She has a 2 year old and a 4 year old. As I learned about FASD I kept reading that their mental development is behind other children. This was clearly illustrated by watching Paul’s interactions with the young children in the daycare environment. Watching Paul interact with the 4 year old, his behavior is strikingly similar. They pout, sulk or cry when made to share. Although I will admit that the 4 year-old has a much easier time with it. They are both hyper-active, although Paul has decided that he doesn’t like the 4 year-old because he is hyper. He would often point out things that he didn’t like about the way the 4 year-old was acting. The irony is that everything he was pointing out were things that he still did himself. There were a couple of times when he would point out something that he had just done himself. As his dislike increased he would try to pit the two kids against each other. He would get one of them interested in a toy he was playing with and then give it to the other one, just to watch them fight. After a couple of weeks of working with Paul, he moved on and was able to put it behind him. We would gently point out the last time that he had behaved the same way, and after a while he stopped complaining.

Both children were told that they would be at the daycare when they were home from school, as they are both too young to be left unsupervised all day. On the first in-service day Jen had to give her first time-out, to Paul. They had been playing a game of memory with cards, and Paul resorted to cheating in order to win. He had a meltdown when he was caught, he insisted that he shouldn’t have to play by the rules because he is older.

I had a hard time seeing some of the areas Paul has trouble with until I saw it in action. There were some that were clear, like the meltdowns and the tears, but the trouble that interacting with younger children really makes it all clear.

~Living With Paul

For some time now Paul has been saving to buy a PSP (Playstation Portable). He actually started saving when they first came out, but after he got half was there he broke down and bought his DS. His sister had one so he had to have one too. Thanks to recent price drops and a no tax sale he has finally done it. We are hoping that this will give us some reprieve from the weekly allowance fights. Every Sunday Paul wants his allowance plus the money we didn’t pay him for the week(s) before. We usually don’t own him any extra money, so to show him when we have payed him we started marking it on the calendar. Of course this doesn’t really mean anything to Paul but we feel better for trying.

Now that Paul actually has a PSP he has not stopped complaining about it. The battery only lasting 3-6 hours is a huge deal, not that we let he play that long in a day anyway. Listening to him complain for half an hour about his “stupid cheap PSP”, “his freaking useless battery” and so on was about all I could take. I offered to buy it from him for what he paid. He asked me why I wanted it so I told him I didn’t it would be worth it just to stop the complaining. He started smiling and stopped complaining, he didn’t take me up on the offer though.

I just hope we don’t have to go through this every time his battery dies, but the realist in me says “Don’t hold your breath”.

~Living With Paul

Last year for our summer vacation we decided to rent an RV and drive around Southern Manitoba. We tried to keep the kids entertained with books, games and movies while we were driving, but Paul wasn’t having any of it. By the time we got to Morden, we were wondering if the whole trip had been a mistake. Three days of non-stop fighting about anything and everything where really starting to wear us thin.

While we were in Morden the kids found an abandoned kitten and saved him from the dog he was stealing food from. Naturally they came walking back to the RV as proud as could be. We knew right away that this could be the turning point in the entire trip. If we didn’t take the kitten this would get much worse, as Paul would obsess over it. I decided to tell the kids, in secret that I wasn’t willing to talk to Jen about taking the cat unless they were good for the rest of the trip. It sounds terrible I know, but there was only a day and a half left, and they were driving me crazy with all the arguing. They were perfect little angels for the rest…

…no wait, they still fought with each other and argued with us, but it wasn’t arguing for arguments sake. They were back to “normal”, which was all we really wanted. We took the cat home and brought him to to Humane Society. We told them that he was a stray, and that if they gave him his shots and checked him out we would adopt him and pay for the shots and exam. The next morning I called to check on him, and was told that he was doing fine. Then in the afternoon right before I had to leave for work, they called back and said they didn’t have room for him so he was going to be put down. If we wanted him he had to picked up by 4:00.

I made some phone calls and we got in touch with a friend of a friend who does some work with vets. She agreed to come and take care of the cat if we got him. I called the Humane Society back and arranged for a stay of execution until 5:00. Jen loaded all three kids into the car and raced down to the shelter. A few weeks, and several treatments later Simon had joined the family.

This whole experience turned out to be a blessing, as Paul saw similarities between Simon and himself. I think for the first time he really understood why he was living with us. Not that this has changed the way Paul acts, but I think it has given him some peace that he desperately needed.

Simon has been valuable in getting Paul to open up about his feelings. While he won’t talk about how he feels, he is more than willing to talk about how he thinks Simon feels.

~ Living with Paul

When things happen in Paul’s world his reaction is rarely predictable. I guess on the plus side life with Paul is always interesting. There have been times when we have braced for the worst, and nothing happens. Other times we haven’t seen the end of the world coming.

Last summer we thought it would be fun to take the kids to Thunder Rapids, for some go-carts and mini golf. Both kids had been bugging us to take them for a while. To be fair we make the kids flip a coin to see who goes first, then they take turns with each new activity. This arrangement usually works well for us. Paul lost the coin toss, a tragic event that almost ruined the day. As soon as we announced the winner he tried to talk his little sister, Barb into playing rock-paper-scissors to see who would go first. She went along with it and Paul lost again, which only added to the situation. He decided to try and dust of the old “I get to go first because I’m older”. I told Paul that he had lost the coin toss and rock-paper-scissors so he would have to go second. Paul grudgingly accepted this and we started the first hole. By the time we finished the first hole; Paul had gone ahead and head and played the second hole. This trend continued for the first 6 holes, Paul would rush ahead so he could be first. This situation was unacceptable as he wouldn’t wait for the people ahead of us to finish playing before he started. At the sixth hole I finally told him that if he didn’t stop and wait for us we would be leaving. Of course this didn’t really help, when he finished every hole we had to call him back and remind him to wait. By the end of the game he had cried at least 6 times, either because he wasn’t going first, or because Barb had a better score that him. Needless to say by the time it was over no one had any fun, I don’t even think he did, but he wanted to go again anyway. Once was enough for us.

On the other end of the spectrum…

Paul has been playing baseball for a couple of years now. It has a become spring ritual, we force Paul to go to baseball; he complains endlessly for the first 2 weeks and then loves it. Last his team made it to the city finals, and Paul became the star player (but that’s another story). During one of the tournament games, the Ump stopped the play and sent Paul off the field. He had waited to long to go to the bathroom and couldn’t hold it anymore. We prepared ourselves for the worse and started packing, but Paul came off the field and was more upset that he couldn’t play anymore. The coach’s kid had been at a sleep-over that night so they had pajama pants that they offer to let Paul borrow. When Paul had changed and come back the other kids started teasing him, which has never turned out well. Paul just looked at them and said “Oh as if it’s never happened to you” and sat down. By the end of that inning it seemed that everyone had forgotten about it, even Paul. This is best that he has ever handled anything, but I guess with a roll of the dice anything is possible.

~ Living With Paul

Playing board games with Paul is always a different experience, yet somehow it always ends the same, in tears. We got the Clue DVD board game for Christmas and thought it would be somehow better that a normal board game. Now that we’ve actually played it, I think we were very wrong. Paul has a hard time admitting when he needs help or doesn’t understand something. When we play board games we try to watch Paul for signs that he doesn’t understand what he should be doing. We will often give him extra time, especially if there is drawing or any kind of performing involved.

There is a little red magnifying glass with the Clue game that is used to read messages on the screen. We had been playing for a while and Paul had used it as often as he could. When he decided to make an accusation he suddenly forgot how to look through the glass. The process starts with a screen that shows you the scrambled letter you will use to make your selections, once you leave that screen there is no going back. At that screen Paul turned his head to the side and looked out the corner of his eye (around his glasses) through the red glass. When he left the screen he had no idea what the letter was, but he thought is was probably a j. When he couldn’t figure out how to find the letter on the first selection screen we knew he was in trouble. That’s when we noticed how he was using the magnifying glass. Jen told him to hold it in front of his face and look through his glasses at the same time, so he yelled “I AM!” and pressed it against his glasses so hard I don’t think he could keep his eye open. Unfortunately we couldn’t help Paul because we couldn’t see his letter and there was no way to get back to that screen.

As the situation deteriorated I tried to help Paul, by helping him find the j, without the magnifying glass. I told him which selection I thought it was under and he said “Yeah that’s the one I want.” So we went through all 4 screens with Paul selecting the default option on every screen. Knowing how that was going to turn out, I braced for the explosion when the results appeared, all 4 wrong. As expected Paul reacted badly he threw his cards away and cried.

When the tears cleared I filed Clue in with the games that we don’t play with Paul. To my surprise the next day he wanted to play it again. We didn’t have time, but I am interested to see how that turns out. As I said it is different every time.

~ Living With Paul

I think that arguing with us is like being caught in an avalanche for Paul. Once he picks up momentum he’s gone and always trying to go back.

Paul got a phone call today from a friend inviting him over. Of course Paul hadn’t done anything that he had been asked to do all day. His version of cleaning his room is keeping the door closed, and just opening it enough to squeeze through.

He still had the time he was supposed to be using to finish his homework, we have told him that it will be an hour a day. He had picked a time to do it, but the phone call came before that time. We decided to let him go anyway but wanted him to plan what he was going to do tomorrow and clean his room. He has homework and laundry to do tomorrow, so we wanted him to decide to come home early on his own.

This is where the avalanche effect comes in. When we tried to get Paul to agree on a time, he refused and told us that he didn’t need to pick a time and that he would have plenty of time whenever he got home. This wasn’t what we wanted so we decided to call the parents and put together more concrete plans. Once that plan was revealed to Paul told us that he would be home at 6:00 and expected everything to be over. We still liked the idea of finding out what the other parents had in mind. So a call was made while Paul wailed that we didn’t need to call because he had picked a time. We worked out details with the other parents and gave Paul the plan. He was still trying to go backwards and pick the time himself.

I do realize that we are Paul’s avalanche, it doesn’t really matter what it is, he won’t agree until we offer him something else. Once we’ve moved on he’s usually just along for the ride. The same thing happened today when he was picking out new glasses, he didn’t want the titanium frames until he found out our benefits didn’t cover them completely and then he had to have that pair because he really wanted them and really liked them.

This was fine though because we knew going in that the titanium frames would go above our coverage. If they can keep us from making the monthly trip to get his glasses fixed it will be worth it.

Ever since Paul came to live with us we have a certain degree of fun with his homework. Math was by far the worst, but it is all pretty bad. While most kids dislike homework, for Paul it is a break from his routine, which is rarely easy. When he was in elementary school, the teachers were pretty good about keeping us in the loop, and writing in his agenda book. Now that he is in middle school things are allot harder.

Now if Paul doesn’t write his assignments in his agenda himself, we don’t find out about them until they are past due. As a result Paul is about to spent his Spring break working on two assignments that he need to keep from failing. One he “did” and handed in early, of course he didn’t follow the instructions so he only completed about 5% of the work. The other one he decided he didn’t need to hand in so he lost it in his black hole of a locker.

In elementary school we knew that we were in the loop as far as what he needed to do so we were able to work with him every night on making sure that it was getting done. Since nothing is coming home we were having some trouble figuring out what to do. I even offer Paul money to bring his math home every day so we could see it, with no result.

We are hoping that if we tell Paul that 30 Minutes of every night are going to be spent on homework, or practicing math facts when he “has no homework” will lessen the impact homework has on his routine.

Unfortunately consequences have no meaning to Paul, so for him a Spring break spent doing homework isn’t a foreshadowing of Summer school. It’s just his teachers picking on him.

~Living With Paul