A long day.

Jill and all 4 boys were going over to one of Seamus's friends from school for a playdate. Jill was quite nervous about taking them all, especially Liam (age 3). During the morning Jill noticed again how Liam was just all over the house going from one thing to the next, and not staying with any one activity for a length of time. This is his 3rd day on a 1/2 tablet of anafranil and so far we have seen no change in his behavior. Liam was often seen climbing on household things he should not. For example:

• she caught him standing on our 3" wide window sill holding on the window frame
• she caught climbing up the front of the entertainment center to try and reach the remote control.
• he was regularly climbing across furniture and jumping to the floor
• while he was to be eating he could not sit still. Instead of eating a couple french fries at a time, he would shove a handful in his mouth and hardly be able to chew.
• Jill would also catch him picking at his gums again.

While Jill was at the playdate with the boys Liam's behavior was much the same at the house. Liam had gotten into the master bathroom and turned the tub on twice. He then got into their VHS cabinet, removed all the tapes, climbed inside and closed the door. Liam then went into their study and found markers. He then colored his hair, head, hands, and face. Jill was embarrassed by the whole situation as she was doing her best to wash off the marker from Liam. For comparison sake, Aidan & Brendan, both 2 1/2, simply played with all the toys and were well behaved. Seamus and Jacob had a great time playing together.

When Jill arrived home she fed the boys. While she was cleaning up the kitchen she heard the new Toshiba 20" volume blaring. She went in and found the volume turned all the way up, the dvd drive door jammed in the open position, and could not turn the tv off. She called me at work and I had her unplug the tv to turn it off. The rest of the afternoon Liam's behavior was the same as in the morning.

When I arrived from work I attempted to fix the dvd door. It is apparently off track and can not be easily popped back on. I then took the tv apart to try and have better access to it, but Toshiba has this thing drive well protected. I am going to have one of my co-workers who is excellent at these repairs take a look at it. Right now, only the vcr is working. We are back where we were 5 months ago with our combo tv, vcr working, dvd broken. At this point I am totally exasperated with trying to have a dvd player. I have to wait and see what I can do to either fix this, or just leave it broken. Taking it to a repair center is about the last thing I want to do right now after my last experience. That is a whole other story, but to summarize, it took 4 1/2 months to get our previous tv replaced due to a manufacturer defect.

The worst part to the whole day was how angry towards Liam I was. While I was trying to fix the dvd drive Liam kept asking me questions. I was completely angry at him and I started hollering at him for breaking the dvd drive. Liam went into the family room with Aidan and Brendan and stayed away after that. When it was bath time I went upstairs and found Liam bouncing on our bed. This did not help the situation. I pulled him off the bed and put him in the tub and yelled at him. The way I handled each of these situations was absolutely poor. Liam does not totally understand why he does what he does. This is one of those mysteries to understanding autism that no one may ever know. All I know is the way I reacted and handled these situations was totally ineffective at helping him. At least this day is done now, tomorrow we will wake up and hope for the best again.