Beth has been a bugger the last few days as you’ve probably gathered by the title! It’s such fun that when ‘normal’ kids are overtired due to end of school year and excitement over Christmas, our kids get that times 10. My Bridie is a challenging kid at the best of times, very headstrong and yells at the slightest thing. I see her as she comes to the dinner table for each meal trying to find something that she can pick on. Hopefully some of this is due to the fact that she doesn’t talk at kinder, the people in ‘the know’ tell me that that could mean that because she can’t exert any authority at kinder that she lets it all out at home. Yeah, thanks for that! Even my Bill has been a bugger lately and he’s usually not too bad. He did have his 2 year old tantrums for much longer than most and still has a doozy at times but you can reason with him and talk (and bribe) so usually he’s pretty cruisy. Pretty much when he stopped having his tantrums constantly Bridie took over!
And then there’s Beth. She’s pretty good tantrum wise but hates not getting her own way. Paul gave her the punishment of not playing on the computer for the day, really early in the morning on Sunday so that went down well. I try to give punishments that wont hamper my day too much so generally would never give that one because basically it makes your life hell! But, you do the crime, you pay the time hey. Beth had gotten a texta and drawn over one of the loungeroom walls. Now those of you who read me regularly will know that we are in the process of trying to sell our house. And Beth is ten for goodness sakes, she does know that it’s wrong. Of course when does that make any difference.
I had made a decision to chill out over some of Beth’s behaviours about a week ago. I think I told you about the chew toy. I decided that I’m not going to stress out about behaviours that are just part and parcel of Beth’s autism. She jumps around a lot making noises but unless she’s about to hurt herself or somebody else I leave her to it. Some things she just can’t help and it doesn’t do me or her any good to just keep yelling at something that is just how she is. Some things however are so bloody frustrating that I just can’t help myself. And they seem to be bigger and more frequent at this present moment. I know it’s Christmas, I know it’s the end of the school year but it still doesn’t make it any easier.
Beth has always had the habit of standing in front of the tv but lately it’s ALL the time. I’ll be in the kitchen trying to get the kids lunches and the kids’ll be watching ABC kids (thankyou electronic babysitters, thank goodness my kids weren’t born in the 50’s!) and all I can hear is “get out of the way Beth, sit down Beth.” There she is, jumping up and down because something she is watching is so good that she has to get up really close and watch. On one hand I hate to spoil her fun but on the other hand she’s spoiling everybody elses. I know she can’t help it but I’m over telling her to sit down a million times a day. I also found her climbing out of her bedroom window the other night. Good old Minka was barking to let me know. (Of course I was just telling Minka to shut up, there’s nothing there.) I only knew because Beth came out with the cat Henry’s food bowl. I had noticed that her window had been open a couple of mornings but thought that because it was hot that Paul may have opened it in the night. I guess the good thing is that she doesn’t wander off any more, and she’s so blatantly obvious as to bring the bowl to me to show me what she’s done. It’s like she wants to get into trouble and if I don’t see it she has to show me.
Last night she had Bridie’s DSi and was making tapes of herself while on the computer. Now Beth has her own DSi that she can do this on but it wasn’t next to her at the time so she grabbed Bridie’s. The problem is that she erased Bridie’s sounds that she had taped. She just doesn’t care that it’s not hers, she has no respect for other’s property at all. She did a similar thing at school, I got there to pick her up on Friday and Helma, her teacher, had told me that she had deleted all of the class pictures for the year from the computer! Now she knows not to do that. I could ask her point blank and she could tell me what she can and can’t do but it’s like when it comes into practice that all that learning just goes out the window. She’s like Cyclone Beth! She goes from one thing to another, wreaking her destruction, then when the job is done just whirling on to the next thing!
