Autism Is Getting Me Down

I'm fuming right now. I made the mistake of reading Hutton's notebook from school. I didn't even think that he didn't call home today, so it came as a surprise when I read about his bad behavior. He gets to call home when he earns nine checks for good behavior, and generally, I can tell if he's had a good day, since he'll get to call home. Sometimes they are doing to many other things and don't have time to call. Either way, I had forgotten about it until I read the notebook.

"Hutton did not get to call today. He had eight out of nine checks, until he ripped a page out of library book. Then he filled a toy with hand sanitizer."

!%O(E^)(E&^)(*$)))!%*^%

I left Hutton at the kitchen counter with his lunch, telling me to "stop talking" after I angrily told him I was sick of his bad behavior, ripping library books (I had to replace one in September as well) and treating things badly. (The boys managed to break one of the handheld game consoles they received for Christmas - don't know who broke it, but the screen is cracked.) I just told Hutton, who came upstairs having finished his lunch to leave the room as I'm still angry at him.

Sigh. I hate having to vent about my son's behavior.

Friday, he had a really bad session with his ABA consultant. Great. We drive 40 minutes to get to the University of Washington, I pay $11 to park (it's cheaper if you pay cash, but of course I never have cash), and then things go steadily downhill when Hutton asks to put fresh batteries in the farm toy at the consultant's office. I tell him to make his own animal sounds. No go. I explain that even if we had fresh batteries for the toy, we don't have a screwdriver to change the batteries. That doesn't seem to matter to Hutton. As far as he is concerned, a toy with non-working batteries is the end of the world. He became upset, and couldn't accomplish anything. He finally completed one worksheet, with two words of text (black dog) which he was supposed to trace, then write on his own, but he insisted on getting help and cried nearly the whole time. So, needless to say, he didn't earn his nine checks to call Go-Go (my mother) in his hour and a half therapy session. At least his consultant got to see some of his worst behavior, so she knows what his home therapist is up against some days.

Sigh. So, I'm not having a good day now.

Hubby had wanted to take the boys skiing on Friday, but right now I don't want to deal with that. It seems like a big reward for Hutton's bad behavior. I guess I should focus on catching him in good behavior. I'll see if we can get them signed up for a lesson Friday, just in case. Who knows, Hutton might have a good week after all.