It is Friday and Max is out of school. This coming Sunday is Easter and today is the start of Easter weekend. There is so much to do the next 3 days I will probably be sleeping on Monday. Why is so much planned? It is because my 8 year old son Max needs a lot of structure. Because of his bipolar disorder, ADHD, asperger’s, and anxiety an unstructured day is very upsetting to him and he acts out in undesirable ways. One of the reasons he does well in school is because it is so structured; he knows what to expect.
My wife and I are not structured people; we’ve always been very laid back, taking things as they come. We are slowly learning how to plan so that all of us will feel comfortable on the days Max is out of school.
Our weekend basically started Thursday night. The first thing we did was to got to a friend’s house so Max could play with his sons. The 4 of them played tag in the front yard and because there was so much rain this past week the ground was muddy; there was a lot of slipping and sliding. By the time he got back into the car he was caked with it. You know it was shower time when he got home.
After he went to bed I was off to the store to buy some eggs. Max will be coloring them for Easter with his mentor on Friday. When I got back my wife hardboiled them, dried them off, and stored them in the refrigerator for the big day.
Since it was his day off today you would think he would sleep for awhile but no…he was up at 6:30 ready to go. But at the same time he was wild and angry. We don’t know where this came from but everything was setting him off. All I could hear was screaming and swearing. My wife was getting very stressed out so I got dressed and took him out for a walk.
We were on the road for an hour and you could actually see his anger and stress levels drop. We walked through the old common which is a mixture of grass and trees. I find that this always calms him down. It helped enormously that for the first time in weeks we were feeling the sun on our faces. By the time we got back home he was visibly relaxed and calmly waited for his mentor. Ordinarily he’d be very anxious, “When is she coming?” “Where is she?” Oh, whine!!!
She is now here and they are both sitting at the kitchen table coloring Max’s eggs. It is funny listening to them; my office is right next door. They set the eggs and coloring up. Whoops, two are cracked. Oh well, they are still going to dye them. Then they forgot the vinegar for the coloring. Now they are dipping the eggs.
Max keeps running into the office to let me know their progress. The front of his tee shirt is wet from the water and color. He then rockets back to his chair, bouncing on it as he dyes another egg. And the whole time he keeps up a running commentary about the project, what they are going to do afterwards, and about life in general. Now he is the Easter bunny hopping up and down the hallways looking for carrots.
When he is done and we have completed a few errands we plan on moving some suitcases. I’ve posted a few times about a friend of mine that runs a charity called Suitcases 4 Kids. They collect donations of suitcases, backpacks, and duffel bags for foster and homeless kids. They need to move several hundred into their self storage location. We are expecting it to take an hour or an hour and a half to complete the job.
After that we will be seeing a movie; the Christian Film Festival is happening just down the street so we have quite a few to choose from. That should take us to about 5 o’clock. Hopefully we will be able to wind down by then.
We know what we plan on doing Saturday. It always starts out the same way; Max and I go out to breakfast with my father-in-law. After that is a trip to Home Depot. It is the first Saturday of the month and they always have wood working projects for the kids on these days. Max loves building; this will keep him occupied for a half an hour. He always wants to buy something but this isn’t going to happen unless I need something for any work at home.
After that I have some handyman work at one of my clients. I’m going to bring Max with me so that he can make some money painting. This will probably take about 3 hours. He won’t last that long but her kids won’t be in school so he will be able to play with them until I am finished.
After that? Maybe another movie. And hopefully we have tired him out for yet another day.
Sunday we will go to church and then spend the afternoon at his aunt’s house for Easter dinner.
So there it is; this is our weekend. It may seem quite ordinary but for us it can be difficult. Since my wife and I are not used to planning we chafe at the schedule but we know that without it Max would be very anxious and miserable. As a result his Mom and Dad would be miserable too.
It pays to plan ahead of time.
