It's very interesting that since I've decided to write here, the more I note his behaviors, both good and not-so-good. Sometimes you just get stuck in your normal day-to-day headspace and forget to look up and take note of what's so dang interesting about life.

Here are some highlights of yesterday:

1. Medication is an issue around here right now. I'll leave that to talk about for another day because it definitely is its own topic, but suffice it to say that it could use some tweaking. Because of that, timing is everything in our day. I wouldn't dream of trying to get him out of the house to do errands before it kicks in and always dread when we have to be out after it wears off, so it dictated the better part of our plans yesterday - timing of giving the meds to him, where we went and at what time.

2. The errand was to the library, which he loves to do, but which can be really tough. The librarians don't take kindly to the guy who can't speak in a whisper for over 1 sentence before he forgets. They don't like his quick, darting movements. They don't like that if I am out of his sight for more than a few seconds, he'll start to yell, "Mom. Mom. MOM. MOOOM. MOOOOOOOM!" ever louder and more intensely and in rapid succession until he sees me. They don't like that he has to be peeled from the card catalog computer about 14 times a visit (because that's what he really cares about at the library - not the books, mostly the card catalog computer). They don't like that he is in a singular frame of mind while he's there, and so he may run into them or patrons and not bat an eyelash or look back at them or say "excuse me." It's an opportunity where we practice those social niceties that come naturally to most ("say, 'excuse me'"). But dammit, I keep taking him. Librarian stink-eyes be damned.

3. It was hot. And hot makes everything just that much more difficult. And when we got to the library, we found out there was a community picnic, just the kind of thing that I sincerely do not want to get into with him. Crowds, things to grab from tables, people to get angry... you just never know. I mean, if people are handing out free things at one table, then it only makes sense that the things are free at the next table, right? In his mind it does. In the thick of it all, when the other kids that were with us were having great fun, he had gathered his share of free things and was completely done with the heat and the crowd and began saying that he wanted to leave, a phrase he will repeat until it becomes so. Since it often isn't possible (or plausible) to just pack up and leave when he decides he's through, the group of us just have to listen to him just get progressively more distressed until...

4. He melts down. There is just no more patience left in the world for him. The crowd and heat and stimulation of being handed free things and then having to discern the rules from table to table finally gets to be too much and BAM. An opportunity for a breakdown will present itself (yesterday it was a guitar pick for dad) and he'll do it until he's completely spent his frustration and overwhelmed-ness. About an hour's worth yesterday, I'd say. His immediate method for release in a meltdown is to go into video game playing mode - his comfort zone. But we're working on finding different soothing methods this summer, so it took some convincing, but I got him in for sitting with me and reading. And it worked. Small victories.

5. We went to dinner with family last night, early enough that his medication was still working so it wasn't too much of an issue. But it was loud and stimulating again after a day of already having a lot of stimulation, so when we got home he couldn't relax. Too wound up. At 11pm, I finally convinced him that I needed to go to sleep and so did he. But it took a couple of hours to get there. Thank God we decided not to go to the fireworks that were scheduled for last night.

But all of that can be balanced by the following things:

1. He played a serious game of Go Fish with his cousin last night. He didn't piss anyone off because he refused to play by the rules or anything, he just played the game at dinner and interacted and was fabulous.

2. He built a playhouse for my neighbor yesterday. She was trying to put together a little kid playhouse outside, and he took the screwdriver and put that sucker together. The kid lives for instruction manuals.

3. In his winding down time of trying to sleep last night, he laid on the couch with me and watched a Marx Brothers movie. It's his best time of day when he's tired enough to not be ruled by impulsiveness or obsession. We've done this several times together, and it never fails to be wonderful. The whole house is asleep except for the two of us, and we watch Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton or even Joseph Campbell's Power of Myth lectures. He'll ask me questions about it and draw great inferences.

And that's just a weekend day. One of our goals this summer is for him to talk about some of this stuff, too. So I'm interested to see his take on yesterday.