Caretaker burnout

This is a hard blog to write. The boys' mother is burnt-out. Since Friday, a week ago, here are some of the things we have done:

Friday, a week ago, my daughter and I took Mikey to a local amusement park. We picked him up at school and took him for about 4 hours. (see prior blog for details)

Saturday, a week ago, grandpa and I had the boys for our "normal" day (11 am to bedtime; we take them home clean and in PJs)

One day during the week, Grandpa performed about an hour of remote computer tech support

Saturday (yesterday) we had the boys as usual

Both of us work full-time in fairly demanding IT jobs (that is, more than 40 hours a week is often expected). Our daughter-in-law is in the middle of doing IEPs (Individual Education Plans, for those who may not know, are plans that consist of individual goals and - after the first one - evaluations of outcomes from the prior IEP period. Their theoretical purpose is to design an appropriate education for a special needs child, and include educational approaches and services in support of the appropriate education.) She is also in the middle of working with the Regional Center to try to get help for Mikey's elopement behavior. She is "frustrated" (=angry) with us that we have not done more research on GPS and other tracking devices in advance of her meeting with the Regional Center next Tuesday.

We are at a loss as to what to do. Grandpa observed that there are two things we can throw at the problem: Time and Money. Time means I would likely speed up retirement plans (my current plan had been to retire from my current job at the end of this year, and try to consult for the next 4-5 years on a less-than-full-time basis), which is also the same as money of course. Some money is less problematic; it means deferring some already-deferred maintenance on our home.

I'm not trying to go anywhere with this; just putting it out to the Universe in the hopes that something creative and wonderful will drop like guano onto my thick head. I wouldn't even care if it messed up my hair.

On a happier note, we had a pretty good day with the boys yesterday. Mikey didn't try to escape at all. We had a brief problem at a local zoo that has a farm/petting zoo component. We went late in the day - we have annual passes - and several of the cages were open for cleaning. Mikey of course tried to go in them. We stopped him, but one of the caretakers let him in to pet a large pig. A little later, he spotted an open gate to a maintenance barn, and ran right in; Grandpa caught up with him and brought him out. HOWEVER, apparently (Mikey's actions are often apparent after-the-fact), he had decided it was appropriate to pet the horse and cow (apparently based on access to the pig), so he started to climb over the double-fence that separates People and Animals. Another man who was there (closer) and saw/heard what was going on grabbed him and helped get him back out. Mikey never quite settled down; we left after giving them about 20 minutes in the play area.

David and I worked on math later that day (see earlier blogs for details of why I am tutoring him and the ALEKS program he uses). Having just barely graduated sixth grade, he is most of the way through seventh-grade "math concepts" and will likely move on to pre-Algebra in the Fall.

He worked through several things pretty quickly but we spent some real quality time on raising a negative number to an exponent. It took a little while - and this is true for NT kids as well - to explain the difference between 4 * 3 and 4^3. What is more obvious as we move along is that we really need to get some multiplication flash cards and learn our Times Tables, through 10 at least. He relies totally on a calculator. Although he is perfectly capable of multiplying 4 * 4 * 4, his initial - dramatic - reacton is that he "needs a calculator" and this is "impossible!" [About 2 minutes later, 1.5 minutes being pure tantrum, he figures it out on paper.]

What is more, ah, interesting and challenging is the concept of "negative" numbers. I did leave him with the rule-of-thumb about multiplying negatives, but it's going to take some creative thinking to explain it beyond the rule.

I left him with the notion of flash cards - he said, "OK." and the promise to explain the "secret" of multiplication by 11 - but that he'd have to anticipate and enjoy the anticipation of knowing he'd find out about it next week.