Monday Messes

My day began by cleaning up spilled apple juice that I had poured into a "cup without a lid" and given to Reiss during breakfast. He reached for it to take a drink, somehow missed, and that was how we got Monday Mess #1.

Immediately following the cleanup of the overturned apple juice, Milla was asking (I'm so nice to call it "asking" - it was more like whining at a fever pitch) for some milk. So I got the foil-pack carton of Almond Breeze out of the refrigerator, started to shake it, and next thing I knew I was being showered with almond milk. As was the entire westside of my kitchen. Monday Mess #2 was born.

Reiss finished breakfast and went off to play in the master bathroom with a - unbeknownst to me at the time - toy aquarium. He filled it with water and came walking down the hall asking, "Mommy, why's this thang got water coming out?" That is not a typo. He really does say "thang."

Well, Reiss that would be because it's a toy aquarium, not something we actually fill with water. Monday Mess #3 made its appearance and in a grand way, all the way down the hall, through the bedroom all over the carpet in there, and on into the bathroom where a puddle approximately the size of Lake Michigan awaited my maiden skills and already sopping wet towel I was scooting down the hall with to clean up.

After removing the aquarium from the bathroom and establishing a new rule: No filling toy aquariums with water - I returned to the kitchen to find Milla and Monday Mess #4. Milla had turned her cup of apple juice over as well. All this action before 8:30 am. Do I know how to live it up or what?

I suppose it's a good thing I don't give them very much juice when they have cups without lids.

So why don't I just give them cups with lids? I could. And I could also listen to them tantrum themselves into a tizzy for a few minutes. I'll take cleaning up a mess now and then over a tantrum anyday. Honestly though, I can handle the tantrums. There is more to my excuse for giving them cups without lids and it includes having teachers in preschools who prefer to have them able to drink with a regular cup when they begin attendance. They also asked me at Milla's IFSP evaluation last week if she can drink from a cup without a lid so I guess that is something that is expected of a two-year-old??

I don't know. You tell me. I don't even know what "normal" behavior is anymore so I don't know what to expect.

Monday Mess # 5 came this afternoon within five minutes of Reiss and I throwing a big party for him having pooped and peed on the potty. It was naptime for Milla and Reiss had just finished eating his reward treat for pooping on the potty. He left the kitchen, then returned five minutes later, and told me he had poop in his pants.

Seriously???

So much for rewards. His reward this time was a diaper. Not a disposable pull-up. A regular old Huggies tearaway-tabs-on-the-side diaper. And he didn't even mind.

Reiss has been pooping in his pants several times the last few days and yesterday we told him if he did it again, he was going to wear a diaper. He wanted no part of the diaper scene again and threw a fit simply by the mention of him wearing a diaper. Today, he didn't care.

Really, I don't know how I am supposed to potty-train a child who doesn't even care. Why, oh why, does everything have to be so difficult? Just as I start to get comfortable in anything and thinking, hey, this ain't so bad, a monkey wrench gets thrown in. It almost never fails.

I really do try to stay positive with having a child with autism but it's so hard when nearly every aspect of every day is difficult in some way. And before I get the people coming out of the woodwork telling me:

"He's four. What do you expect?"
"These things happen sometimes."
"Oh, that's normal. He'll be potty-trained before you know it."

Or any other attempts to make me see that this has nothing to do with autism, let it be known that I'm not saying Reiss is not potty-trained because he is autistic. Although, I do think that plays a part at the very root of the problem - even our DAN! doctor has given us information pointing to that regard. But it has to do with gut and bowel issues and is not something average people who don't spend nearly every spare moment away from their children reading about the science behind autism would find interesting.

And I'm not saying Reiss does everything he does because he is autistic. What I am saying though, is that there are a lot of things Reiss does because he is four years old and is a boy and then there are also a lotta lot of things he does because he is autistic. When you add them together, the sum can be some extremely difficult days to handle. Frankly, it's exhausting. I want those carefree fun kind of days so many other people get to enjoy.

Speaking of carefree fun...We went outside in the freezing cold weather today so I could pull these monkeys around on the sleds. While Reiss waited on Milla to be pulled, he whined that he wanted her sled, which is for babies and too small even for her. While Reiss was being pulled in the baby sled, Milla was crying loud enough for the neighbors three streets over to hear her. Regardless...I pulled them around like a pack mule and tried to make it fun for them. I don't know if it was just their moods or just too cold but they didn't seem happy and then Reiss wanted to come back inside.

And that was about as carefree as we got today. Oh wait, I did let them empty out nearly a full bottle of glue on pieces of construction paper while I loaded the dishwasher. No, that is not my idea of a craft. They were supposed to be making snowmen from craft pom-poms and glue on paper. Instead, they just sat and watched as the glue streamed out of the bottle on their sheets of paper. But I got the dishwasher loaded and that was an accomplishment.

Here's to hoping Tuesday is more carefree and less messy.....