the week gone by

Apologies for not writing for a number of days. Combination of reasons- mostly spending lots of time with Joa, catching a cold & feeling tired & worn out & in a bit of a funk. The past week with Lars has been different than previous weeks & trying to sort it all out. Not that that's really possible.

My current theory is the past few months & Lars' experiences with pain have caused a 6-lane superhighway-sized neural pathway called "something's wrong!" to form in his brain. It has many entrances, a wind-tunnel effect, and precious few exits. All sorts of "wrong" things now propel his whole self onto superhighway: wrong person, wrong song, wrong way of bouncing, wrong food, wrong guess, wrong activity. You get the picture. No middle ground; fine or dreadful.

Lars has been dreadfully unhappy a good part of most days, given that he can't exactly communicate any details about what he's wanting, or what's wrong.

So looking forward to having more people to help thinking through what's going on & how to help him. Have been doing things like singing & bouncing to a slightly different tune or beat for a refrain or two to gradually build up his frustration tolerance. This behavior piece is harder to deal with than pain in terms of my response to it in the moment.

So looking forward to having him settled at Perkins, in a familiar routine with familiar people who are good at working with him & pushing him. He's going to give them a run for their money on his way to settled, I'll bet. Got a call from admissions guy today saying they'll call to schedule home & school visits the week of the 23rd.