50 Minute Visit

I went out for my 2nd visit to my sister's house. Colin was told ahead of time and this time did not react. When I arrived, my son was settled in the lower-level. I stuck to my routine of grabbing a can of soda and  sticking to a one-room visit. I hunkered down in my brother-in-law's study.

Toward the end of my visit with my sister, she thought she heard someone playing on the X-Box. She checked and found it was Colin, who was not allowed to play video games unless he cooperated with his therapist. Aunt "P" waited until I left, to go down, turn off the game and remind Colin about how he earns game privileges.

I called when I got home to check on Colin's reaction to my visit and to the game being taken away. I was relieved to hear he was calm and said nothing.

Other News

We are working on fixes to our house to make our home more "Colin-Friendly".  We have replaced a few of our older appliances with quieter, more energy efficient models. We now have a Bosch dishwasher and a new front-load Samsung Washer and Dryer. When the appliance delivery men came last week, my husband paid them extra to move our refrigerator to the garage. It is a bit of an inconvenience to have to go to the garage to fetch necessities for meals or snacks. On the upside, we are more mindful of what we are eating and this may be a great way to keep off those extra pounds. Unfortunately, I have two teenage boys who don't see it that way!

My husband is working on a "quiet" room in the basement so that our son will have a sound-abated place to chill-out in. Our middle son will give up his bedroom ( the one he used to share with Colin ) and move to the loft / makeshift bedroom but doesn't think his brother will want the room. It is entirely possible that our son will prefer to sleep in the new basement room. This would be a much better alternative than the first floor half-bath that he had been sleeping in this past summer when things started going downhill.

We have a lot of work to accomplish in a relatively short period of time. I will try to remain hopeful!

We are a work-in-progress!