Resignation

I chatted with my sister yesterday (Monday morning) to see how Colin recovered from my visit. He went back to his normal behavior of watching t.v. in the lower level. He seemed to have a healthy appetite that night. Colin was supposed to take a shower and he told his aunt he did. The dry towels in his bathroom told a different story. Instead he decided to give the dog a bath.

I'm not sure if the dog was cleaned due to his messy romp outside and this was my son's attempt to make amends with his aunt. Or perhaps Colin wanted to wash any trace of my DNA off of the pet as I had spent some time walking and playing with my canine nephew before I left.

Either way my sister is weary of the battle to reunite her nephew back with his family and managing a hard-to-reach child that is not her own. Colin's recent risky behavior of running out of the house to avoid us has been making his aunt nervous. She is afraid that if Colin comes to any harm, she would be held responsible due to the guardianship.

I asked her if she would like to go down to the courthouse and file the resignation this morning (yesterday morning) so that Colin is no longer her legal liability. She responded that she just needed to take a quick shower and would be ready to go. We decided to go for it.

Colin is now legally ours again and we can check this off our 2-week to-do list.

 

Monday Evening Therapy

My husband came out for week 2 of being included in Monday night therapy.  Last week, Colin took off when he saw his dad coming down the driveway. This week, dad parked at the end of the long drive and walked down to minimize the advance notice.

When it was my husband's turn to enter the room, he was able to get within inches of our son to say "Hello."... "I'm here for my visit." before Colin took off for the great outdoors. Just like last week, the landscape team was out at the house. Unfortunately due to the nature of their business, there is no set time to expect them.

 The lawn crew that was hard at work was not a match for my husband and did not serve as a deterrent. The last few times the crew has been out, Colin seems to have been able to successfully face down one of his biggest triggers. It is hard to tell what effect the exposure has had and how our son is able to cope with a sound that had produced some of his worst rages at our house.

On the other hand, with his Aunt's reaction to his bad behavior still fresh in his mind, Colin made sure to call out, "I'm down here!", when she went out on the back deck to look for him when his dad was on his way back to his car and homeward bound.

Making Room

My husband has been hard at work on the basement "quiet room" for our son. The drywall team is scheduled to start work in two days. We are on a tight schedule and hope to be ready for our son's homecoming. We are now down to a matter of days.......

We are a work-in-progress!