Movin' Out. Or Not.

I want to buy a new house. I went on realtor.com today and searched for the ideal place. Four bedrooms, four bathrooms, granite kitchen countertops, wood floors, fireplace, in-ground heated pool and outdoor kitchen with fire pit, built-in/walk-in closets, finished basement, nice-size lot, fenced-in yard for the dog, central air conditioning and radiant heating, fitness room, mudroom for the kids and dog, mother-in-law suite, temperature-controlled wine cellar with cheese refrigerator, and a room dedicated solely to wrapping presents. Oh, and a supremely organized and uncluttered 3 car garage.

Hey, if you're gonna dream, dream big I say.

Yeah, there you go. Perfect. Probably more than 4 bedrooms, though.

So there I was this afternoon, plugging in the number of bedrooms, the number of bathrooms, the price range and bam!--there were 5 web pages of choices, none of which remotely interested me.

I don't want to buy a new house. The thought of moving makes me quite nauseous, if you must know the truth. Packing up thirteen years of this-n-that combined with the fact that we can't leave the city school district because of Conor's hard-won educational placement makes the idea of moving nonsensical and ridiculous and totally untenable. Preposterous, really.

And I can't leave my good friend, she plies me with wine when I'm bumming, and she lives, like, three streets over.  What if my new neighborhood doesn't have a funny woman who plies me with wine every time I feel down? I mean, seriously, the new neighbors might try to give me cookies when I'm sad and I'm gluten-free.  The horror, the horror.

Plus, the nationally-recognized Kennedy Krieger Institute is practically in my backyard (we have a big backyard) and people fly their kids in from all over to go there. So, you know, there's that.

I know this, I know moving would be moronic, and it wouldn't solve a damn thing. But it continues to bounce around my brain like a ping pong ball. Boing, boing, boing, boing. (Which explains why I was in therapy for three years. Magical thinking.)

It's just... I keep trying to find the answer to how to improve our situation. These tantrums that Conor has--they're like a weight that sits on our shoulders and we just can't seem to shake free of it.

This is what it feels like each time Conor has a tantrum.
We just can't seem to get out from under them.

Quite honestly, after a tantrum, we all--Jim, Aidan and I--walk around for days with our shoulders slouching. Quite literally.

I hate living like this, with the stress and chaos of these tantrums. And so I sit and stew. What to do, what to do. And listen, we aren't getting any younger, you know? My husband turns 55 this summer; we ain't no spring chickens.  It's not going to be long before we can't handle a tantrum, physically anyway.

My husband would probably
agree that I'm good at writing.
At writing checks, that is.

How do I fix this, how do I make it better? I'm a fixer. I see a problem, I figure out who to write a check to in order to get it fixed, and it's fixed. (Hey, I'm no DIY-er, you know. I'm incapable of doing much of anything other than writing, quite frankly, and even that's doubtful most days.)

The point is, we're doing everything we can--and he still has these tantrums. Still. (Matter of fact, he's had two just this past week.)

Behaviorist. Protocols. Routines. Schedules. Menus. Social stories. Appropriate educational placement. In-home aids. 1:1 school aids. A 36-page Individualized Education Plan complete with platinum Behavior Intervention Program. Tokens. Medications. Reinforcers and more reinforcers.

So, there you go. I have no idea what else to try. Some individuals on the spectrum have suggested the gluten-free diet but food is such a fight with Conor that I don't have the stomach for that. (Get it?  Stomach? I crack myself up.) 

We also did that when he was younger and, while it helped, it was not the magic bullet others have experienced. I don't know, the individuals who suggested it say it helps with the negative thoughts.

So that's it.  I don't know what else to do. What do you do when there's nothing new left to do?



The quality of this video stinks, but that hair! That hair is da BOMB! I bet you he really misses it.