A challenging development

We're having a tough week. I have several bruises, a headache, and a sore nose from Simon's outbursts. The stack of books on top of our dryer is teetering, he's had so many removed after throwing them at me. Our ears have been ringing from screeching, door slamming, and shouting.

It's not entirely clear why he is so on edge right now, but it may be at least partly related to new mental development. He's been reading more, and trying to read new words he hasn't memorized. He did pronounce cedar as keh-dar, but I was still really impressed. He's been using his trains to add and subtract, counting, coupling, and uncoupling, and staring to know that ten minus four is six, without needing to count. I've seen him read a whole book that he'd never seen before, and read it all correctly.

He's had a few bursts of social development, asking me to wear bear ears while we were playing, and miracle of miracles, he really, truly played with another kid. I didn't get to see it, but bob told me about the conversation he had with a girl at Swap n play. They talked about trains and buffers, played with trains together, and headed to the big kid room, Simon responding to her question about where his mom was with, "she works every day, but daddy stays home with me." not only an answer to her question, but additional information not asked for.

But then, he's also been repeating the same script from a Thomas story every time he plays with his trains at home, his little mind locked in to an infinite loop of cars uncoupling and running an engine off the rails. He's been shouting at us to be quiet when we compliment him, pounding his fist on us when we won't give him what he wants, and slamming himself on doors and us for reasons unclear.

Without knowing why he's losing his mind, except that big developmental leaps always mess with the poor kid, it's hard to know what to do to help. We can do what we can to manage the issues, sticking to a schedule, keeping noises down, lots of protein, lots of sleep or rest time, intentional music, and heavy work, and hope that this will help him regulate until things improve. It's hard though, not being able to fix it. We're tired and battered, and are out of space for confiscated toys.



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