New Rules

 LIfe has changed, and I don't know what brought on the change.....I am working hard to simply keep up and learn to play by these new rules.

He's not obsessed with food right now, instead he is obsessed with the computer
Sure, he still talks about food a LOT, but the first thing he is doing each morning isn't eating everything in sight.  He isn't sneaking food in the evenings.  This morning I don't think he even remembered to eat breakfast.  I don't know for sure, because there are years and years of history of him and I struggling over whether he ate breakfast or not, but I am leaning towards believing that he may not have eaten a bowl of cereal.   I offered him fruit and he ate an applesauce and said he was full.

Full, a word I didn't know Matthew knew.  Full......Matthew Bloom was full.

He isn't tantruming instead he sobs.
So many things that would have  tossed him into an immediate tantrum  in the past now don't have him tantrumming but instead he is sobbing.  One of the behaviors that he has that has not changed right now is he is still bothering Jacob a lot.  When I correct him, and have him take a break, he is quick to take the break, but equally as quick to sob. 

Matthew has never, ever been a crier.  It was as if it was just an emotion he did not have.
Now I am left wondering is it the med change? a change in Matthew organically? something to worry about? growth on his part?  What I know is that his sobbing is heartbreakingly sad.


 He is wetting the bed, but may be sleeping a little better.
In the past, he would wake me up to tell me he wet the bed and upon inspection the bed was totally dry, but he was just using it as an excuse to take a middle of the night shower.   Over the past few nights he has actually been wetting the bed, but then once out of the shower he goes back to sleep.

I am a very, very sound sleeper, so I can get up, change his sheets and go right back into a deep sleep. Typically over the past year, he would have gotten up, showered, and gone down and eaten a smorgasbord.  Currently, he is up, showers, wants to be tucked back in and goes back to sleep.  I am not loving the laundry that comes with the bed wetting, but it sure beats washing what in the past had been actually clean sheets that he lied about wetting.

He is more connected and wants more connection.
This is a positive- I can talk to him, he can talk to me and in many ways he is there to talk back and connect to.  Unfortunately this means he wants a connection all the time.  
The car is the place that David , Jacob and I like to have some quiet.  We can listen to the radio and drive for hours and speak very little, each lost in our own thoughts.  Matthew, who loves music more than anyone else I know, has to have a running commentary about everything he sees in the car.  This is not so new.  What is new, is he wants me to talk back about it.  To have a full conversation about each bus we pass, each chimney we see and each car we drive by.  He keeps accusing me of being angry if I don't have a cheery response for everything he sees.

I am enjoying that he wants my connection.  I am enjoying that he wants to be closer, however, it is hard to be close when someone accuses you of being angry when you are not angry, and it is exhausting to talk about everything you pass as you drive.....try it.......it is exhausting.

Other interesting changes:
his body odor which had been so intense, is gone.   Nothing except for his mood and some medication has changed, but my thought is that he was living on such high alert before that he was constantly perspiring.  I assumed he had been forgetting to use his deoderant.  Now I am sad to learn that he may have been having such an intense physical reaction to life.

He has more phobias.  Yesterday he was petrified to go near the garbage can at Temple.  He was truly anxious at having to sit near a garbage can, and threw his stuff away from a large distance so he didnt have to be too close.

I will take any life that we can have that does not involve aggression.  I can learn to live with anything else, as long as we are all safe.  I hate to see my boy anxious, but I love to see him more connected.  I hate to see him obsessed with the computer 24/7 and watching the same few seconds of a video, but it sure beats the food obsession we have lived with for 10 years.

He cannot change or at least cannot change quickly.  I have to adjust to this new normal, and I will because it makes family life easier.  I am hopeful that we get to live like this long enough for me to adjust, because there is a calm and trusting atmosphere in my house that we have not had for a while.  While Jacob is still worried around Matthew, each day that goes by that Matthew does not act aggressively is a day that Jacob hopefully learns he is safe in our house.