Summertime Blues

"I'm gonna raise a fuss, I'm gonna raise a holler...

Sometimes I wonder what I'm gonna do

But there ain't no cure for the summertime blues."

Forget the rest of the song, those three lines could be my anthem for this past week (and, mind you, the first week) of our summer break. Something has gone desperately wrong. We are off schedule. No, we really don't have a schedule. I think that is the problem. I'm hoping that is the problem, at least. We thrive on schedules here and without one, I think things have just fallen apart. Curtis has fallen apart. So have I. And things have gone cuckoo. I won't lie, I don't quite know what to do. 

Here is what is happening with Curtis: potty accidents (several a day some days), early morning wake-ups that involve getting into trouble (examples--letting the puppy out of her crate to run around the house, eating popsicles and a Snickers bar for breakfast, using scissors to puncture holes in juice boxes and letting said juice boxes spill all over the floor, pulling his lunch box out of the pantry then pouring water inside it), temper tantrums, screaming fits, telling me "no!" constantly, and fighting with his older brother and sister all day long. He even told me he hated me the other day. So sad. 

Summertime Blues, yo. I've got 'em.

It's been exhausting. And frustrating. And upsetting in the sense that I don't really know what is going on or how to fix it without sending him back to school and getting him back in his routine--which is not an option until the third week of August. The fact is, he won't have a set routine this summer. It's just not going to happen! We have summer camps for big bro and big sis for a few weeks and a family vacation later in July and then a few weeks of just nothingness before heading back to school. No set schedule. How are we going to deal?

All last week I kind of just tried to take deep breaths and cross my fingers that things would situate themselves. I'm trying to be that person that lets things roll of my back more. I'm a stress-case by nature and, frankly, I'm kind of over it. The stress, that is. I want to be mellow. People (my mom, husband) tell me to relax more. "Chill out. It will work out, don't worry about it. He'll figure it out. You'll figure it out." Yeah, guess what? It didn't work. And I really can't deal with another week, or an entire summer, of Curtis in la-la-land. Having that feeling of him progressing and doing so amazingly well at the end of his school year only to then have a week like we just had SUCKS. And I don't know if a non-special needs parent or if my mom or even my own husband can even understand what it feels like to have Curtis acting this way and for him to be back into the thing of peeing his pants sometimes 3-4 times a day! He's 5! And two weeks ago, he wasn't doing this! So, yeah, it's upsetting and the deep breaths aren't cutting it. I feel like a huge parenting failure. It wasn't a good week.

So what do I do? I actually asked his pediatrician about the accidents (we had an appt for 5 year check-up on Friday). I was worried at first with all these accidents--potty-training regression can be a sign of seizures. But he's showing no other signs--it's just one of those things that I'm always watching for. Anyhow, doc said not to worry unless any other signs start to pop up. He thinks he's just being lazy and that I need to treat him like he's potty training again (yay!) I have to start bringing him to the potty every half hour or so and just get back into the potty routine. I guess for some reason Curtis thought summer vacation also meant potty vacation. I don't know who gave him that lousy bit of false information! So I'm adding that to my daily to-do list. The good news is that I tried to ask him and take him a lot more this weekend and he did seem to do better, so that's good. 

What about the behavioral problems and the early morning wake-ups with the super fun household destruction? I think the behavior is tied to the early rising. I wish I had a solution for those 5:30am mornings. All of my kids have done it. All three are still up by 6:30am every morning. But 5:30? Too early. I feel like we've tried everything to get him to stay in bed an extra hour but if anyone has suggestions, I'd love to hear them. He does still nap during the day--anywhere from 1.5-2 hours on most days. (I will not get rid of his nap so don't try suggesting it. Without it, he's a mess and falls asleep at around 4 or 5:00pm for a nap, which is not OK.)

Routines in the summer--how do you do it? Does anyone have suggestions for that? Is it even possible with things like camps and vacations? Curtis does still have therapy once/week and swim lessons twice/week, so at least those are some consistencies in his routine. But he's really missing school already! And I thought I was looking forward to summer and a break from our typical routine, but now I'm thinking I was wrong.

HELP! I had a post I was working on that was going to be all about the fun things we had planned for summer and how I was going to work in some sneaky therapy-type goals into his summer play time. And then this happened. 

Someone give me my old kid back!

(He looks like this, if you happen to find him...cute little bugger...)