That doesn't cover the drama. JT's never been diagnosed ADHD, and if he is, it's probably fairly mild, but boy-howdy, Monday was a pain. Every two minutes I had to tell him to get working. Yeah, it was hard, but so is a lot of stuff he's happy to do without problem. I was tired, it was hot, my allergies were acting up, and he was under the impression that if he quit working, I'd do it for him.
After the millionth shoulder-droop-sigh-of-despair (you know what I'm talking about?), I sent him to his room and told him that for the next half-hour he needed to write about his fort to his grandma. I went up there half an hour later, and he was twenty minutes into a new Lego creation. Which he spent the rest of the day frustrated with because the Legos hated him and wouldn't stay together. I seriously considered taking the Legos away, but I figured that was punishing me more than him.
At least the yard looked all right.
I sat down at the computer and came up with a worksheet on four different types of foundations. He had another sheet of paper's worth of questions to answer. Here's the source material:
Here's the sheet of questions:
Guess how long it took him to finish. (Hint: three hours!)
He was frustrated, I was frustrated...I decided something needed to be done. So I called the base clinic to set up ADHD screening. Guess what. They won't screen for ADHD unless the parent can get an education professional to fill out the forms as well. So, if I wanted to take time out of the school year to do this, or if I worked full time and sent him to after school care, or if I worked even part time and sent him to a day care, they would talk to me. But the fact that it's me that's home with him all summer and every day after school means they can't do anything until school starts.
I still hold that I did not hang up on the lady. I hung up on myself. If I hadn't, I'm sure the nice lady would have immediately transferred me to mental health.
Tuesday, my wonderful friend, Evangeline Denmark, called and requested JT's presence to entertain her Chunky (who isn't) and Monkey (who is). I was able to have a relaxing lunch with my husband and our friends who run gotquestions.org. Then I brought JT home, I went upstairs for a nap, and he got on the internet without permission.
The screensaver now has a password.
And Evangeline said it was the most relaxing day she'd had in a while.
The in-laws come tomorrow, so today was dedicated to getting the house in some kind of order. JT helped as cheerfully as I know he can. Late morning, we went for a bike ride wherein we saw this:
We came home, ate lunch, and started work on the backyard. All the sod we'd pulled up had been drying under the tree, so JT stuffed it into bags and hauled it to the gate while I edged, mowed, and weeded. That was enough work for one day, so we hied ourselves to the nearest Josh & John's wherein I partook of chai ice cream (kinda bland) and he got chocolate chip (yummy!).
When we got home, he reminded me we hadn't hung up his dying-zebra-baseball-rack. So we did.
The child then spent the next two hours creating a new cover for his driver. At first, he tried to embroider a "6" onto a slipper-sock. (Not that his club is a 6-wood (is there such a thing?), but the original, lost, cover had a "3" on it and I guess he thought 6 would be twice as good.) When the thread proved to be uncooperative, he just did this:
Two hours. Happily sewing onto slipper socks. I don't get him.
At least he's cute.
Meanwhile, I'm hoping his grandpa will help me set the posts for the fort. 'Cus I don't think I'm going to be able to do it with just JT.
And, yes. I know his shirt's on in-side-out.
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