Really bad day

After a full day of fun on Saturday (see Winter Fun post), Matthew somehow crashed in the early evening into a stress episode that lasted 2 full days. These were 2 very hard days. 

He barely ate

He couldn't get dressed on his own

He couldn't go to church

He couldn't spend time with the family

He didn't sleep well

The first evening of this, I was so wrung-out and exhausted that I crawled into bed at 7pm and willed myself to sleep.

The next morning was one of the worst in a while. A minor disappointment triggered a terrified, angry, screaming Hulk attack. I literally had to dress his screaming little body and half-carry him to the car. I knew that if I could get him to school, he could reset. He sobbed the whole way up to his classroom saying that he couldn't do this. He sobbed loudly outside his classroom door saying that he couldn't do this. His classmates watched, but fortunately for us, another classmate had just thrown up all over the floor, so the class' attention was divided. They may never remember Matthew's episode. He had me walk with him to the closet to put his jacket away and pull out his workbooks. He was still crying as he went to his table. I turned and left. 

It's periods like these that I want to crawl into bed and disappear. I lose my desire to do anything but fall asleep and escape the weight of this fear and ignorance. I don't know what to do. Bobby doesn't know what to do. We're just getting through episodes like this one hour at a time. 

Sometimes I think about how great it would be to not to have to deal with this...like if I died or ran away somehow. These are not serious thoughts, of course. I'm in no danger of self-harm or abandoning my family. All I have to do is imagine what either of those things would do to these people I love and that hurts more than anything. So, I tell myself that things will change. I lock in to self-care: prayer, scripture study, personal hygiene, time with friends, and exercise. Kids grow up. Medication and therapy eventually work. Prayer and faith carry me. We do have good days, and these bad days don't last forever.

Matthew did fine at school. He struggled in the evening, putting himself to bed at 7pm. He woke up this morning happy and lovely. No problems. Cheerful, excited for this, that, and the other thing. Getting ready for school was easy. Dropping him off was easy. 

We did NOTHING differently. Nothing. 

And I feel better. 

Winter Fun

Saturday was the school ice skating party for James and Matthew. Matthew reeeeeeeally wanted to go. He wanted to ice skate and his friends had said they would be there. James opted to stay home and run some Christmas errands with Bobby. 

We got there just as it started. It took a little while to get the right size skates, but that only increased his excitement. His first few laps around the rink were slow and very close to the wall. He got a little faster every time, though, and was having a lot of fun skating on his own. I chose not to skate. His friends hadn't arrived yet. 

Heading out onto the ice.

Ice skating! All those weeks roller skating in P.E. paid off :)

A lot of kids were using the skating scooter to gain confidence. Matthew gave it a go, too.

Throughout the event, there was an administrator on the ice taking pictures of everyone. I saw her skate right up to Matthew's side and say something. Later, he told me she said, "Now who's the little lady skating here?" Matthew turned to face her and she instantly recognized him. A little shocked, she cried, "Oh! It's you, Matthew!" He thought it was hilarious. 

When they give us access to those pictures, I'll see if she got any with Matthew.

We took a cocoa break and some boys from Matthew's class said hi. Matthew turned to me a little sheepishly and whispered, "I don't know what to say to kids outside of school." These kids weren't his good friends. I learned later from Matthew that these were the "cool" kids and Matthew is a "friendly" kid, so they get along nicely but don't play together routinely. When we hit the ice again, these boys aggregated around Matthew and included him in everything. They started timing their laps. They told Matthew it was his turn, and he declined. They just told the next kid it was his turn. No teasing or excessive persuasion. Eventually, Matthew decided to take a timed lap. He was obviously slower and much less experienced. Halfway through, one of the kids skated out to skate next to him. the other kid continued timing. When Matthew finally returned to the start, his time was 3x longer than the worst time of any of the other boys. I wondered what might happen. It wasn't a true test...the boys knew I was watching, even though I was standing a ways off...but their reaction surprised me all the same. 

The kid with the timer excitedly told Matthew his time. Matthew was a little embarrassed. The kid was supportive, though, and genuinely praised his efforts. The group kept timing each other and being friendly and doing silly things for fun. When Matthew went for another timed lap, he shaved off 30 seconds! They were excited for him again!

Matthew had a GREAT time at the skating party. His good friends never showed up. That didn't really matter. He skated by himself and skated with the other boys from his class. At the end, as we walked to the skate return desk, Matthew said, "NGS is a really good school for me. I'm so glad I go there."

*********************************

Later that afternoon, James and Matthew decided they wanted to go sledding. Conditions were great. I wasn't too thrilled about going, but somehow I knew it was important that it happened that day. We arrived at the sledding hill and ran into James' closest friend from school. The three of them played (carefully and well-supervised by parents) on the frozen lake. I didn't take any pictures of James' friend, and I don't think I would post them here if I did, but he was there. I promise :)

Exploring the ice by the fishing dock

Matthew on a good day...friendly, cheerful, funny, brave, and happy to lie down on a frozen lake.

James managed to dislodge a hunk of ice from the lake surface. You can't really see it here, but it's several inches thick. Maybe 3-4 inches. He. was. thrilled. They tried to use this huge, heavy, pointy piece of ice to break other ice further out, but it just bounced off the surface. Crazy.

Then the boys went sledding together. We parents just watched, laughing at the hilarious outcomes. At one point, the boys were trying to sled onto a little ramp/jump someone had built at the bottom of the hill. Matthew was the first to hit it. He flew 3 feet straight up and landed hard on his back. He got the wind knocked out of him and used the rest of his energy to warn the other boys away from it. It was a hard target to hit, thankfully, and no one else got hurt. 

James just couldn't stay on his sled for whatever reason. His hair is wet with a delightful mixture of snow spray and sweat. It's a really big climb up this hill.

Matthew loved it!

Pink

Matthew needed a new winter coat. I was totally in agreement. He really wanted it to be pink. I hesitated.

Won't kids make fun of him?

I don't know.

Am I overreacting? 

Definitely.

A boy's pink coat used to be grounds for bullying and shame. Pink meant girly, which was synonymous in my mind with weak, silly, and frivolous. It was fine (and expected?) for girls to be these things (though I did NOT want to be seen that way), but not for boys. It turns out, however, that kids are growing up watching movies and reading books where girls and women have a broader range of socially-acceptable behaviors. They still have to be thin and beautiful, but they can also be smart, fierce, and compassionate leaders. They have autonomy. They are powerful. If I grew up when pink meant THOSE things, I might have developed a better feeling about pink. 

Well, whatever pink means now, Matthew just likes the color. He likes it as much as I hate it, actually. I tried to get him to choose purple just so I wouldn't have a pink coat in the house. No dice. This kid knows what he wants. 

When I was dropping Matthew off at school for the second day with his brand new pink coat, he pointed out one of his classmates hopping out of his car in front of us. He told me his name, which I promptly forgot because 1) he wasn't one of Matthew's closer friends, and 2) that kid was wearing a pink coat, too!

Icicle sword fighting

Note to Self

I was going through Matthew's school folder and discovered this little gem:

Transcription:

hi matthew

Here is some things to do when you are having a panick atack

Please acshaly use theas

• Breat in till you can't than do a little more the let it out
• go upside down
• try a cart wheel / gym nastincs
• think about hiyperfixsshons
• smile

I'm not sure who or what exactly gave him the idea to write this all down, but I suspect his therapist had something to do with it. hiyperfixsshons = hyperfixations = his absolute favorite things to obsess over lately.

[P.S. I asked Matthew later about this list when he was slowly but surely devolving into a panic attack. He scoffed. He said they HAD to make that list for his Social-Emotional Learning lesson and that he just made it all up. It meant nothing. Dang.]

[P.P.S. Yesterday morning, Matthew feels a panic attack coming on. He sucks in his breath, holds it, then sucks in a little more and holds it. Then he lets it all out and declares in shock, "I'm not stressed anymore! The breathing thing ACTUALLY works!" He was happy the rest of the morning and got to school just fine.]

Photos

Matthew's birthday cake this year :)

Matthew in his Spider Man costume for Halloween. 

James and Matthew at the ward Trunk-or-Treat. James is dressed as a "capitalist" and Matthew is a machine being controlled by a wolf. I think. 
 

Nova, absolutely pooped after a long morning chasing squirrels at the park.

Me and Matthew playing Bananya, the card game that Lukas' boyfriend bought Matthew during our visit to Carbondale. It's pretty cute. 

Fantastic icicles at Erin's house!

James' praying mantis egg case (aka oothecase) hatched this morning. I think we have maybe 100 baby praying mantises in my kitchen right now. Fortunately, our local pet store carries pinhead crickets and flightless fruit flies so they won't go hungry. Our last brood ended up eating each other, mostly, even with a steady supply of crickets. We've got them in a larger container this time...maybe that will curb the cannibalism? 

Ok, Let's Talk Turkey

Thanksgiving break was pretty nice this year. We planned to spend Thanksgiving in Ohio with our friends the Garners and the Barruses. James and Matthew had the whole week off, while Robert wasn't off until Wednesday, so I took the younger boys to Ohio for some touristy stuff before the two Roberts arrived Wednesday afternoon. Lukas opted to stay in Urbana with Erin this year. 

Did I take pictures? Not many. It looks like I haven't downloaded the photos from my phone in a very, very long time. 

Tuesday evening, the boys and I checked into our VRBO, but the front door code wasn't working. The instructions they emailed me said the code would be the last four digits of my phone number. Well, we tried it multiple times until the key pad itself locked us out. Matthew about died. He thought we would have to sleep outside. I contacted the owner and she fixed the issue. We unloaded our stuff, chose our bedrooms, made grilled cheese, and I went grocery shopping for the last few items we needed. It wasn't the loveliest place we've ever stayed, and it kinda smelled bad, but Matthew was starting to calm down. That's when the neighbors came by to let us know in no uncertain terms that they were very upset with the owner about parking and other property issues and the VRBO would be closed down by the city that weekend. Matthew kinda lost it. I assured him that none of that would affect our stay. We would park in the right place and leave at the right time. Matthew still didn't feel safe, but he was willing to give it a go. Well, about 8:30, we hear someone entering numbers into the front door keypad and trying to open it. Repeatedly. I open the door and it's another person claiming to have reserved this VRBO this weekend. We were both completely shocked. He tried to contact the owner and I suddenly remembered the code not working for us earlier...I looked over my reservation...yup, I had reserved this property for Thanksgiving 2026, not 2025. We had arrived a year early! 

Well, I scrambled to find another place to stay. Slim pickings. I did finally find one, but they wouldn't be ready for us tonight. We had to stay somewhere else tonight. We had to vacate the property in 20 minutes. Fortunately for me, Rachel's house guests weren't arriving until the next day, so we hurriedly loaded the van back up (and got another tongue lashing from the neighbor) and got out of there. Matthew pretty much decided he never wanted to come back to Ohio ever again. We crashed in Rachel's guest room. All three of us. She had several excellent sleeping places to offer us, but the boys wouldn't leave me. Matthew and I shared the bed and James stayed on an inflatable hiking mat on the floor. He did not sleep. I did not sleep. Matthew did great. 

Wednesday morning we decided to visit the Cleveland Museum of Art. They have an impressive display of medieval armor and weapons. They even have several suits of child-sized armor that were made for young princes. We examined every floor. My boys gravitated towards the realistic portraits and scenes. About 30 minutes into our art adventure, we were moving from the armor section past an elevator where 10 people suddenly spilled out around and through our little threesome. Seconds later, Matthew started getting a panic attack. Related? He said it wasn't, but I'm gonna hold on to it for a bit. 

Matthew suddenly decided at that moment to play a game. We would come up to a painting (realistic portraits of battle scenes and families and historical moments) and have to guess which person in the painting he was impersonating. James played, too. It was hilarious! That kid is something. The panic returned as soon as the game grew stale. I knew our time was short, but I wanted to see the last floor...Renaissance art. James started dragging his feet, too. Everyone knows that Matthew's panic signals the end. It's no use trying to stave it off. We turned the corner into the exhibit and I saw a painted scene from the nativity story. I asked them to tell me which person was Jesus. It was another game. They groaned in synch. I said we could leave the museum once we found Jesus 10 times. All of a sudden, they were dashing about examining the art and counting them up. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. They found 10 images of Jesus in about 20 seconds and we were done!

The Cleveland Art Museum Atrium. Matthew wanted a picture where it looked like he was holding the tree.

Here, we are taking the glass elevator down to the parking level. 

The next stop was Trader Joe's. It's a popular (and kooky?) grocery store with interesting items and flavors. We picked up mango-flavored dreamsicles and the cutest little ice cream cone drumsticks you've ever seen. That was lunch. We also found an ENORMOUS pair of pomegranates and a trio of fancy jams: rhubarb vanilla bean, mango with yuzu lemon, and strawberry with black pepper. See? It's kinda cool and weird all at once. 

After Trader Joe's, we headed back to Rachel's house. I got started on some bike repairs. Rachel's kids came home from school and we invited them to the movies with us. Not just any movie, but Wicked: For Good. The best seat we could find was way too close for my taste (4th row) but Matthew said, "I have to move my head just to see the whole screen! I love it!" And he loved, loved, loved the movie just as much. I talk a lot about Matthew's stress and panic attacks, but this kid is enthusiastic, funny, smart, confident, and just plain great to be around the rest of the time. It's a welcome relief to see him enjoying himself so thoroughly. 

Bobby and Robert arrived in Ohio during the movie. They weren't able to check in to our new VRBO until 4pm, and the owner was not the most responsive of communicators, so we just met up with them after the movie at the Garner's house. When we finally did check in to our rental, it was FREEZING. No bad smells or grouchy neighbors, though, so Matthew felt considerably safer. The old, drafty house never did warm up adequately. I kinda felt like I was camping.

Thursday morning, Thanksgiving, we had a leisurely breakfast of Dutch Puff and took our time getting ready for the day. We arrived at the Garners' house about 11am and stayed until 8pm or so. It was a long day of video gaming, bike repair, food prep, lots of good conversations with my friends, some board games, a service project, and an excellent meal with people I enjoy very much. Robert had a headache, though, and was struggling to have fun with teenagers he barely remembered and who had nothing obviously in common with his current interests. My friend was scoring pre-calculus exams for her college-level math class and offered a blank one to Robert. He finished it in 20 minutes and only missed one point for having a negative sign in the wrong place. He was pretty proud of that, and was offered some calculus problems to work on. Robert is not in a calculus class. He's studying it on his own to take the AP exam in May. Working on the problems was great, he said, until he had a question about something and all the Garner boys (who are currently taking college-level calculus) knew something that he didn't. It made him feel stupid :( A lot of Robert's current self-image is built on being really good at some things. Math is one of those things. So, being the only teenager in the room who didn't know that one math thing was a real blow.

Friday was another leisurely day. We had pie for breakfast! Then we had an elaborate popcorn tasting before the Barrus family had to leave. There was a winter storm coming through that would make their drive home very difficult and dangerous if they didn't leave in the early afternoon. It turns out the most traditional-looking popcorn won in almost every category. After lunch, we visited the Fannie-May chocolate factory. Tours weren't happening that day, but we got to taste a piece at their gift shop and score some great chocolate deals. 

James out in front of the chocolate factory. It's freezing cold. There's snow and ice everywhere. No one wants to sit on the giant chair. And James will not smile in a picture unless it's an accident. 

After lunch, Rachel and Gideon drove me to a bike shop to pick up some parts. Fortunately, they had everything I needed! I worked on bikes the rest of the afternoon. That evening, we played Bunco. 

As I explained how to play the game to a cluster of teenagers and young adults, Robert insisted that I was making absolutely no sense. Joshua backed me up, though, saying that my explanation was plenty clear. I took it as a sign, however small, that my communication issues with Robert may not be entirely as one-sided as he proclaims. 

This is the traditional "kids on the stairs" photo that we take when we visit the Garners. You can see some Barruses in there, and there are a LOT of kids missing. This is also one of the few pictures you'll see James smiling by accident. 

We left for home the next morning, but had to stop halfway and spend the night in Dayton, OH. Another winter storm had closed down the freeway. It was hard to believe, though, since Dayton was getting no snow whatsoever. Bobby and I left the boys at the hotel to check out another kooky grocery store in Cinncinati. It was pretty weird. We found a few treasures, though, that we had to bring home. 

That night in the hotel, James got the bed with me and Matthew got the couch. I did not sleep. James did not sleep. Matthew did fine. 

As we drove again the next day on perfectly dry roads, James started doubting whether we should have stayed overnight in Dayton at all. Just past Indianapolis, we saw a couple cars that had slid off the road the day before. Then another. And another. In that final stretch of highway between Indy and Urbana, we counted 16 cars that had slid off the road into snowbanks and ditches. James no longer doubted the wisdom in staying in Dayton for the night. 

While we were away, Lukas was crazy-busy in our kitchen. He baked oatmeal raisin chocolate chip cookies, 3 dozen croissants, and several small loaves of bread. He prepared his signature ramen and experimented with a fermented ginger drink. He cooked a large batch of beef stroganoff to take back to college with him. He said he lost track of time while he was cooking/baking. It was lovely. He also cleaned up after himself!

I had a great time visiting with my friends. The weather didn't allow for a trip to Kirtland, OH, so we'll have to go back when it's warmer :)