We Go With Him

Night Owl in Stormy Weather

I don't know how he does it. Charlie woke around 3am Tuesday morning and stayed awake in his room and the brown chair and walking and got last-minute nervous just before the bus came as a woman with her dog couldn't figure out to walk on the grass or in the street as the sidewalk is still blocked off.

Charlie had a great day at school with a great swim in the pool.

Aided by a juice pack I had stowed on the bag on Jim's bike, Charlie endured 93 degree weather for 12 miles.

He handled a detour en route to get groceries as there was a two-car accident.

He walked, he cried ferociously, his face froze hard.

It passed after 35 minutes and a spatter of rain fell. The wind was swirling and the air losing some of its heavy wetness when we all 3 did a third walk. It was raining, though in a sporadic way, as we walked the last segment.

Charlie went to bed but seems to be on one of his 72-hours non-sleep periods as, for all that he woke so early, he is still awake.

I think he also feels himself waiting for the storm truly to break, the rain to pour, the wind to bellow and the air ease up.

 

As When a Butterfly Flaps Its Wings

 

Since last Wednesday night, Charlie has been going to sleep at a reasonable hour and sleeping soundly.

Tonight he is wakeful. But there are a cloud of circumstances for him to contend with, from my parents' departure Tuesday to a predicted week of wet, heavy humid air, rain and grey skies, to Jim and me being finished with teaching and therefore home for the summer.

The latter was a change that Charlie's teacher reminded me about when he called in the early afternoon. Charlie has gotten upset in the morning; aside from the other reasons, his teacher noted how us being on 'full time home mode' had unnerved Charlie before. It's the kind of change that certainly has benefits (no bike ride-less days) but for Charlie, change (minute or grand) is change, is something to get used to.

Charlie was frowning getting off the bus and zoomed upstairs to check and see that yes my parents were gone. He cried out and stood mopily. As per his request, I got out the bikes with him watching me and he and Jim did the full 12 mile route: The sky was mostly grey but there was no rain.

Charlie got in more exercise -- two walks -- and I dictated several rounds of combinations of words for him to type in the YouTube search box.

For a time, he took up his post in the brown chair at the foot of our stairs, a few minutes before 1 am, then went up to bed  and right now the music from his iPad is 'Bella Notte.'

Oxymoronic

With Charlie, it's so often a matter of completely opposite extremes all at once.

Thursday was a hyperenergy - fatigue kind of day. Up all night, walk at 5am, conking out in the brown chair in the hour before the bus came. Great day at school, happy bike ride (with my parents, for the first part), a little grocery shopping, a walk. Another walk. Tears and Charlie getting that pre-storm look on his face because, if he felt anything like I did last night, his head must have been feeling mighty fuzzy.

He stayed in his room after extra-elaborately arranging all of his items on the bed after removing them from their floor array. 

And he slept through the night and got ouf bed after the bus had pulled up (and kindly waited).

Barometer Boy

 

On a walk this morning at 5.15am, Charlie and I discovered that the humid weather of the past couple of days had subsided. A cool breeze blew on us and I made sure to open the windows when we returned.

That change in the weather, and the barometric pressure, was perhaps what had kept him up all through Wednesday night, along with (possibly) stomach discomfort. Wednesday hWeatad been one of those days when he woke at 5am and, after the usual day of school and a long bike ride and a run-walk, and a great deal of pacing and running in over-the-top excited mode with the iPad bellowing Jimi Hendrix, the Wiggles, the Pogues and some ska -- when, despite being in nearly constant motion, Charlie did not sleep. Through the wee hours of the night was in good spirits, assenting to lie on his bed and listen to some nature sounds -- waves, whale songs.

By 5am, he came down the stairs, ate a good bit of breakfast before the walk and then sat in the brown chair and fell asleep -- as of this typing, he has just under an hour of shut-eye before the bus comes.

Having finished my grades and almost all my job-related work for the school year, I am not back in the classroom till late August. I think will be sharing Charlie's 3-day sleep-waking cycle through the summer.

 

The Night Before

 

Jim and I had a feeling Charlie would be (1) anxious (knowing that my parents arrive tomorrow) and therefore (2) non-sleeping.

Well, thanks to the past several weeks, my view of what 'sleep' means has completely changed into whatever hours or parts of hours can be acquired, a little there and a little here.

Thursday night Charlie went to sleep about 1am and woke just before 6am. I'm thinking five hours of sleep a night is all he really needs most nights -- it's all I really need -- and I'm more hoping that Charlie can, at some point, return to a fairly consistent (albeit short) schedule of sleep.

School had been good but after a bike ride and dinner, Charlie was clearly wrapped up in nervous anticipation. I made him a new calendar to show the days of my parents visit. Charlie paced back and forth, sometimes looking at us.

It was clearly dark and then Jim proposed a bike ride and Charlie eagerly embraced the thought, only to spend half an hour stomping, staring at his feet, staring at us as he demanded a long local bike ride.

Considering the hour, something a little shorter was in order. Charlie was slow to get started then off he and Jim went, in glow-in-the-dark vests and with lights a-flashing.

It was a cool, crisp night. Across the street, the two boys whose oldest brother is just finishing his first year of college were up to something in their driveway with their skateboard ramp. I was reminded of the last night my students and I had spent in Athens last year, knowing we had to get up early to catch our plane and wanting to take one last walk to see everything, while thinking about our impending going home.

It was a fine ride. And then I went up to check on Charlie who'd said 'bedtime' and found that a quick wash of some items (like a big fleece blanket) from his bed, was in order.

Waiting, Charlie stood then took our suggestion to sit on the blue couch. Then he fell asleep before his blanket and some other items, hot and fresh, came out of the dryer.

They're on his bed now.

 

Just Your Usual Thursday (Bikes, Eats, Walks, Up Real Late)

There a bit more symmetry than might first meet the eye in Charlie's above arrangement.

He had a much better day at school after waking at 5am and having a lot of breakfast -- why, I suspect, Charlie didn't eat much of his snack or lunch (a couple of food items came back in his lunchboxes).

It was breezy, cooler and less humid than on Wednesday. He and Jim rode bikes, we all did some grocery shopping, we enjoyed the crisper air again on two walks. Charlie listened on and off to some of the music from the Charlie Brown shows.

You won't be surprised to hear that he is still up past midnight. I've been trying different things including, for the past two nights, lights out and music off after midnight. Tonight, am trying for a more peaceable less "cop-mom' approach.

I do have a Latin exam on Friday morning but it starts at 9am rather than at 8am (the time when my Latin class started) -- yes, a good thing, that!

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10 minutes after posting this, I heard the Kinks no longer playing and found Charlie sound asleep, iPad under his hand.

 

Truly, Sleep Is Only For the Weak (And Only Once a Week)

 

I was prepared for Charlie to be on one of his 72-hour sleep cycles such that, after staying up till 4am on Tuesday morning, he did nearly the same on Tuesday night.

Charlie was really on his way to pulling an all-nighter Monday night. Just as he seemed (at last) settled in his bed with the sound of ocean waves playing on his iPad, I'd hear the peppy beats of 'Let's Get Together' (Annette Funicello version) playing. In past times, Charlie playing such high-energy tunes in the wee hours of the night has resulted in him getting up and running around rather wildly, then banging his iPad or his head or tossing dishes etc. while in revved-up hyper mode. So on hearing the music pop on about every 15 or 20 minutes from 1 - 4am (or so it seemed), I got up and said as sootihingly as I could that he needed to get to sleep! As the bus would be coming sooner, and sooner.

We've learned that Charlie has an uncanny ability to get up for the bus no matter how late he sleeps. So Jim got Charlie up just a minute or two before the bus pulled up on Tuesday.

He ran off the bus smiling in the afternoon, to ride bikes and ask me 'type B ocean' and run on his walk with so much vigor you'd never think this child had had two and a half (probably fewer) hours of sleep.

Proof is in the pudding: By 10pm, Charlie was soundly sleeping.

Jim and I have figured his extreme wakefulness is the manifestation of the anxiety he always feels prior and post my parents visiting. Generally bouts of grandparent anxiety have involved many other and more difficult behaviors than the two on Monday night, furniture-knocking-over and box-of-book-throwing -- if that is the only ways he shows his worry, it counts as progress: I'd far rather have to drink an extra round of coffee than navigate through a severe behavior storm.

But we'll do that too, if need be.

 

It's Always the Future Active Participle Around Here

After sleeping long and sound on Saturday and Sunday night, it wasn't surprising that Charlie was awake past midnight on Monday. He'd been tired at school but still had a good day. The sky had been gray and portending rain (and raining some) but he and Jim completed all the twelve miles of their bike ride.

He was just this bit on edge as we drove to get some groceries; perhaps because last week the store had been out of his preferred type of crackers in the red box?

I ran ahead and saw some boxes on the shelf above the frozen desserts. Charlie smiled to see them too and the rest of the evening was full of munching, walking, running, music.

The Kinks were playing as midnight neared and I was trying to get my mind in gear to write about jobs for autistics. There was a loud noise, the too-familiar sound that some piece of furniture had been overturned. I ran up the stairs, Jim came up too, Charlie sat on his bed staring a bit blankly. Five minutes passed and he suddenly zoomed down the stairs and overturned a box of books.

For 45 minutes he sat in the brown chair and started to doze off, then went up to his room and then came almost an hour of transitioning him from on-the-verge-of-upsetment* to something calmer. Nothing else flew, there was no banging of heads or iPads. I did offer Charlie an apple slice or two. Jim gave him a shave. Jim went downstairs and typed an email. I sat on the blue couch and read about the singer of tales.

Charlie called several times for my parents, Gong Gong and Po Po: Of course he is all anticipation, as we ourselves have anticipated. We looked at the calendar and counted off the days till Saturday when they arrive.

In the interest of getting him a bit of sleep before the bus comes -- he is quite awake at 2am -- I am signing off. I will write that story about autistics and jobs on Tuesday -- a topic very close to our thoughts all the time. Charlie has been saying 'bus' and much hangs on his knowing that it is coming at 7.40am and the day it does not, we have to be ready.

Update, 7.55am. Charlie went to sleep at 4am. Hopped up like a rabbit at 7.40 when Jim told him the bus was here.

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*Excitaturus -- a future active participle -- in Latin.

 

Gut Speaking?

Charlie once again did not go to sleep until after 2.30 am. These wakeful nights take a definite pattern: A walk around 8 or 8.30pm; up to bed by 10pm and clearly yawning; quiet in Charlie's room around 11pm so I feel sure he will sleep; footsteps in the hall just after midnight that turn into many, fast footsteps and then, after carefully concise gentle coaxing and one reminder that he has to rise early to get the school bus, back into bed at maybe 2am and (in the case of last night) sleep past 2.30am.

There was also a run into the kitchen at about 1.30am after sitting on the brown chair and blue couch (our furniture is not color-coordinated but color-identifiable). Charlie didn't budge for a bit and just stood by the refrigerator and the thought passed my mind, maybe his stomach hurts?

Keeping him up potentially and the only thing he can think to do is to go into the kitchen as that's all about food and eating and of course those are 'stomach things'?

Ever heroically, Charlie got out of bed at 7.31 am and stood waiting on the porch with Jim till the bus pulled up.

The Very Early Bird

 

Charlie was in a great mood all day Monday, even though -- who knows, maybe because! -- he woke at 1.30am, 2.30am or 5am: He was awake (as signalled by knuckle-cracking and turning on his iPad) at all those times. By 5.45am, he and I were out for a walk.

By 8.30pm, Charlie was in bed after the usual good rounds of his routine: Bus, school, home, waiting for dad to come home, bike ride, dinner.

I think he may be on the verge of waking right now: If these very early wake-ups are going to be the new sleep pattern for awhile, good thing they've coincided with the end of Jim's and my semesters of teaching.