Butterflies and Jumping But No Banging

The super sweet smile Charlie had on his face as he came down the stairs Sunday morning faded as we returned from an early morning walk and then, as I was walking back into the house from the backyard to work on some weeds, I heard the sound of items falling on the floor. After days of cheeriness, Charlie was storming, starting with a refrigerator takedown attempt.

Though he did try to also pull down the piano (he didn't; the books atop it all flew) and he jumped so high and so hard the entire house shook and more books stack on the floor fell over, and he screamed, kicked and hit (not really making contact with the last) for some 30 minutes, Sunday remained a beautiful day.

There was no iPad bashing into the wall, or head-banging, though at the start his legs were shaking as fiercely as on the Tuesday night before school began. That Tuesday night episode had been preceded by two manageable, small storms; not sure if the one on Sunday morning might similarly be a prelude?

But sticking to Sunday. We set a timer once Charlie was clearly calming and, after 35 minutes, he and Jim took the black car to drop off a load of yardstuff to the town dump. Then lunch and then he went straight to bed and, with Sugarcane Harris blaring, slept till 4.30pm after which he and Jim had a fabulous ride in Jersey City followed by Charlie's favorite Vietnamese food. He stayed up for quite a while, not surprisingly, and went into the room my parents are sleeping in and said 'hi' and 'GongGong' and 'PoPo' until my mom suggested she and he go downstairs so my dad could sleep.

My parents are leaving Thursday so I'm figuring it's Charlie's usual anticipation anxiety, plus he has Monday off from school for Rosh Hashanah. He did indeed have a bad stomachache (the jumping is a sure sign) too, along with anticipation butterflies. I'm thinking, too, when he didn't see me in the house when I was out in the backyard weeding in the morning, he had a moment of panic and thought I was gone?