Dawn Breaks...

Having written a rather bleak post a few days ago, I thought I should follow up with more positive news.

In the grand tradition of it getting darkest before the dawn, CJ seems to have settled in to being home at last. He is now in his own room and it appears to have done the trick. He's slept 11 hours the last 2 nights, which is huge and bodes well for the future. His sleep schedule is the first thing that goes when he is spiraling and if we can correct that it generally signals we've broken the cycle. Even better, he actually went to the bathroom all by himself this morning. This marks the first time we have not cleaned up after him in several months and was a welcome relief for Craig and me, especially since his little brother is taking the final steps in potty training and doing double-duty was getting hard.

All this played out in our having a great weekend. We spent lots of time at the pool on Friday and Saturday, getting to relax and enjoy ourselves as a family. AJ had his promotion ceremony on Friday, which was wonderful. We got to see him waltz with his classmates, such a joy. Both boys started T-Ball on Saturday and had a blast and AJ also played in a soccer tournament and his team won. Today, Craig and I actually managed to get a lot done around the house and the boys entertained themselves for quite a while with only minimal conflict. Yay!

I'm sure there will be rough spots over the next couple of weeks, but those are manageable if they are not the norm, which is where we have been. His brothers managed to make it through the last couple of days without any major hits (although the bite mark on AJ's shoulder from last week will be around for a while) and also seem to be relaxing a little. Again, an important step since they also play a role in getting CJ riled up. My dad has offered to take CJ one day a week for some one-on-one time, a blessing since it will give CJ a break from the other boys and allow him to mellow out with one of his favorite people.

Craig and I both realize that we can't "fix" CJ, but we can, and do, work hard to create an environment that builds on his strengths and alleviates his areas of weakness. We're hopeful that we were closer to finishing the jigsaw puzzle than we realized.