Day Three of ADHD

Living life with ADHD means that we’ll have to make sacrifices. If we don’t, we’re going to pay the price later on.

For example. Last night we went to my brother and sister-in-law’s house for dinner.

Ok, back that thought train up.

Yesterday morning, we went to my nephews’ basketball games. They spilled over passed lunch time. But we had the pizza parlor reserved for almost two o’clock. By the time we finished eating, it was almost three o’clock. But the fun wasn’t over! For the rest of the day, we were in and out and all around flying by the seat of our pants.

And it was great. Seth was great. He had one outburst as we were leaving a fun activity. He holed himself up in a time out and screamed at me that he couldn’t handle me anymore. After I reminded him (Kinda forcefully) that he was allowed to be upset and frustrated, but he was not allowed to yell, he took a shuddering breath, wiped his eyes and said, “Mom. Did you know that some venus fly traps have teeth?”

Thus it is with a kid with ADHD.

The day of games, family and fun ended around 9pm last night.  Over an hour and a half passed Seth’s bedtime. I shook my head the whole way home and said, “We should have left an hour ago.”

This morning, Seth was a terror. An absolute terror. I was physically shoving his church clothes on as he screamed “I hate this day!”

Fortunately, he was able to calm down enough to be good for his teachers at Sunday school. Thank heavens. But all day we’ve been dealing with the consequences of staying out late.

I told my husband, “We cannot go out anymore on Saturday nights.”

He sighed in defeat and said, “I know.”

I wanted to echo his sad little sigh.

It stinks. We don’t like having to stick to a set routine. We don’t like that we can’t just pick up and go out without worrying how Seth is going to react. For years we’ve avoided fun activities because we know when it’s all said and done, our son is going to make a scene when it’s time to go.

We don’t like that.

We rearrange our schedules to make sure he’s not too over stimulated. To make sure he sleeps enough and eats at the right times. He throws fits. In public. And we handle it with patience and calm – which sometimes seems like our five-year-old is walking all over us.

But you know what?

Seth is worth it.