I'm trying to be grateful......really I am!

 

The last couple of weeks have been pretty full on with sick kids, Hubby's work, my Stepson's Autism tantrums, my stepdaughter's moodiness and my own kid's homework/school hassles.  I am trying to be grateful for the small things but right now it's a little tough.  The above photos are of the basket of ironing that is waiting for me and my folding which I did this morning.  This bed you see pictured here is my stepson's.  The room is our old loungeroom.

Earlier this year we decided that our large family room was only really being used by my stepson and no one else really used it for much.  So we moved out of the smaller front lounge and into the family room.  Yes the extra space is nice but now our old lounge is rendered a vacant lot for the majority of the time because my stepson is the only one that uses it.  Now as you will see we have a strip of vinyl which runs from the front door though to a door which is barricaded off by his bed.  The horrible dirty looking concrete floor used to have carpet on it,,,,,,that is until Stepson moved into the room and proceeded to use it as a toilet :( (the joys of having an autistic child that sadly isn't toilet trained and after 8 years of attempts being made I am beginning to lose hope of it ever happening :(  I could go on about the amount of gross behaviours that this child exhibits but I think if I did, I would find my friendly followers would all fly the coop lol).  If I took another photo of the room I would show you the curtains, or what is left of them that Stepson has also destroyed.  The remnants  now sit at varying lengths along my nice big front window.

Right now I quite honestly don't know what to do about the whole room situation.  I hate having a room that looks like a war zone when he is here and this barren wasteland when he isn't.  I hate that he can't simply share a room with one of the boys, but sadly that would be a recipe for disaster and we would find that the boy's things would be destroyed very fast, not only that we have to barricade him into his room at night or he will be literally destroying the house, raiding the fridge and every light and piece of electronic equipment would be on.  When he is here keys have to be hidden and the house has to be locked up like a prison or he will go walk about.

Some days I find it hard to be grateful and today is one of them.

I guess one thing I am grateful for is the fact that he doesn't live here full time like he used to.  The stress one child can place on a family is immense.  His mother doesn't seem to bothered but the state of their  house I believe is totally atrocious, I simply can't live like that.  At Mum's house he is apparently left pretty much to do what he wants, there isn't much supervision.  We have heard from my Step Daughter that he got into the little kid's chocolates from easter and ate the lot in one sitting.  He destroyed her Nintendo DS.  They simply replaced it for her.  We can't do that and I believe that Autistic or not he has to be taught to fit in somehow.  Days like this I sit here and think about what the future holds for him and I guess for us too.  What happens when he is a teenager and bigger and stronger (he is very tall for his age as it is).  What happens when he finishes school, what future does he have.  

In his eyes, I am the Wicked Witch of the East.  When his Dad leaves the room he runs from me, not wanting to be near me.  If I go near him or into "his" room he screams, and I mean blood curdling screams that you would quite honestly think he was being belted within an inch of his life.  I quite honestly expect to have the police knock on my door one day during school holidays, when I have to care for him up to 10 hours a day by myself.  I am sure that the neighbours must think I am abusing him.  Out of those 10 hours he can sometimes scream for at least half of them.  School holidays can be very short on fun sometimes for our house.  The other kids spend way too much time on Xbox or Wii or generally in front of the TV as I simply can't go out when I have him.  My boys really look forward to the half of the school holidays when we don't have the stepkids here.  I hate that, it shouldn't be like that :(

OK enough of my ranting, I will go and do this basket of ironing, so at least the clothes can all be put away and the room looks a little less like a chinese laundromat.