Day of Greatness

I know I'm jinxing it, but I have to record the awesomeness that was today.

We've had some struggles with Eli again. Bad struggles. The good news is they are isolated incidents; they don't last for days on end, or even a whole day at a time. However, they are severe and difficult to work through. He has such an explosive anger/frustration if he's tired. At all. We are working as best we can to love him through these while still maintaining our rules and expectations for how we expect to be treated. Sigh.

Today was amazing. Seriously amazing. As a Monday, we are back in school, so after school can be a struggle due to the surprise fatigue, but Eli rose above. He had a great morning with Lehr (even though they woke up late), and he came off of the bus very happy. Once home, there were a few things I asked him to do (reading and thank you notes), and I got nothing but obedience. Amazing. Then we had a short room time during which I had to tell Eli 'no' a few times. (He lost some privileges during his outburst on Saturday and he wanted those privileges back.) I couldn't believe it, but he accepted my 'no' and moved on. Shock. Awe.

Around 4PM we came downstairs to do some thank you's and then play. Eli worked quickly and Maddux did some 'work' at the same time. (She loves to work on letters or numbers when he's working!) Eli was incredibly complimentary and encouraging to Maddux. He praised her letters and even showed her how to do a few things. ALL without any prompting from me. Wow.

Maddux does not have school on Monday, so it's usually a fun day for us. However, we had two lengthy errands to run, including one trip to the mall (which we have seriously maybe visited three times in her life) so I could go to the Apple store for a laptop fix. I was anticipating the worst: driving most of the morning, in and out of the car a few times, followed by a trip to an electronics store where she'd have to sit still for an extended period of time??! She was amazing. Very good all morning, even holding my hand voluntarily when walking outside (which is sometimes a struggle). When we got to the Apple store, we ended up staying for about an hour. Not one problem. I'd packed a few small things for her, but she got on one of the kid computers there and worked the whole time. She hasn't used a computer before; they haven't used them yet in her class and we don't do computer games at the house. But I showed her a few things with the mouse and she took off. Really, really cool.

After a very nice, peaceful dinner, Lehr and I decided to pull some ice cream out of the freezer as a way to reinforce the day-oh-greatness. Quite a big treat in our house, and it was well received :)