Ryan's day - Fri Jan 4

Had to wake R this morning, he came downstairs a little after 7:00. He ate only a spoonful of his oatmeal this morning, and a swig of milk. He dressed easily with warmed clothes. His mood was a bit feisty. He was reluctant to do the sensory obstacle course this morning, until I pointed out the new indoor swing that we could use with it. He did three rounds of the course, but was very loud and a bit manic during it. I was hopeful that it had taken the edge off his feistiness for school. He had to get school lunch today because he wasn't allowed to use his lunchbox (my decision), so I'm not sure what he had to eat. He had a candy cane in the car after school, leftover from yesterday (from his teachers). He was in a good mood coming out of school, but nearly tackled me when he saw me (not unusual for him). I found out that he got his green and yellow cards pulled this morning, for personal space issues and general out-of-order stuff. Thankfully he didn't hurt anyone.

The kids came in the house and immediately wanted to swing. I told them they could swing after the legos, books and cars had been picked up (about half the mess on the playroom floor). Lily decided to watch Dora instead, Max and Ryan played together and separately in the playroom. During the time before they cleaned up, Max was playing with the part of the swing that he could reach, and Ryan was yelling at him to leave the swing alone (I'd told them not to touch it). Max was on the step-stool reaching up holding onto the swing (I'd looped it so it was to high to use until I wanted them to) and Ryan pushed him hard from behind, causing M to lose his balance and fall hard on his hands and kneew. I saw it, immediately told Ryan to step away from the swing, reminded him that it wasn't his job to make sure Max wasn't doing something he shouldn't, and to go sit on the step for pushing. As I was helping Max up, Ryan turned around and kicked me hard in the shin with that belligerent look in his eye. I ended up smacking his butt because I am so tired of him willfully and purposefully hurting me. He went straight up to his room after that, yelling at me, calling me names ("stupid eyeball") but he stayed there for about 20 minutes. After that, I managed to withstand a few quarrels and whining about cleaning up, but Ryan got them all started and they cleaned the requested items mostly together. I had them take turns swinging, asking Ryan to go last in the rotation and then he'd get more time to swing. He agreed but wasn't patient in the waiting (but neither were the other two). No other problems that I can remember.

We went out to dinner, where he ate a few chicken nuggets and french fries and he was mostly very well behaved. I praised him as we were leaving, and he said to me.."I was the most respectful one here, wasn't I?" Yes, yes you were. :-) At home it took some coaxing for him to get his jammies on, but he did and he sat down and read to me for a few minutes. He was excited for me to be the one to snuggle with him on his bed. He was asleep in less than 5 minutes, at about 8:10.