Back to school and stress

Back to school today, Michael hasn't had a good night, it took him until almost 10pm last night to settle down to sleep, and he was wide awake at 5.45am.

Bright eyed and bushy tailed as the saying goes, if you look at the last entry on here last night I was awake late, so the last thing I wanted to do was get up at 6am! My own fault I hear you say for staying up so late, self inflicted and all that. But I am having problems sleeping at the moment, I am enjoying the peace and quiet the house seems to offer when they are all in bed and asleep!

Anyway we were up and sorted and more than ready when the taxi arrived this morning to take Michael to school. It was his first day in his new classroom, and apparently he has worked really hard and done really well. He burst out of the taxi this afternoon with a bright yellow book bag, and a big beam on his face, because he has a book bag. I'd love to be able to tell you that he was chatting away and telling me all about his day and what he'd been doing but there was nothing, other than this book bag, he had it open before we were up the path, and pulled out a couple of pictures that he's done in class today. It was lovely, and warmed my heart to see him so full of enthusiasm for his book bag.

Once inside the house Michael decided he would like to go on the Playstation, which wasn't plugged in, I'd un-plugged it earlier to dry my hair, and forgot to plug it back in......one day I will learn.

So I returned the plug to the socket, and left the room, disc wouldn't work, old disc that has been previously a victim of Michael's teeth by the look of it. Half an hour later he was still inconsolable and furious that the disc wouldn't work.

The temptation to say "well if you hadn't chewed it" is great, but it wouldn't do any good at all. Michael wouldn't remember having chewed the disc, so the coment would be wasted on him.

The most frustrating part of the Autism is trying to get through to him when he is like this. I can't, he doesn't understand, all he knows is it doesn't work and he's 'angry' about it. If he even understands the anger.

A lot of work has been done with him on feelings and emotions, and he can see the faces, and point to a happy face or a sad face etc, but I'm still not sure how much he understands the emotions behind them.

Can I say by 4.30pm I was looking forward to bedtime?????