The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

The good
Eric has been great with saying his greetings. He will come up to me cuddle and say "hi" to me numerous times. He will take turns with me which is great. He is saying "bye" to his friends as they leave too. Within the last few days Eric has come up to me and makes a smaking noise with his lips and puts his face by mine. He is asking for and accepting kisses from me. He won't actually kiss me yet, just by me. I never thought I would ever see this. This is the ultimate of motherhood to me. Since this is so hard for Eric I definately do not take this for granted. Wow is all I have to say. Maybe him saying "I love you mommy" is a realistic dream. One thing at a time, I know. I will take this :-()!
The bad
These little guys have been through a lot of changes the last couple of months. There is going to be plenty going on for the next few weeks with appointments, ect. The weather is so cold, snowy and yucky that going anywhere or playing outside just isn't possible. School was closed for the last 2 days of the week because of extreame cold temperatures. Today was a half day for Eric. They love going to school and were missing it I am sure. The tantrums have increased big time. All of these boys are getting upset about the littlest things, or for no apparent reason. They haven't been sleeping well either so I am sure they are very tired. They have such a hard time settling down at night. If anything wakes them up it is very difficult for them to go back to sleep. There is more being asked of Eric at home whether the therapists are here or not. We have to follow through with what they do for the therapy to be effective. He is not happy about the changes so he melts down. Andy has gotten into the habit of turning on and off the lights, the television, the computer, and the dvd player. It is almost like Andy is doing this on purpose to upset Eric. I do not blame Eric for being angry in the least bit. But Eric really does not have to bang his head, kick, hit and push his brother, stomp and scream loud enough to wake the dead when this happens. Yesterday this was all happening while I was really tired and had a bad headache. The constant blinking and noise pushed me to the edge, it was a rough night for all of us. I know this is typical behavior for children and between siblings, especially boys. The problem is that my 2 boys don't know how to express their feelings and frustrations in a productive way and these things happen. This is why routines and physical activity are so important for my sons.
The ugly
Eric's bedroom is a disaster area right now. He has unplugged the cable box and it is laying God only knows where in there. His bed is in pieces all over the room. He rips off the sheets,matteress pad, pillows and pushes the matteress off the box spring. I will put it back together to find a few minutes later it is apart again. Now to the real big problem. Eric has been taking all of his clothing off when he is in there, underwear or diaper included. He then eliminates all over the carpet. Lets just say that carpet is very stained and smelly from urine and feces. This ends up on his clothing too so I have to get him in the bath and new clothing. My clothes dryer is broken so laundry is an issue here right now. Not to mention that everytime one of them needs to go in the bath the other 2 insist on joining too. So I then have a very wet bathroom to clean too. I got the carpet cleaned the best I can, then Eric goes back in and does it AGAIN! I know he don't understand why he can't do this but this is making want to scream! He was doing so well with potty training, now we have this issue and I have to go back to diapers and get creative to boot. There is plenty here to keep me out of trouble to say the least.