We live in a tiny apartment & they're always in each other's space (& face). It helped when I discovered that if I keep Logie near me at all times before we leave it goes a little smoother. He is almost 11 years old. This is not easy because I have a tendency to get off-task (which I am always fighting against...) It does not come naturally for me to be on task at all times. I want to stay on task and remind myself constantly to stay and finish what I was doing. It takes huge amounts of energy to stay on top of my own schedule AND theirs.
We all generally put our clothes and bags out the night before unless something happens to disrupt our schedule and then I/they don't remember/have time for everything they need to do at night so I end up doing those things too late at night. In other words, we should not ever go out to eat or go to meetings in the evening after school, but it happens anyway. I wake up at 5:30 and shower before I wake them up at 6. If I have an elementary sub job, they have an hour to get ready and eat something while I get dressed, and put on eyeliner, and police their behavior. If I work at a middle school or high school I have to be there a little after 7 and all they have is 30 minutes for getting dressed & they eat breakfast at school. Of course because of our custody "agreement" the boys are only at my house half the time. I'm not sure what happens at their dad's or at his parent's houses? It seems like after me telling them every day they're here how to live, they would have remembered, but no. They do not.
Like I said, it works best to just keep him with me at all times. These days I can trust L. to put his clothes on, I usually have to remind him to put on socks, brush his teeth, throw away his pull-up, pick his robe off the floor. We usually make the beds when we get home. I can send them to their room to clean up stuff while I get dinner ready and sometimes it gets done without me having to go back in there and referee or remind them what's next.
I keep their hair really short now to make mornings easier. If we can be out of the house before 7:15 we are doing GREAT. Most days we aren't. If I find myself waiting for Ian, at age 16, to come out of his room or the bathroom, that means he is sitting on his bed all ready and waiting for me to say let's go while I am doing something like putting dishes in the dishwasher, waiting for him to be ready even though he's already ready. If I am on his butt the whole time, that's the day he's still got wet hair walking out the door. At age 9 Mr. C. has his morning routine perfected and God Bless His Heart.
Our 2nd floor apartment has a door at the top of our own private flight of stairs, with a storm door at the bottom of the stairs. It is quite common for me to throw L's shoes down to the bottom of the stairs just so they'll all get out of the house, so I can lock the door and go get the car out of the garage. I won't keep his shoes down there though because they would freeeezzzze. He is famous for delay tactics. If I am leaving and he is staying, he wants 3 hugs, he needs to tell me about something very important, and probably he will run out of the house calling for me to wait, he forgot to tell me something else. I want to "be there" for him to talk to, so then I feel crappy for blowing him off so I'm not late for where-ever I'm going. If I put him to bed on time he is up 8 times for various important reasons that I tell him will have to wait till morning because I'm not going to talk to him, all 8 times. He gets really mad about this and then everything after that involves bothering his brothers while they're trying to sleep. If I just put him in time-out for 10 minutes the first time he gets out of bed it either helps or pisses him off more, but I don't always remember to do that while I'm trying to get my own evening routine done. If I put Mr. C. in my bed or let him fall asleep on the couch till Logie falls asleep, it works the best, but I don't like that option much because then someone has to wake C. up and follow him as he sleepwalks to his own bed. L has trouble with those transitions. I never slept either, I had my own room and would leave my light on and read all night till I fell asleep, then I'd nearly fall asleep in class.
Many of the schools I sub at are 30 minutes away from our neighborhood, and it takes about 30 minutes to drop the little brothers off at their before-school program at the school, and my oldest at the high school, so I budget an hour for that process. L's meds kick in around 8 and I have to be sure and get some food in his stomach before he takes his pill because otherwise there's a chance he might not eat all day. (Then as the meds wear off he gets home and gorges on anything he can find. He also pukes at night if he's eaten too much and stayed up too late, but that hasn't happened lately. It's a never-ending joy ride with that one.)
I don't feel too guilty about keeping things on hand for them to eat in the car on the way to school. That's actually how I ended up eating two frozen pop-tarts Friday on my way home from school. I was so mad about L kicking C that nobody really felt hungry for the Pop Tarts I was screaming at them to eat in the van. So frozen pop-tarts aren't so bad. They froze between 8 AM and 3:30 PM on that console between the front seats and I munched them all the way home. And I still lost 3 lbs. How does that make any sense?
ANYWAY as I said, it was a fine morning. Nothing went wrong. Almost. We're almost ready to walk out the door. I call Mr. L. to come stand by me. He does not move. I can't really see my Mr. C. but I know he's on the floor behind L struggling to get his boots on. L and the desk in the hallway and the coats on the coat hooks are blocking Mr. C. from my view. L stares at me intently and I can tell he is thinking something. But what? I can't tell what's going on in the cramped hallway. I look into his eyes, I know something is up, and again I insist he should stand by me till everyone is ready to go.
Finally his little brother's body flies backward & he's laying on the floor holding his face. I rush over, examine the face. Poor Mr. C. I was standing right there but still couldn't tell what happened. "I was trying to kick him in the stomach," he tells me. He didn't even look or seem sorry for kicking poor C in the face.
So at that point I freaked out. I feel responsible for this. I feel like I should never tell this story to parents of "normal" children because they would totally judge me for not handling the situation well, someone will think I'm not raising my kids right, whatever. ADHD is so isolating. I feel like most people don't understand, and I don't like making excuses in the first place, but really what else is there? How can I keep on top of everything all the time? I was standing right there and he kicked his brother in the face, because he was trying on purpose to kick him in the stomach!
Nobody lost any teeth broke any bones and there was no blood.
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