I Couldn’t Do Anything.

As the winter break approached, Dylan assured me that, when January rolled around, things were going to be different.

He was going to start getting more done in school, staying after school more often, and making sure things were turned in on time. He was going to get up and get ready on time, always catch his bus, and make sure he was awake in plenty of time to do all of it.

Yesterday was his first day back at school. He came downstairs ten minutes late, as usual. He raced off to catch the bus, as usual. He left his breakfast sandwich sitting on a napkin on the foosball table. He also forgot his coffee.

I suggested that he find some breakfast meat in the school cafeteria so that, at least, his vitamins would help. (L-Tyrosine is only effective when combined with animal protein.) Dylan didn’t do that, either.

He texted me at 10:30 a.m. “Mom I’m like miserable I can’t focus on anything I’m like dying.”

This broke my heart. Unfortunately, I was substitute teaching all day and couldn’t do anything about it. I couldn’t provide him (again) with a healthy breakfast. I couldn’t drive over with a bottle of iced coffee. I couldn’t do anything.

Dylan spent some of his morning with his counselor, which helped. By the end of the day, though, he was a wreck. He came home grouchy and mean. He hadn’t eaten for hours (after not eating breakfast) and I thought he was hungry.

He barely ate dinner, probably as some form of “food protest” to prove that he wasn’t really grouchy because he was hungry. Then – since Shane had had a rough morning, too – we went over what is expected during the school year.

“Be downstairs at 6:45,” I started – knowing that while Shane was listening intently, Dylan had heard it all too many times before.

Then Dylan fell asleep. Suddenly, he was like a human again. He wasn’t happy, but he was better after his unscheduled nap.

At 10:30 p.m., though, just 12 hours after his misery text, he was wide awake. He was on his laptop and his phone, and I had to actually say – for the four millionth time – that he needed to put away his electronics and go to bed.

Then I went to bed. I don’t know what he did.

But this morning, when I got up to reheat yesterday’s breakfast sandwich for him, there was a siren noise blaring inside Dylan’s room. The door was shut, so I opened it. Dylan’s alarm was going off loud enough to wake the neighbors and Dylan was sound asleep.

Without thinking about allowing him to have the consequences of his actions, and with his “plan” to “do better” in January ringing in my brain, I screamed at him.

“YOUR ALARM IS GOING OFF!” I screeched. “And you’re supposed to be downstairs RIGHT NOW!”

It was 6:45. Dylan came downstairs late but he actually ate his breakfast. Since it was 7 degrees outside, I drove him to the bus stop.

“Have a better day today,” I waved as he was leaving.

“Anything would be better,” Dylan said. And then he was on the bus, and off to school.

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