Extreme Change in Behavior

[Kenre]

I am going to blame this on the full moon... it has to be the reason between the both boys change in their behavior.

It's SS's weekend with us, so we drove the two hours up to the city to pick him up (read that as I drove. DH's back is hurt bad and so he had to lay down the entire trip in the passenger seat.) We made it up in time and only had to wait two minutes for them to show up as well. I decided this time I was just going to stay in the car. The vans parked next to each other (their green mini-van and our blue one.) Their side door opened and there sat SS in his carseat. Donkey, SS's future stepfather, leaned into the van to unbuckle SS...

...now this is usually what happens on our visitations:

Donkey will unbuckle SS. He'll jump out and stand next to either DH or myself. Donkey and DH will have a conversation about SS's schooling or doctors appointments that had happened during his time with them. I'll put in a few sentences about how things work in our house if the question is asked. Then SS hugs Donkey, yells out to Mute (Donkey's son and SS's half brother) that he'll miss him, and sometimes if I remind him, or Donkey reminds him, he'll tell Baka, his mother, the same thing. If she is out of the car he might get a reminder to hug her too. Then SS skips to his side of the van, jumps into the booster seat we have for him, and DH buckles him in. We're on our way. Sometimes we have chatter from SS, and sometimes we just sing to our travel kids CD. We play road games for the whole two hour drive back too.

This is what happened yesterday:

SS started screaming. He hit Donkey, and wouldn't let the man unbuckle him. "Stay with this daddy!" he kept screaming over and over again. Finally they had him unbuckled. He grabbed onto his half brother effectively hurting the two year old, but he didn't want to leave with us. He started crying, hitting any of the adults who tried to pick him up... and they all (I was still in the car just watching this) tried to reason with him. DH told him what things we had planned this weeked. Donkey and Baka both tried to get him excited about it all too. In the end Donkey took hold of him, told him he had no choice, and brought him over to our van and put him in the booster. DH buckled him in and they shut the door. I was able to ask Baka whether he ate or not. Then with him still throwing a fit in the back, we drove off. We made it to the interstate and he was back to being his normal self again, as if his tantrum never happened. He asked for his drawing book and started telling us he was drawing his new school and talked about how Mute broke one of his toys... and it was like it was a normal start of the weekend all of a sudden.

Three hours later (you have to love traffic) we made it to MIL's house where DS was being babysat (every so often we ask her to watch him instead of taking him with us on the long trip.) We drive up and she's standing outside (which is strange.) We don't even shut off the car when she asks, "Did something happen in the bathtub with him?"

We looked at each other and I said, "He doesn't like water going over his head."

She shook her head and said, "I sat him down and he started screaming like I was trying to kill him. It took us both (she meant her and FIL) to hold him in there and wash him. Then I tried to calm him down, but in the end I had to just put him in the playpen and let him scream himself to sleep."

That's not my son. He loves baths... up until we have to wash his hair. He has a bad yeast infection, but it shouldn't be hurting him anymore because it's getting better. He does whine a bit and sometimes screams out for a second when the sores touch the water, but he calms down quickly and plays. If it had hurt that bad, then as soon as they dried it and applied the medication we sent with them, then he would have calmed down...

Then it comes out that MIL didn't put the medicine on. She put on Desitin. I keep my mouth shut, but I hate Desitin with a passion. It doesn't work on DS, but MIL keeps putting it on him.

We finally get both boys home. We change both boys diapers and put them into night clothes. SS has a heat rash covering his entire backside, so we put powder on that. SS is red from the bottom of his belly button, all the way around, to the top of his legs. The area MIL put the Desitin on him before laying him down. Great... so now he has a diaper rash and a yeast infection.

This morning it was like the boys odd behavior yesterday never happened. SS is being his normal self again, and DS is enjoying having his half brother over for the weekend. They played nicely this morning together for DH while I slept in a bit. Then they all came in with smiles and hugs to wake me up.

DS's behavior change is explainable... SS's 180 was odd, though. Usually it's a fight to return him to Baka, not the other way around. Next visitation is for a whole week... I wonder what that is going to be like.

[kristal2146]

Jun. 6, 2009 at 4:53 PM

that's odd.. lets hope its just a fluke :) Hope you have a good weekend!

(Next time you should make the Desitin 'disappear' from her house before you leave lol)