New Series?

I have been reading about some of my Blogging Buddies having a hard time with anxiety, fear or just boredom. Everything is changing. A lot of people are being asked to stay in their homes and wait.

I have been trying to think of a way I could lighten the mood and give a little entertainment. I could tell everyone what life is like with King Ben home from school all day. It’s a very serious strain on my patience and sometimes my sanity, but in hindsight and to anyone not actually living it, it can be hysterical here at Casa Cuckoo.

So, here is the first installment of “The Adventures Of King Ben & Zeus, The Big Dumb Dog”

Friday morning started at 4:00AM. King Ben and Zeus ran out of Ben’s room and Bounced onto my bed. Ben got under the blankets with me, while Zeus sniffed my ear. They got settled and Ben asked for my tablet, he’d forgotten to bring his with him.

I dozed back off until around 5:00AM when I felt the ‘bedquake’ jiggling of Ben getting up. A few seconds later I hear his feet pounding down the hall to Older Daughter’s room and the slam of her door being flung open.

“Good Morning Mommy” Ben yelled at top volume.

I dozed back off…until around 5:30AM when I felt another ‘bedquake’ of Ben getting back under the blankets. Zeus expressed his displeasure at having to move with a slight growl. A couple minutes later, Older Daughter came in the room to ask Ben if he was going to come back to her room or stay with me. He decided to stay with me.

I dozed back off until 6:25AM when the alarm for Ben’s morning meds went off. I had to get up since I (correctly) assumed Older Daughter had gone back to sleep.

Ben and Zeus both followed me into the kitchen and I gave Ben his meds. Then I  uncovered Sven Dragon and turned on his lights. Ben fiddled with the remotes to turn on the TV and DVD player, making sure the current movie, Avatar, was set on ‘repeat’. (A movie MUST be on repeat all day) I blindly stumbled to the bathroom for my morning wee.

Bladder empty, hands washed, I stumbled back to bed, followed by Zeus (he follows me everywhere, all day) Ben stayed in the living room.

I had just gotten comfortable in bed when another bedquake announced Ben’s presence.

“Gramma come living room” he demanded.

“Okay Baby, Gramma is getting up”

He made the demand over and over and over as I got up, grabbed my glasses, phone and hoodie and stumbled to the coffee pot.

This is a pretty typical morning except Daughter is usually at work and the Bounce happens generally closer to 3:00AM

I laid down on the couch while he played with his chalk. Zeus laid down next to me. Older Daughter came out about a half hour later and I went back to bed, where I checked my email, read a couple blog posts and passed out, phone in hand.

The alarm woke me up at 10:25AM for Ben’s mid-morning meds. After I figured out where I was, who I was and what year it was, I got up to see if Daughter was up to give him his meds or if I needed to. She was awake so I stumbled to the bathroom, then back to my room, followed by Zeus and Ben.

Ben wanted tape. He wanted the boxes of his “TV” and he wanted me to get everything. Since he had a 90 minute meltdown last night, and I could tell he was hyper and edgy, I gave in, got up and fetched like a good peasant…followed by Zeus, of course.

(this is his ‘TV’- a tablet taped to a box-, his kitties sitting on a ‘couch’ watching the TV and Zeus, ever-present)

For the next couple of hours Ben watched the TV, shot at various targets with his Nerf gun, ate various snacks and jitter jived all over the house.

Around 3:00PM he started getting really hyper and edgy, his 2:30PM meds hadn’t kicked in yet. He gets a tone, and has a giggle that means trouble is imminent. He starting saying “You have to get dressed, you have to go to the store for______”. What he says he wants changes. He doesn’t want anything. Nothing that can be bought at the store anyway. He wants to break stuff, cause a little chaos… I don’t understand what causes him to feel like a shook up soda, but I know the signs that he’s about to blow.

This time he was asking for a kite. He’s been singing ‘Let’s Go Fly A Kite’ from the original Mary Poppins for a while now. He’s stuck on kites for whatever reason. I’ve made two for him to hold in front of a mirror and look at himself, pretending to reenact the scene from the movie. Anyway, we looked online for a Kite. First he wanted a ‘Resident Evil’ (another movie he’s stuck on) kite, then he wanted Paw Patrol but they wanted me to buy 5 of them, we settled on P.J. Masks and I ordered the kite. He was settled…for about 45 seconds. Then he was off to see what kind of chaos he could cause.

He thought it would be fun to use the little hand broom that goes with the dustpan to sweep all of his chalk into the space between the cabinet and refrigerator. Then he got the dustpan, filled it with chalk, came to my doorway, said ‘Fire’ and launched the chalk across the room.

We’re up to about 5:00PM now and Daughter is cooking his dinner, while Ben shoots his Nerf gun at stuff all over the house, with the occasional “Oops!” after he accidentally-on-purpose shoots one of us.

He ate his steak, I cleaned up the chalk (Zeus following, of course) and Ben moved to the living room to play with some of his recreated Fox Searchlight Pictures/20TH Century Fox movie logo thingies I’ve made for him, grunting the theme music the whole time. He took his nighttime meds at 5:45PM. We’re getting close to bedtime. We only have his bath left, then we can send him and my shadow, Zeus to Ben’s room and maybe relax. Maybe.

Daughter kept telling him to let her know when he was ready to take his bath. He usually tells us when he’s starting to feel tired. After about 3 or 4 times of her telling him to let her know, I told her she’d probably need to just do it. He came running into my room yelling “Gramma! I need your help!” He wanted me to run his bath. Whatever. If it brought us closer to bedtime, I’d run the bath.

I put his braid into a bun on top of his head (his hair is mid-back length, and he HATES having it brushed or washed) so it didnt get wet. Into the bubbles he went. I had to get him started with the washing. He’s still not great at hygiene of any kind. Then I left him to play.

Daughter found him, hair wet, lying on the bath mat. We don’t even question these things. She got him into his robe and herded him to his bedroom. I had already brushed his teeth.

It’s now 6:30PM and Daughter is fighting with him as she brushes and rebraids his hair. We tell him not to get it wet, but Ben does what Ben wants to do. It took her 15 minutes to do his hair and get him dressed in pajamas. I was in my room, counting down. I told Zeus to go to bedtime when I heard that the hair ordeal was over.

And that was a very calm day. It will all start again whenever Ben decides to Bounce me before sunup. Now, I’m off to the pharmacy to get Ben’s meds.

Stay turned for the next adventure of King Ben and Zeus The Big Dumb Dog.

And stay healthy!

Thank you for the compliment JB!

 

(featured image is Zeus aka Big Dumb Dog aka Dippy)