Caffe Nero

Blah blah, more bad sleep,
more grotty behaviour,
just all quite tiring.

Ben woke up at 3am again and wouldn't go back to sleep. He was fixating on the crystals that you pour into slime mixture??  I'm not even sure what that's all about but I think he was focusing on going back to school next week and last session at school the play therapist didn't have the type of slime he likes.. it's a funny one because it's vetoed in most class situations and at home, we've discussed it with school and the therapists think his behaviour spirals with slime because it's slippy and it evokes feelings of being out of control.. I'm not sure but I definitely don't let him play with it here as it always ends in messy disaster.  The play therapist says he can have it in her session as it gives him opportunity to explore those feelings in a safe environment but who knows..  Anyway, at 3am he was desperate for me to look at amazon to order slime crystals to take into school next week.  There's no way I can fulfil that request so it was always going to end badly.  I managed to talk him down so he didn't have a crisis over it but he definitely wasn't going back to sleep.  Sigh.  He had his books at 4:15am and iPad at 4:45am and then I was able to get back to sleep.  Mr KCNQ2Haiku has sent me back to bed a few times for naps though, so I'm doing OK, it's just more about the frustration around how hard family life is and that it's only getting harder.  We definitely need a break.  
Mr KCNQ2Haiku braved the cold to go up in the hills for a bike ride which helped him blow off some steam and I took Ben and Leo for a walk, Ben was quiet difficult and was very cross.  We left Leo at home to pop into town and fetch the fish we'd talked about yesterday and also go to Caffe Nero.  I want Ben to know that not everything has to be about Leo but it's hard to take Ben anywhere at the moment.  He held it together pretty well, the photo is him giving himself the insulin for his Panettone through his pump handset.  We had a nice lunch at home, I had my second nap :-) and then I took Ben and Leo to the river and the lake.  Things were much better on our second walk, Leo was happy and sniffy and Ben was a bit more chilled.  So overall the day ended better than it started.  I guess that's a positive.