jekyll and hyde

Martin is really wonderful. Before falling asleep, he tells me that he plans to dream about boats. He pretends to enter a chrysalis and emerges as a butterfly. He reads books about the first ladies to his little sister. He tried a piece of lettuce last week.

But then he is awful. Instantly awful. As far as I can tell, he becomes awful the moment I say the word "no." I've been hit, kicked, and screamed at. His teacher has also had to deal with hitting and kicking. He just turns on a dime and your left there, suddenly, being accosted by a 6-year-old.

During the summer, we took a break from the behavior counselor that Martin was seeing. And when we returned home, we thought we might focus our concerns on Martin's eating issues by spending some time with a therapist who helps kids become more open to food. But I think we'll be heading back to behavior counselor. It's good that we can do that, but it's one more appointment to add to our week. It's one more thing to ask Martin to do instead of chilling at home reading president books and eating graham crackers.

Despite the fact that this new appointment will stress out our schedules and keep Martin more busy than we'd like, we simply have to do it. He's clearly struggling - and failing - to keep it together when he feels challenged. So we start next week and hope for more Jekyll than Hyde.