The longer I live with Buddy as an adult the better I can understand how he sees the world through his hyperactive lens. Working with Kit and his therapy also makes the picture clearer.
Yesterday, while feeling sick, I asked Buddy to do a couple of small jobs I could't get to for the kids. No problem, he said, and I returned to bed. This morning both jobs were only half done. It wasn't that he didn't mean to get to them or that he completely forgot. It's simply that any change, big or small, to his routine is difficult.
He does fine with work because expecatations and routine are set. Life with the kids is another story. You can't set up a daily regiment with kids and expect it to unfold the same way twice. So Buddy gets overwhelmed. He juggles lunch and play time and chores and errands and then supper and bedtime as though it were linear: one thing following another. It's difficult to start supper at 2, let it cook while he takes the boys out, change plans if irains, drops off his laundry and then scoot back to the house check on supper, play a board game and set the table while sorting out an argument before getting everyone fed and off to the next thing. Add in my small requests threw a monkey wrench (adjustable spanner) into his engine.
This was the way he grew up and it seems that he still struggles with it. But now, as his father, I'm discovering a chance to help him move past it. The more that life here becomes stable, his routine ordered, and the kids do well, his natural hyper tendencies calm down. While it's hard to dump more things into his routine without creating problems, introducing things methodically, rather than springing them on him, will help him lead a fuller home life with his sons.
