Tuesday, July 27, 2010

It is our intent at some point to do . . . something . . . with the interior walls and doors in our house to keep Anthony from damaging them when he has a tantrum. We learned early on that repairing drywall was a futile exercise because Anthony targets again the same spots. To spite us, perhaps? It seems that way.

My wife came up with the intermediate strategy of covering holes with pictures, paintings, and--to create balance where it would otherwise not exist--handmade wall coverings and organizers.


We have new holes in Anthony's bedroom and door today, however, after a particularly bad stretch wherein he was determined to not only pull stickers from library books but rip covers off some of our own nicer books as well. My wife dragged him to his room and managed to keep the door closed for a bit against his wishes. She could hear him banging his head against the door and wall, but decided that was temporarily preferable to the alternative.

He turned his pulling and ripping obsession toward his wall after creating holes. We now have a few swaths of drywall with multiple layers pulled off. At least they are not visible to the casual visitor.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Anthony has a skin fetish. I have had this on the list of writing topics for perhaps a year now, and have avoided addressing it to this point partly because I know I will not begin to do it justice here (and partly because there are things I really don't want to write). But, briefly, he often wants to touch bare skin. We have learned to keep him a safe distance from girls or younger women wearing lower-cut shirts, but both his sister and brother also have to deal with him aiming for their armpits and legs when they wear short-sleeved shirts and shorts in warmer weather.

Our younger son was practicing his violin on the scheduled day of his lesson recently when Anthony again tried to bother him. Son number two tried to move away quickly, and ended up cracking the neck of his instrument. My wife thankfully had the foresight to buy insurance with the violin. However, she found the dealer would not provide a replacement while they fixed it, so she went elsewhere and rented another so he could go to his lesson and continue practicing.