Saturday, Rick and I had a few hours of respite.  A local church held an outreach in which they cared for children with disabilities so the parents could have a break. We knew no one at the church.  We knew nothing about the place.  We had no idea exactly what would take place. We signed up anyway.

Are you kidding me?  3-4 hours to do whatever we want is extremely rare.  We were all over that idea. We prepared Josiah as best we could.  We explained he was going to get to have fun and meet new people. He readily hopped into the van.  He was excited to go for a ride.

He happily hopped out when we arrived at the church, took our hands and walked in as if he’d done this a million times before. Then, he took a very quick glance at the place, spun around and bolted for the door. He signed FINISHED, just to be sure we got the message, as he was running towards the exit.

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A few days ago, Chandler asked, “Why do you always write about Josiah not sleeping?” Maybe lack of sleep is a recurring theme because lack of sleep IS a recurring theme at our house. I was up with Josiah til 3 am Friday night. It was my turn. Rick had stayed up with Josiah 2 nights prior to that.

Last night I was so tired I crashed just after 9 pm. With hind sight it was a good thing I did. I was awakened by Josiah around 1:30 am. I spent a while with him on the couch.  Didn’t even try the David Tutera trick.  I think I was too tired to even turn it on. I just laid there, hoping Josiah would calm down enough to sleep.  He didn’t.

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Please hurry home.  Josiah is being crazy.  That was the text message I received last night, on my way home from Bible Study. It was from Chandler.  It was her SOS call.

As soon as I saw her text message, I called Rick.  Apparently, Josiah had suddenly, for no known reason, begun screaming.  Actually, it was more like shrieking.  He was clearly out of control.  I could hear it through the phone lines.  It was difficult to listen to and I was still a few miles away.  I couldn’t imagine how challenging it was for those within ear shot to endure.

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“Of course he did,” is often heard at our house. It’s what we say moments after Josiah hurls something fragile to the ground and it shatters to pieces. One of the kids will announce, “Josiah just threw a plate” or “Josiah just broke a chair” or “Josiah knocked the trash can down”.

“Of course he did,” we say.

Josiah isn’t the only one who commands the ‘of course he did’ response. We use it for other things and we use it for other people too. We’ve used this for many years in our house. I’m not quite sure how it got started. But it works. Instead of reacting to a crisis, we respond with, “of course he did.,” and suddenly it doesn’t seem so bad.

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I’ve been trying to figure out why Josiah is so energetic at night. Why is it even after a full day of activity, he gets a second wind around 8 pm?  Just about the time he should be settling down for sleep, Josiah gets wired and hyper and bouncy. Why does it last past 9 pm and 10 pm and 11 pm and often times well past midnight?

Just the amount of energy he expends from 8 pm til he finally conks out would be enough to exhaust most full grown adults.  But it doesn’t seem to phase Josiah. I just don’t get it.  Josiah’s sleeping habits have always been very different than ours.  We’ve always had to make adjustments for his sleep schedule.

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