It’s been an interesting year so far. In the past few months I’ve had 4 people ask me if we have ever considered placing Josiah in a Group Home.

As in, it’s obvious you guys have done your best.  It hasn’t been easy.  Josiah’s been quite a challenge.  You and Rick are getting older.  Josiah’s getting bigger and stronger. How much longer can you possibly keep this up?

As if placing Josiah in a Group Home is a genius idea that would somehow miraculously resolve everything. Just remove him from your home. Problem solved.

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Now that Josiah has a secure, enclosed bed to keep him safe and sound at night, we are all getting adequate sleep around here.  I really think it’s only a matter of time before Josiah figures out how easy it would be to escape his bed.  Quite honestly, I’m surprised he hasn’t figured it out already.

We truly thought his ‘netted’ bed would last only a week or so. As with most things, Josiah discovers ways around or through them pretty quickly.  I envisioned torn fabric, ripped to shreds by a boy lying wide awake at night with nothing better to do than to tear his way out.  Since we have furniture movers underneath the bed to glide it easily across the carpet, I imagined Josiah would prop his feet on the wall, pushing the bed away to gain easy access out.

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Every morning it’s the same.  Josiah is awake and bouncy, making vocalizations from his room, long before I’m ready to start my happy day.  I lay in bed, often times while the rest of the house is still asleep, thinking maybe I’m just hearing things.  Maybe that’s not really Josiah making all that racket. Maybe I can just roll over and go back to sleep for a little while.

It’s usually not a good idea.  When Josiah is awake, it’s best to be awake as well.

Since Josiah’s return from the hospital in the middle of January, we’ve made some improvements around here.  The biggest one being modifications to his bed.  For years, Josiah has been sleeping (or not sleeping…who am I kidding?) in an Ikea Kura Reversible bed. The fun thing about this bed is that it can be used two different ways. It can be a junior loft/bunk bed or a low bed with an open top.

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In 6 days, Josiah averaged 21 hours of sleep.  Do the math.  That’s 3.5 hours per night. He didn’t actually sleep 3.5 hours per night. That’s just an average. Some nights he didn’t sleep at all.  At one point he was awake for 44 hours straight.

When Josiah’s awake, we are awake.  We have to be. He can’t be left unattended.  Though our boy seems quite happy bouncing around at all hours of the day and night, we aren’t. I for one get extremely cranky.  I become impatient.  I snap at people.  Sleep deprivation is not pretty.

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Josiah has been at Texas Children’s Hospital for 8 days now.  We took him to the ER January 2nd. He had been having great difficulty sleeping, was extremely agitated, aggressive, self injurious and destructive.

He wasn’t sleeping, he wasn’t eating well, he wasn’t drinking much and he was very LOUD and bouncy. (Funny how a non verbal kid can make so much noise.) He had a huge goose egg on his forehead from banging it repeatedly on every hard surface he could find.  He was swollen on both sides of his head from hitting himself frequently at his temples.  He was punching us and kicking us; behaviors we hadn’t seen much from him before. Josiah was wired!

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