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 The days were altogether different from the nights. Jordan spent several years absolutely fascinated with toy dinosaurs, and large blocks that I made from 8 inch lengths of 2X2 lumber. He would build an entire zoo on the braided rug, and play quietly for hours. Why didn't he do this in the night? I'll never know. He loved working with me on coloring, etc., and loved our daily times when I read to him. But nights were another story. I installed non-opening windows in his room, put in an intercom system from his room to my bedroom; and had him lock his own door at night. I provided a bedroom full of toys for him, and he could turn the light on. But his over-active mind, and maniacally busy fingers could not find enough to do, for all those hours of sleeplessness. No matter what the doctor gave him, it was never enough to keep him asleep for a normal eight hours. He spent the nights digging holes in walls, and once hid a tool in his room during the day, and dug a hole in his door with it that night!
I was determined to reach him, in those inner parts of intelligence, and help him develop. I wanted him to be happy in adulthood, and have a good life. Part of that preparation was learning to obey. But part of a happy future was also learning to enjoy activities, stories, anything productive. So I worked very hard at this. He learned to put his own clothes away. He learned to load the dishwasher, wash the table after meals. He wasn't a voluntarily helpful child, but worked well with me, or his siblings, under supervision. He did enjoy pleasing me, but needed immediate praise.
The night problems continued. For a time, I tried putting his bed in my room, between my bed and the wall. But this little son could be very silent and stealthy, and crawled out when I was asleep. He plugged up the toilet, seeing what kinds of things he could flush down. He overflowed the bathtub, he turned on the kitchen mixer, he dumped food out of the fridge, onto the floor. He fiddled with the furnace thermostat, which was a computer, and I didn't know how to reprogram it. He pulled up the wall-to-wall carpet. He colored on the windows with crayons. Then walls. He went outside in the pouring rain, to play in the mud in the light shining through a window. He would take down his curtain rods, and use them to scratch the ceiling. When I put the curtains back up with thumbtacks, he took them down, and put literally hundreds of holes in the walls, with those tacks, all in one night. It would make a very long story, if I were to write all the things my little son did while I was asleep.
When he was six, the night problem was impossible to deal with any longer. Jordan's neurologist prescribed a "bubble bed" for him. Over six feet long, this bed had a domed plexiglass cover on top, so he couldn't get out. He didn't mind being in it. He would hop in, happily, at bedtime. He had many toys in there with him. It was such an enormous bed, for such a little boy, there was plenty of room. He thought it was great fun. He climbed like a monkey on the bars, seeing the different ways he could suspend himself in mid-air. He folded the mattress backward, and tried to break the springs. That didn't work. I had about a year of wonderful, peaceful nights, though when he was bored, he did tear his diaper off, and throw soggy diaper pieces all over the room. But imagine my surprise one morning about a year later, when I went in to say good morning, and he was gone. The whole side of his crib was swung out into the room, the window was open, and he was gone! Fortunately, he was just outside, in his pajamas, playing in his brother Kyle's GI forts, in the mud. He had been in and out several times, leaving trails of mud and pine needles on the carpet. But he had learned how to unscrew the bed with his nimble fingers, from the inside. So our night troubles resumed.
By this time, during the day, Jordan was a busy, happy boy. He loved me very much, and was eager to please me. He tried very hard, and I was so proud of him. He was obedient to me, potty trained during the day, and dressed and undress himself without my telling him. He had learned to talk enough to express himself quite well. He got along very well with his sisters and brothers, both younger and older. He got along well with them all, admiring and copying the older, enchanting the younger with his antics. He was well loved by all his siblings. He was lively and funny, and had such a cheerful spirit by this time! Jordan loved his big sister Katie very much. Katie was filled with ideas on playing, and new games, and Jordan was an eager brother, following her every lead.
Two more of Jordan's favorite siblings were his younger brothers, Michael and Matthew.
Jordan and Michael had great fun sharing a room, as long as the experiment lasted, which wasn't very long! He got his brothers going, and kept them laughing their heads off. No one got any sleep. I took pictures to remember this brief and hilarious time!
Jordan loved young child's videos. He also loved science videos. When I discovered how enchanted he was, with films like "The Rocky Mountain Beaver Pond," I bought animal documentaries galore for him!
As Jordan grew older, though he could not learn to read, he would take encyclopedias to his room, and page through them endlessly, apparently just absorbing the pictures. This activity kept him busy the longest, in the night. And to my amazement, he never, never tore or hurt a book in any way!
I continued to read to him. He continued to listen, and learn. He was able to carry a fairly good tune, too, and loved to sing with me. So these were our very happiest times together. Jordan had a severe speech impediment, but his language skills continued to improve. We worked together on enunciation, and he worked hard to improve. He grew better and better at explaining himself, as the years went by. I was thrilled about this!
He grew taller. One night he moved his bed over to the middle of the room, climbed on it, and stuffed wads of paper between the light bulbs and the ceiling. The paper was hot and browning in the morning. I did not think he had tried to set a fire. He did not seem to do any of his odd things with malice aforethought. It always seemed like his busy fingers simply could not stop meddling. But I explained it to him very sternly, and from then on, he only had one tiny, 15 watt light bulb. I had given him many flashlights, but he had destroyed them all in no time flat. I did find one toddler flashlight that he could not take apart, because he didn't have a tiny screwdriver. So he had lots of fun with that. I could see him shining yellow, blue, then green light out of his window at night. Even after I went to bed, I could hear him playing in the night, through the intercom, and he wasn't noisy, just very busy. Still, I wanted to make sure I could hear, if he hurt himself. How I wished that he wouldn't destroy his videos, so he could watch them all night, if he wanted to. But, unfortunately, he could not stop himself from pulling out, and breaking the tape. Same thing with cassette tapes. I fastened a TV up high, so he could watch TV in the night. He broke the remote. Then I kept it on one station. He unplugged it, and tore the plug off. There seemed to be no reason to these actions, other than his inability to keep his fingers from fiddling. I gave up.
Many times through the years, I tried yet again, to give him the opportunity to have his door unlocked at night. It never worked. In his early teens, he still couldn't be out of his room at night, because he continued to be destructive, and also, he would go into everyone's bedroom, and wake them all up. Of particular concern was his presence in his sisters' bedrooms while they slept. So I bought him goldfish, so he could watch them swim around, during his boredom. He tried to catch them with his hands. I told him if he got them out of the water, they would die. He kept trying, but couldn't catch them. He found some baby powder, stashed it in his room during the day, and filled the fish tank up with it. They died. I bought him some more fish, explaining better, about how powder kills them. Then he brought in dirt from outside, and dumped it in. They died. I gave up.
I bought him two mice, so he could watch them run around and around on a wheel, when he couldn't sleep. He got the cover off, and let them go. I gave up.
Still, our days continued to be good, and I loved him with all my heart, as I do today. The best part about our relationship was home schooling. He absolutely loved home schooling. I knew all the things that fascinated him, and zeroed in on these things. He absorbed everything I taught him, like a sponge. But he could not learn reading or math. He was cooperative, and I tried all the ways I had taught the other children to read, and to count. But he simply could not do it. He was fascinated by science, and interested in history if I made the stories lively enough. He loved our field trips, especially to the science center, museums, aquarium, visiting our friends who were also home schooling, and absolutely anywhere outside. Every single day, Jordan and I had strong, positive, interesting times in home school. All the years of home schooling were a joy.
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