Balancing act

I picked up Graham from robotics last night at around 7:30, and he announced that he had enjoyed a couple of slices of pizza. He has been moving into eating pizza like a normal person recently, even though he doesn't like melted cheese. This is a big deal, because it shows he is really outgrowing his dairy allergy. So he didn't join us at the dinner table for the daily recap.

At around 10:30 last night, as I was headed upstairs for bed, I stopped over to his room to say goodnight. He was asleep in his clothes (normal), with his iPad in his hand (also normal, and not even all that far outside the norm for sleeping). I woke him up by accident, then took the iPad out of his hands, turned off the lights, and continued on my way.

In the morning, he told me he had woken up at 1:15 with bad heartburn (whatever that is) and couldn't get back to sleep till 2. He also said he had a math quiz today and a quiz in engineering.

As I have probably blogged before, Graham has been struggling a little in the extra-accelerated math he took because all his friends took it. He got his first B in the class the first semester, thereby relieving himself of the pressure of participation in the valedictorian sweepstakes.

It could be that it's the eating of all that cheese that messed up his sleeping last night, made him fall asleep early first and then woke him up in the middle of the night. If so, oh well. He is really trying hard to figure out how to make and have friends, something that has not come naturally to a boy on the autism spectrum living in the age of the smartphone and kids isolating in their rooms. His milk allergy has not helped. Eating pizza with friends is a great thing to do, and I hope his body sorts it all out so he can happily eat lots more in the future. Including with his dad! If he has to choose between pizza and friends on the one hand and math on the other... I won't say it should be pizza and friends every time, but sometimes it should be.