another ABCDE

Toby seems to have given up on "getting" Hazel to clear her dishes. Tonight he just cleared both of theirs without even asking her. That will be an interesting dynamic to watch over time.

I have also noticed a few situations when he had left some mess, and later he asked me to do something. When I responded with "as soon as you clean up X," he just went ahead and did the thing that he had asked me to do, instead. He is figuring out his least burdensome options.

Today both kids slept through my alarm. I got up and went about my day, and set Toby's timer by the bed. When he woke up naturally at 7:30 (an hour later), he asked me why it was running and I said it was a school day. He asked why I hadn't woken him up, and I said, "why would I? I never do, you get yourself up." I don't know what sort of impact this will have - over the past few weeks, since I let go of getting him up on time, he has woken early enough every day (mostly because of Hazel being noisy). He got out the door on time today too, but hopefully it will occur to him that he might want to do something to make sure he gets up early enough.

The next button to unravel is why I get so furious at everyone in the house when Hazel is screaming. The things I feel are:
a) why aren't you doing something to fix this? (Dan)
b) don't talk to me or ask me for anything, can't you see I am totally stressed out when she is screaming? (Toby)

A: behaviors of other family members when Hazel is upset
B: everyone should be helping me fix this, and if they aren't they don't care about me or they leave everything to me to manage
C: angry at the boys, snapping, snotty, make more trouble
D: Dan backs off because he feels like he can't help, that Hazel can only be comforted by me, and maybe also because he's trying to ignore her unwanted behavior. Toby still needs me regardless of what Hazel is doing.
E: deep breaths, be calm, try to engage her differently to diffuse the upset - ask for help - ask for patience