Well after over a year of J having B/O after exercise or a lot of stress, he is now showing signs of hormonal activity on his face, or rather his nose. I spotted ( sorry!) a crop of blackheads on the end of his nose and small red spots around the bridge yesterday morning.
He will only be nine years old at the end of this month as well, so it is all rather earlier than expected.
However it probably explains why he has become so hyper and manic with moods swinging from happy to screaming within the space of a few seconds. Those pesky hormones are striking up a storm inside of him and because there is no way I (or anyone) can explain what he is feeling / why he is feeling this way, and he can not convey it to me, we are just going to have to ride this storm until the testosterone settles down again - so I've block booked out the next nine years to deal with it!
I am seeing the paediatrician again tomorrow, and as I trust her implicitly ( as she has so much knowledge, experience and understanding of autism and it's wide spectrum) to offer me the best advice on coping with J and also on how I can reduce the stress for him.
As for the sleep issue I am hoping this will not be sidelined and blamed on puberty as I am not waiting nine years for them to allow puberty to complete!
There is no point in getting one of those books written for children on the cusp of puberty, which explains all about their bodies and the opposite sex. I had one of those given to me aged ten and I remember reading it aloud to my friend, but miss-read one word, which to much embarrassment to me we both referred to something by the miss-reading pronunciation of it for at least a year! So if I couldn't get it right, I certainly know J will not.
I do consider myself lucky that J is a boy however as I do not have the worry and anxiety over the most major aspect of puberty for girls - periods. I would want my daughters puberty to be delayed if it was starting this early, or something administered to stop the period appearing altogether (such as some of these jabs used for birth control).I am so glad I do not have this to worry about on top of everything else.
