One of my jobs...

I came home last night and found the gas stove burner on. He managed to cook some eggs (even tho' I had made him some earlier...he "didn't see them"), but forgot to turn off the burner.

I came home the night before and H had left the house, but left many windows open. "Well, at least I turned on the security alarm," he said.

In the past, I've jut gotten mad at him about these types of things, but after he got up from his nap and over dinner, we talked about this. I wasn't mad this time, just weary and concerned.

"One of my jobs is to keep you safe, H," I opened, "and I'm not certain that I can do that. Yesterday, you left the house open and today, you left a burner on."

"What am I going to do if I can't keep you safe at home?" I asked.

"Well, I'm not usually this bad," he says.

"Yea, but you are worried about strangers in the neighborhood and being robbed, but then you leave the house open and you tell all the neighbors that you have AIDS and take pain meds and smoke pot. You told me you wouldn't cook, but then you do...do you know that this is the 3rd time you've left the burner on?"

Now, this is all on top of a simple repair I asked him to be home for last week (unclogging the kitchen drain) that turned into a $600 bill because the tech took advantage of him IMO. I'm disputing the charge with the CC company now.

Sigh.

While this is all somewhat distressing, it is just the most recent examples at how impaired H really is.

If there is good news in this, it is that safety issues can be the precipitating event where I have to place him. The worry is that I don't know how bad this will get when.

In any case, I've hidden the knobs from the gas range and it can't be operated without the knobs. But, this is just a workaround for that one issue.

At least with a kid, you get a sense of what they can and cannot do and you adjust. And you know that over time, they will become more capable, not less. In this case, however, you just don't know what to expect.