Writing to friends

Cherri, I think you might be getting a taste of what the teenage years are supposedly like, ugh! I do have a thought though - not to be construed as unsolicited advice - but here goes. One, how can Hannah express her anger that is acceptable behavior? With Chance, I've worked on him to tone down his fits of anger and defiance of me by stating repeatedly "It is okay to get angry at Mama, and it is okay to disagree with her, but you have to find a way to do that is still acceptable behavior. Why don't you...".  In his case, since the hitting and head-ramming was starting to become a problem, I'm okay with him stamping his feet, yelling (but no name-calling), and having a little hissy fit in general. I will work on all of this long-term to tone him down, but for now, the alternative is not acceptable, and I'm willing to live with this in the short term. I just feel as if he _needs_ a way to physically let out his anger, and expecting him to deal calmly and rationally with his anger (like I can, hmmph) is unreasonable. Heck, Jack deals better with his anger better than Chance does!
Which brings me to my second point. When Chance is disagreeing with me wholeheartedly, he sometimes will yell things at me like "You don't make the rules in this house, I will not do ________!"  (we are most definitely working on his behavior and language for disagreeing with Mom, this isn't quite acceptable). Sometimes, those words rub me raw, and I blow up and make the whole situation worse by taking his comments personally and reacting on a personal level. When I can step aside and observe the situation objectively, I am more able to be calm and reasonable (without faking it, or doing that "calm on the exterior but I am about to blow up" tone of voice), and deal with him. I always feel like the worst role model by blowing up at him, because that is the same behavior I am scolding him about. So, I try not to take him or his language personally but see it for what it is, which doesn't mean going easy on his behavior at all, but just disciplining him, not yelling.
None of this might help at all, because like you said, you've talked to her until you are blue in the face, and I know you deal with her calmly and rationally most of the time,  but just know you're not alone!!
Gosh, I don't want to give you all the impression I am looking for problems with Chance, I only brought up the liking older kids issue because it has interfered with him making friends with the girls in our group who I think would play wonderfully with him if he gave them half a chance. He just spends the whole time following after the older boys like a puppy dog who gets occasional, condescending pat on the head from his master. Geez, I guess I'm raising a male chauvinistic pig! I would be delighted to have a little boy who is just a bit awkward and different, but there are just some days when that little warning bell goes off...but in the end, all the worrying and research might be for nought, although like I keep telling John, I see a lot of me in those Asperger's lists sometimes (like we can't all fufill the diagnostic criteria for just about anything at one time or another!).
I copied the following from the Asperger's list I just joined:
 

It is common for auties and aspies to have self-stimming..(he) used
to spin in circles, shake his head back and forth and hang upside
down for long periods of time if I didn't stop him. Nowadays he only does

them when sick or overwhelmed with circumstances. Now he's almost 
always making vocal noises, not necessarily words either and it gets 
on everyone's nerves so we're trying to nip that quick too.

These are both things he does, with the spinning being of recent vintage, but he does it 3-4 times a day, a few days a week. The vocal noises (Cherri can attest to these) is one of those traits that came out in full force on our trip, but is still present, along with talking inappropriately loud (working on that too). In fact, he has his own "language", where he talks back to me, says "No", calls us names and other wonderful conversational tidbits in these rhyming, long nonsense syllables that are gibberish to me (he is consistent, though). I actually sent him to the penalty box for calling Jack a name that I had no idea what it meant (he had made Jack cry three times in 30 minutes with these names, so Jack knew what it meant!).
I have to go take a shower, my XO of a mother wants me to go and see if the Container Store has drawers units we can use for the kitchen...when I dreamed of being organized someday, I didn't think it would involve torture and agony to make it come true! (she made us all troop through IKEA last night for 3 hours, after we had already been out doing errands for 4 hours, egads).
Kris