Is it me?

I could be losing my mind. I'm on day 4 of my commitment to myself to spend more time with Brandon. The first two days were amazing! I really felt like we were bonding so much better than we ever had before. Yesterday was a little more terse. He was not as energetic about doing his grade 3 review, but when we got to his class assignment, he dug right in. I thought ok, well cursive writing gets most people and other than that he's just a little less focused today. No Big Deal. Fast Forward to this morning, we do our morning breakfast talking as normal and he starts into his 'dream'. Now his 'dreams' I doubt are actual night time REMs, I'm thinking they are more him learning to use his imagination, which is a good thing, except most times he creates these on the fly and when he delivers them they are normally very stuttered and lacking in cohesion. I find myself head bobbing through most of it with the occasional question thrown in so he thinks I'm paying attention.
I feel horrible about it, but nothing would make me happier than for him to stop. His stories are drivel and if I show interest he's not likely to stop, but if I don't listen I'm a horrible mother because I'm stifling his creative process. I've told him (repeatly) that he should keep a dream journal for these stories and then let me read them but he won't/doesn't, leaving me again with the story time. I've also found the more time I spend with him, the more his habits annoy me. His sucking on pant strings and backpack straps drive me absolutely insane and that is just his most recent way of fidgeting. He also has nose snuffles, lip licking, the storytelling, pencil shaking and a host of others that often have me yelling or at least grabbing the offensive element of fidget from him. Logically I know these are all part of his ADD, but these things drive me spare. I don't know how to either change it or ignore it, and the removing of his fidget gidget doesn't always work. When we were looking up beavers on the internet I had to take his sweat pant strings out of his mouth 4 times in ten minutes. The last time I yelled at him to just f'ing stop it already, and then had to apologize for swearing. I've explained to Brandon that swearing generally comes out when people run out of other ideas. And such is often the case with me.
But anyways, here I am on day 4 of this commitment and I'm torn between what I should do and what is easier to do. I know that no one wins with the easy way. But the right thing is proving to have some unforseen side effects as well. Brandon seems to be emotionally regressing. The more time I spend with him the more babylike and helpless he tries to be. I really don't like that trend. Is he just allowing himself regression so as to make up for time spent in his toddlerhood/young childhood when I wasn't there for him? Is he doing now what so many people have to do later - reclaiming his 'inner child' even though he's hasn't made it out of childhood? Or is he doing what he sees frustrates me, waiting for me (or trying to instigate) to revert into my hidey hole where he's allowed to do pretty much anything as long as it doesn't bug me?
I really want to keep up with this commitment, already I can see Brandon thinking more, even when it's not school related, but this is nowhere near the positive lovey dovey emotional bonding stuff I wanted. Kids may just be short people but they don't work the same as adults and as much as I hate to admit it I think I may have passed through that expanse where I don't get kids.

Still doing my morning walks (I timed myself the other morning - I spend 40 minutes out there... I think my block is bigger than I give it credit for) Meal planning was simply the best idea ever and some of these healthy recipes are just dang tasty... whoda thunk that barley chicken would become a favourite? I stepped on the scale this morning and it said I was 3 lbs lighter than last week, I'll only believe one of those lbs because you always weigh less in the morning... so that brings me up to 11 lbs down since I quit smoking. Only 9 more to go before Helen gets here! I can so do this. I haven't been keeping up with the morning manicures since I started spending my mornings with Brandon, I think I'll put that over until before bed and see how that works. But on the whole I'm happy with what I've been doing and the results are starting to show. I feel amazing.