Too much togetherness?

People keep asking how our trip to Quebec was, and overall it was a wonderful trip. It was jam packed with tons of sightseeing.Unfortunately, this made for some snippy parents and very tired little boys. Not to mention that sleeping on an air mattress (many times with one or two boys in our sleeping bag) did not help. There were other contributing factors to the lack of sleep- many nights it was our resident skunk. One night it was raccoons who thoroughly enjoyed the container of nuts that somehow missed the evening cleanup. One night it was Liam having a nightmare about being stuck in a straightjacket (he was really stuck in the foot end of his sleeping bag). He almost stood up and ran through the wall of the tent. Luckily, I made it to the zipper of his sleeping bag before that happened.
One thing that on reflection has been really tough for me is that being with Liam when he's not ticcing very much but having a TON of other TS related issues is really really tough as a mom. Much tougher than the tics. We seem to be getting a really good handle on our HRT and we even came up with a response for a new tic. Liam started shouting "SUCKER" at completely inappropriate times to his brother and sister. At first I didn't realize what was going on, having not heard any vocal tics for awhile and just ignored it at first but started asking him to knock it off when it got annoying. Luckily, Brian shot me a nasty look at one point when I said in a not so nice voice to cut it out. So I sat down with Liam during a quiet moment and asked him if it felt like a tic. We worked through it and were able to come up with a response. He's done an amazing job at working through it and I'm so proud of him.
What was much tougher on me, and on all of us, was the impulsivity and Liam's growing need for independence. It was unbelievably tough in two cities (especially the old parts of the cities with tiny sidewalks and streets that would suddenly change from pedestrian walkways to streets with cars zooming through them) to try to make him understand that racing away from us to play in a really cool looking fountain was not ok. I think because of the lack of tics lately, it's been much harder for me to remember that he can't control this and that it's part of the whole picture. We had a lot of discussions about trust and responsibility and explained to him that until we can get his impulsivity under control, it's really tough to give him the independence that he's craving.
Before we went on vacation, we talked with his therapist about setting some goals of things to work on that aren't tic related since his tics are pretty calm right now. I talked to him about working with his therapist on the impulsivity and seeing if that's something that we can work on together. He agreed, but did not seem very happy about the idea even though he knows that this is what he needs to do to be given more independence.