The Land Of The Loo-Loo's

Country Livin'

2011-12-17T04:54:00.000-08:00

We moved! Same area, different location. We are now out in the country. It is a nice location because it is about 2 and a ½ miles off of the main road but when you get back to the main road every convenience is available.

There has been good progress but of course there are still issues. We had to call the police on our 8-year-old daughter. It was time. It should have been done a long time ago. The previous rage outburst she had made it clear that her father was losing the battle to keep her and him safe. I felt confident that this was not a chemical issue at this point that she was in control and so I told her the next time I would call the police. There was a next time and so I did what I said.

It was an interesting experience. It made an impression on her and they made it clear the next time they would remove her from the home and either take her to the police station or the local mental health hospital.

We took steps here at home to further support the fact that we are not going to take it anymore. She has to earn back her toys. She has unlimited access to reading and writing or drawing and coloring. She has had to do lots of chores to help the family and it all seems to be making an impression on her.

Her little brother walked in the room and asked where her TV was. She did not give the old answers of “they took it” or “I don’t know”. She owned up to her behavior and explained that she lost it because of her big tantrum and that the police had to come and that she had to earn it back. So here’s hoping that we are on the right track.

The new home lay out is very good for everyone. There is a lot more space and everyone seems to be responding to that well. The house is on a bit of land and there is no traffic so there is more freedom for the kids to just go and play. So far they are loving it!

Pre-School Graduation

2011-05-27T22:38:00.000-07:00

Thursday Lil Bro graduated from Pre-school. It was a grand old time and a big to-do for the little ones. Miss is at Grandma’s for a visit this week and so we did not have her stuff to deal with which made it really nice.

As we were leaving a funny thing happened. One of Lil Bro’s classmates is Chinese. His family moved here to the sunshine state. He and Lil Bro were fast friends. Mr. Man, who is of Korean heritage, saw me talking to this little boy and his Mom. And having Asperger’s means he tends to be awkward in social settings but he is interested at times in making a social effort. This was one of those times. Mr. man walks up to us and says to the five-year-old Chinese boy, “Hey I’m one of you guys too. So …” I didn’t really wait for whatever might be following so. I just took over the conversation and said that this was Mr. Man and it was so nice talking with you blah blah let’s get the heck out of here.

With Mr. Man’s literal thinking it is at times a real benefit. It seems in regards to adoption and being adopted this way of thinking has helped Mr. Man. He knows that he grew in another tummy and he knows that he is part Asian and that Mom and Dad aren’t. He is fine with all that. It is kind of like here is the person that drives me home on the bus and here is the person who’s tummy I grew in. They are all people with a job and he is fine with that. He asked me why he grew in someone else’s tummy and not mine and I simply said, “Because that is where you started out at. If you had started in my tummy you would have grown there but once you start in a tummy you have to stay there until you are ready to come out, there is no changing tummies.” I was winging it but that answer totally made since to him and he was happy with that.

It was the same kind of answer for the why am I Asian and you aren’t? Because the person who’s tummy you grew in was Asian, you get that from her. Made since and he was fine with that. For him there is no question that I am his real Mom that this is his real family that Big Sis is his real sister. Once when Miss screamed at me that I wasn’t her real Mom anyway Mr. was totally offended by that. He said, “You are the real Mom, she must be trying to make a joke.” That is how he explains anything that does not make since to him, jokes don’t make since so it must be a joke.

Dealing with his issues has been so much easier because of that natural parent child love that exists between us. Having to deal with a child’s issues who are also constantly sabotaging the relationship is very very challenging.

Love and support to all those who are doing the job daily!

School’s out for Summer!

2011-05-23T22:22:00.000-07:00

For the first time in years I am excited about summer break!

Mr. Man is doing well overall and I think that he will have a good summer.

Lil Bro is a fun kid and I am sure he will have a great summer.

Big Sis is all about summer and swimming fun. Her virtual school program was a hit and we are going to be schooling at home again this next school year.

We have summer camp day program lined up for Miss M and she is satisfied with that. We have also arranged several visits with Grandma and Paw Paw during the summer.

In June we are taking a family vacation for 10 days to the Great Smokey Mountains. We are planning to camp some and stay in a motel some. All 7 of us are going and the two Chihuahuas, in a Mom Mobile with a travel topper thingy on the top of the van. We should be a merry load of entertainment for our fellow travelers out and about on the high ways.

The last family vacation we took was when Miss was three and a half and not yet diagnosed. I was in over my head and out of my league big time. Somewhere on the side of the road on that trip I swore to my mother in law as God as my witness I will not travel out of the sunshine state with this child again until we get a handle on whatever it is she has going on. So five years later here we go.

Things are mostly the same with Miss. Her pants are poopy most days, which means she isn’t earning some privileges and she gets lots of practice at hand washing laundry because she takes responsibility and cleans the poopy pants. It’s getting worse instead of better. But life goes on.

She has had more issues with taking things that are not hers from school. We handle it, return it, etc. The teacher e-mailed me 2 weeks ago that Miss was refusing to do her best work on an important math test. The teacher had her redo the test 3 times. A few days later Miss received a “student of the month” award. Why should the child do better and try harder if she is rewarded for not doing? But life goes on.

She bullied a child at school again. I can’t remember if I posted about that or not. If I am repeating myself, bare with me. She demanded that the child play with her, the child did not want to so Miss started harassing her and when that didn’t work she got the student in trouble by reporting that the child called her a name that she didn’t. Miss never comprehended that she did anything wrong. I tried to reason with her that this was unkind and she got someone in trouble when they didn’t really do anything. Miss felt she deserved to be in trouble because she made her mad.

Even the behavior therapist sees that her need/demand for control is so valuable to her that it is very difficult to come up with leverage that will motivate her to make the right choice. He is supportive to our family and that is the real benefit.

We continue to know that we are being blessed with the means in which to cope with Miss’ issues. We pray that in time she will truly change from within. In the mean time we continue to do our best to help her and to keep moving forward.

With school being out I hope to have more opportunity to keep the blog updated. Here are a few picture updates:

Mr. Man and his best bud at the awards.

Mr. Man with his Teacher.

(Sorry these photos are chopped up but the names were showing on the awards.)

Miss at the awards.

The Hubs with his fish.

Jasmine the chihuahua!

Navigating Parenthood

2011-04-22T19:44:00.000-07:00

Navigating parenthood with multiple children who are inherently different is complicated. As parents here in loo loo land we fumble through, always giving it our all and doing our personal best. Sometimes that still isn’t enough but it’s what we have. RAD is still with us, very much healing but here. I wish there was a pill or a magic potion, a vaccine for RAD.

Today my troubled daughter had a very good day. We traveled 2 hours south for brother’s eye appointment with his specialist. His vision is doing awesome by the way. The littlest brother was a total and complete ace number one pain in the butt all day today. He decided to be 4 going on 5 and it was not convenient to say the least.

Despite little brother being a pain Miss and Mr. were the big kids and did very well. As a reward for good choices (which had been lacking over the past few days) we went to dinner without little brother. Little brother earned going to bed early tonight because he was obviously tired.

We were sitting at the table in the restaurant having a nice time with nice conversation. We were eating the yummy bread while we waited for our food. My daughter who has been with me since she was 2 and a half years old and fed very very well everyday that she has been in my presence, gazed around the room and snatched the bread in front of her when she thought no one was looking.

I did not say anything to her, it didn’t matter that she took it and it was totally fine for her to have it. The need to get it on her own, to insure for herself that she will have what she needs, is still with in her. It made me sad for her, for what she went through those first years.

I posted that I was able to arrange for a staff member to check on Miss during lunch to ensure that she isn’t taking food from others. The staff member contacted me this week and let me know that Miss is obviously watching to see if she is being watched. The food taking is not going on at this time and so naturally others behaviors have stepped up.

Miss has been coming home with jewelry and things from other children (more and more) and so I contacted the director of the after school program where the “gathering” seemed to be happening. She has nipped that in the bud for the time being. Miss of course is not happy with me for that. Additionally Miss had been fake doing homework during homework time at the after school program. She would do a small portion of her work and then claim to be done. They don’t check the children’s work they simply provide them time to work on homework. I tried to handle the situation with Miss myself. I talked to her two different times and at the last talk I let her know if she continued to choose not to do her homework then I would have to ask Ms. H to have her stay at the homework station for the whole homework time whether she was finished or not whether she had homework that day or not.

Naturally she needed to test me. When she came home and announced that she did not finish her homework at aftercare, a very simple and quick handwriting practice assignment, I asked her why she made that choice. She said, “Because I wanted to go and play.” Well thanks for the honesty however did Mom tell you that she would need to talk to Ms. H if you made that choice again? Yes. So you understand that Mom is going to speak to Ms. H and you will need to stay at the homework station from now on? Yes.

This strong willed child seems to have a perpetual figurative middle finger in the air at all times. I spoke to the director and she was very supportive and said no problem they will have Miss stay at the homework station the full 30 minutes and that will still give her 25 minutes of outside play during the first outside time.

So … Mom is not Miss Fabulous’ favorite person at this time. We have talked about choices and the choices we make lead to earning or losing privileges. It seems that Miss either has tantrums or poop in the pants. The behavior therapist suggested that we make dessert earned with clean pants and not earned with poopy pants. Miss said that was not fair because dessert was lost with tantrums not poopy pants. It was a valid point of view and so we talked it out. I explained that poopy pants are the same as tantrums because they are a choice. We can choose to keep our pants clean and we can choose to handle anger the right way and not tantrum. Or we can choose not to do those things. At first Miss was simply mad and things did not sink in.

Today everyone had the day off from school and Miss was clearly still mad at Mom. I went in to her room and we talked things through again. I told her that we don’t want her to feel that things are not fair because that is frustrating to a person and it makes the person feel mad. I told her that I wanted to try again to help her to understand that Mom and Dad’s decisions were fair. Lather, rinse, repeat. I reminded her that I wasn’t expecting anything from her that I did not expect from my other kids. If they have poopy pants or tantrums then they are letting me know that they don’t want dessert.

I told her also that I understood that I was not the Mom that she wanted and that it was okay for her to feel that way but I am the Mom she has so it would be better to try to make the best of that. She said okay and she had a pretty good day today so here’s hoping.

It Was A Nice Two Weeks ...

2011-04-14T20:17:00.000-07:00

and now we are back to reality. Miss is pushing every button that Mommy has and I am trying to hold it in with a smile. So far I am doing okay but it is certainly stressful.

I was explaining to my oldest why little sister is on a program to earn a "bath pass" but she has to take a bath daily. Mr. Man had voiced his unhappiness with the program as well. And during my parental explanation I said, "Parenting is not a democracy, it is not always "fair" but it is always "right" because your Dad and I know best and have all of your best interest at heart." My mother in law thought I should right that down.

I went on to explain to the oldest that she has a lot more privileges than her little sister because she proves with her behavior choices that she can handle those privileges. That may not always look fair to someone else but as the parent I know that it is what is right for the children involved. The conversation ended with her giving me a "okay" shoulder shrug and going off to get her bath so I count that as a successful conversation.

There was more on the lunch room chicken nugget status this week. The nugget debris is still coming home in Miss' lunch bag. I asked her what she had got from the lunch room and she said nothing. I asked why there was nugget crumbs in her bag and she gave me the "I don't want to talk to you" shoulder shrug. It is amazing how much can be communicated with the shoulder shrug. Later I asked the question in a different way and got further. I asked who gave her food in the lunch room and she said K did. I asked why and she said "because I like them." I asked what K ate and she said "nothing because she was not hungry."

That did not sound good to me. We have one child eating two lunches and one child not eating any lunch. I remembered that the exceptional education coordinator at the school who is also the IEP coordinator who gives us a fight in getting what we want and need, had mentioned that she monitored the lunch room when Miss was eating lunch. She can be very difficult to deal with but she knows RAD and she knows that Miss has it and she has made that clear to me. So in this case she seemed like the best choice. I contacted her and let her know the situation and my concern that the other child was not eating lunch. She assured me she would handle it and it seems that she did. So far no more nugget debris and it would seem that everyone is eating their lunch.

Absence Makes The Heart Grow Fonder?

2011-04-07T20:38:00.000-07:00

Maybe that really is true, that being away from someone makes us value them more when we are together again. I think it is true. But the surprising thing is it seems to be true for Miss Fabulous as well.

When I still see the RAD markers surface in her life and ours I find myself asking, “How healed is she? How healed is she ever going to be?” But the truth seems to be just as other RAD experienced parents have said that the healing is a long time coming. And yet she is healing just the same.

Last week was our school districts Spring Break. After our weekend of camping, which I will post about later, Miss went to stay with the Grandparents for Spring Break week. She had a great time being the only child and playing in the hot tub and getting undivided non-stop attention. It used to be that although the break was needed and enjoyable the he** that she ensued on this household upon her return made it almost not worth it. But this time she came home like most kids do, that is she was thrilled to see every one of us and has been sweet as a peach. Of course it often seems put on and fake but she is making a real effort that much is clear and we are happy with nice even if it is a little fake-o.

Tonight after her bath she asked me to help her with her hair. She asked nicely and was respectful. I kind of had a pause for a moment as if candid camera was going to be jumping out from behind the bathroom door to real the joke. But no, that did not happen. While I was braiding her hair she asked if I remember the time that she got mad and screamed and then I showed her the birth date papers. I looked confused because I was and she said never mind. But I racked my brain and thought back to a time maybe a year or more ago, I’m pretty sure I blogged about it, when she got angry at me and said that I wasn’t her real Mom anyway. Once everything had calmed down I went and got all of the kids birth certificates. We always do a second adoption here in our home state so that the kids official documents are issued from our state and not only from their country of birth. So when you line up everyone’s birth certificate they all look alike, even Big Sis’s. I showed her all the documents and told her that I was her real mother just the same way that I am Lil Bro’s, Mr. Man’s and Big Sis’s mother. I said see the papers say that I am your Mom and that The Hubs is your Dad.

I told her that I understood that she grew in someone else’s tummy and so did Lil Bro and so did Mr. Man and that those woman are very special because they gave each of my children life but I am your real Mom and that’s how it is going to be forever. I have never heard her say the real Mom bit again. Although it will no doubt be coming my way again once the teen years hit, heaven help me.

She said yes that was the time she was talking about and then she said, “But you are my real Mom.” It was a very sincere apology for something that she had said to me months ago.

Miss had soccer practice today and she really gave it her all and she was down right impressive and because she did not sabotage herself and really tried her best it gave me a great opportunity to praise her all up and cheer her on. I was the Mom giving her the thumbs up and she was the kid waving to me from the field when she scored the goal. It was awesome and she really seemed to feel good about really trying and succeeding. And I think it lead to her wanting me to know that she knows who her real Mom is even though all the baggage from the past hurts and so sometimes I am the Mom that gets to be the punching bag.

Twilight Zone Report Card Day

2011-03-22T07:08:00.000-07:00

I am having a twilight zone moment. I am hoping for clarification from other smart parents.

Over the past few weeks Miss has had notes sent home saying that she was off task many times through out the day, that she had "kicked some boys at recess" but Miss clarified that she tripped the boys first because they would not play with her and then she kicked them, and also there has been the whole lunch room thing which I mentioned in my last post. Granted the teacher probably knows nothing about that since she is not with them during lunch. But in addition she has work sent home WEEKLY that has to be signed (at the teachers request) because of the failing grade received.

Yesterday was report card day. Mr. Man's was typical with good grades and a basic comment about him progressing well in second grade. However, Miss Fabulous had a mind-blowingly fabulous report card to the point that I feel alarmed.  Unless you parent a challenging child that probably sounds really odd. Here's why I feel alarmed ...

The child that we have in our home and family life does NOT make friends well. She doesn't express truly caring for or connecting with people. She can go through the motions of "getting along" when we have visitors but only for a short period of time and she often/usually rages after they leave.

She recently said, "I love everyone!" When I casually asked her what it means to love someone I could have just as easily asked her to explain nuclear fusion. It was a nice thing to say and she understands that so she said it but she doesn't have a grasp on what it means. Not even on her four year old brother's level. He can explain to a person what love means in his four year old way and it is sincere and you can ascertain that he knows what loving someone is. Even her brother with Asperger's Syndrome can clearly explain what loving his family means, despite being socially awkward.

At soccer practice we see the other 7 kids becoming a team and connecting with and supporting each other. She doesn't seem to know how. She smiles at the other kids in an awkward way and keeps to herself on the bench while she waits for her turn to go and play. When they perform activities that are to promote team effort she gives half effort and it is clear to anyone watching her. When it is about her she tends to go all out. Not that this is surprising or life ending but I'm painting a verbal picture so that you can empathize with my Twilight Zone.

With our congregation she is aloof and disinterested or she puts on a fake awkward smile and attempts to make nice when people approach her. She is disconnected from the children her age.

With her siblings she truly struggles with interaction. She either seems to watch from the outside looking in or she sabotages group interaction.  When she interacts positively with a sibling it is always one on one. Even with the professional behavior therapist here she is going to "attention seek" by getting upset and crying and stomping and pouting or by getting angry. Last week the CBA had to put this child in a restraining hold because she flew into a rage because I directed her to review her homework with the CBA instead of meeting her demand that I go over the homework.

However, these are the remarks from Miss' report card - "Miss has been working hard on trying to do her best on all of her work. She needs to slow down and take her time when doing all of her work. She is such a great helper to all of her classmates and they all love her. Keep working hard Miss!!!"

As a parent a person should read that on a report card and be thrilled but I live in the Twilight Zone on report card day. Out of 28 categories on the report card Miss received 20 OUTSTANDINGs and 8 SATISFACTORY marks.

Under LIFELONG LEARNING, SKILLS OF INDEPENDENCE
Accepts Responsibility for own actions and
SKILLS OF COOPERATION
Respects rights and property of others and
works and plays cooperatively Miss received OUTSTANDING and part of the reason I live in the Twilight Zone on report card day is because I don't think tripping and kicking others at recess classifies as OUTSTANDING. Apparently the teacher does? She seems really sane so I don't think so but it makes me ask why?  Why does this teacher and ALL of Miss' teachers omit reality on report card day?

Mr. Man received 16 OUTSTANDINGs, 10 SATISFACTORY marks, and 2 NOT DEMONSTRATED CONSISTENTLY marks for Writes legibly and Solves subtraction problems. And he has an above average IQ according to the school's testing. He definitely responds well to the structure and predictability of school routine and is better behaved at school than at home to a point but he isn't a completely different person.

I am considering meeting with the teacher and the speech/language pathologist and asking them for examples of her OUTSTANDING positive interaction with peers and friends. I am truly blown away and would like to present the professionals that work with Miss in real life examples of what the school is talking about verses the examples of what we see in family life.

What do you think?

The Lunch

2011-03-18T06:33:00.000-07:00

For the past two weeks we have noticed that Miss Fabulous has had chicken nuggets in her lunch box. We did not pack nuggets and she did not have money to buy lunch. When the nuggets appear we have noticed that the packed lunch is not eatten at all or very little. We weren't sure what was going on here and wondered if she was swipping nuggets off other's trays.

This morning Mr. Man announced that he saw Miss with a lunch tray yesterday. This discussion began because they get to buy lunch on Friday's. Clearly he did not think she should get to buy lunch on Friday since he had seen her with a lunch tray on Thursday. She said that she most certainly did not have a lunch tray that he must have seen her friend that looks just like her. I can assure the jury that no such person exist. Mr. Man rebutted that no it was clearly her and that she had even said hi to him. At this point we directed the conversation else where because clearly the adults have more detective work to do in the case of the unauthorized lunch tray.

This stuff is not in the parent handbook, you know?

(This photo was from our camping trip last fall.)

Ummm? Life As We Know It

2011-03-17T06:58:00.000-07:00

Our bath time pass earning program seems to be crumbling a bit. It has lasted longer than we ever anticipated it would but for a week now Miss has failed to earn a bath pass because she tantrums and has to start the earning all over.

Last week I received a note from teacher that Miss was "off task" several times which translates to acting up in class. e.g. Can't keep our hands to our self, making noise outburst during class to receive attention, etc. This week I received a note that Miss was kicking other students during recess. She came home that evening and proceeded to tantrum about Mom checking her homework. Let me clarify this because maybe your mind is saying that she did NOT want Mom to check the homework. Quite the opposite with my attention seeker. She knew it was ALL done wrong and so she would need to redo it and that would set her up to have a tantrum. Mom didn't play along but instead took one look at the ALL wrong homework and said, "Since Mr. Behavior Guy is here tonight I think it would be awesome for you to go over this with him and if there are any changes he can help you make them."

That did not sit well with Miss. She screamed, "NO! YOU ARE GOING TO HELP ME!!!" I tried not to feed attention into the tantrum. A few minutes later I suggested that if she did not like how her homework looked she might want to take a minute and make some changes before she and Mr. Behavior Guy went over it together. She screamed, "NO! YOU ARE GOING TO HELP ME DO MY HOMEWORK RIGHT!!!"

I explained that I needed to work on my laundry at the moment but that Mr. Behavior Guy was happy to help her. That did not work out so well, at first. She would not go for Mr. Behavior Guys attempts to move her away from the door to where I was doing laundry. She was giving the door a beat down. Interestingly the door was not locked, she could have come after me but she did not. In the past she would have.

He asked her to help him find the homework paper that he didn't see it etc. She said, "OH GIVE ME A BREAK YOU KNOW WHERE IT IS! I AM NOT COMING OVER THERE!" Then she continued on with the door beat down. He finally had to let her know that she needed to move to her room to calm down and that either she could go on her own or he would help her. She would not go and so he proceeded to pick her up and take her to her room. She would not let it go and proceeded to attack him. He had to put her in a hold. The Hubs was not at home and I can not handle her during a rage.

I think part of what is making Miss angry right now is that she was manipulating the teacher pretty well. Miss had figured out that recess time on Thursday was walk and talk and that she would participate whether she did her homework or not on Wednesday night. Every Wednesday night she would not bring some component of her homework home which meant that she could not complete her assignment. I e-mailed the teacher that this was going on and it would seem that Mrs. Teacher got back to enforcing her own rules. No homework, no recess time. I am completely okay with this rule because Miss is a very active child and so she is getting all the physical activity that she needs. On Thursdays she has cheer squad at school and then soccer practice in the evening. Add to that non-stop motion and she is covered in the physical activity department.

Mr. is working on "Using Nice Words" to express his needs.

Lil Bro is sick again and on antibiotics. He has a sinus infection that has turned into a double ear infection. It has not slowed him down in the least. He has surgery scheduled for March 29th to have his tonsils and adenoids removed. I am worried but know that it is necessary.

Big Sis is holding steady as the "easy one". Schooling at home is going well. This week she was able to have an outing with some other friends who also school at home and they went to a veterinarian office for a tour.

I get to be the assistant soccer coach by default. The other parents who said that they would do it puttered out. Go me! I have unofficially diagnosed one player as being on the autism spectrum and he and I do fine together. And another player seems very ADHD to me. He and I keep busy when he is on the bench by crowing like a rooster. Whatever works! Lil Bro is a great little player when he is paying attention, he is often distracted. The little girl on the team is quiet and shy but she loves attention from the coach. And then we have one natural little soccer player who had never seen a soccer ball before this season but he is doing awesome.

I doubt that we will get suckered into coaching in the future but I must say it has all gone well thus far.

Pictures of the Crew

2011-03-09T12:42:00.000-08:00

Life over the last week has been pretty good. We enjoyed a visitor from up North, visted with family from up North who were vacationing in Orlando FL, and our first Soccer games (as in 2) went well!

Life as we know it ...

2011-03-02T06:58:00.000-08:00

I have not felt like blogging lately. My thoughts have been scattered and my mood has been low. I just had that “as good as it gets” pity party going on.

Things have not been in crisis mode, which I should be thankful for. My daughter continues to be stable and my daughter continues to be a pain to live with. Some how crisis mode allows me to feel more positive than everyday pain in the butt mode does. And then I feel ungrateful.

The month of February was filled with I don’t want to take a bath and I hate homework rages. We handled the rages, everyone stayed safe. Then the behavior therapist suggested a bath pass earning program. I turned away as my eyes rolled up in my head because seriously I was not feeling the bath pass thing. We have be done so many things to accommodate a child who struggles with behavior problems at home but not at school that I literally felt done accommodating. I wanted to dig my heals in and say no more! When you are dirty you get a bath period because you are seven and that is the Mommy’s call to make. I tried to put on a good face but I was resentful that yet again we have to figure out some way to get this child to do what everyone else here is doing with out accommodations, including a child with Asperger’s and a four year old.

But … I sucked it up and went with the suggestion and it is working. Everyday that Miss has no bath tantrum or homework tantrum she earns a check on the board. Three checks in a row and she earns a bath pass card which she can use when she chooses. She cannot use the pass if she has poop in her pants. If she has earned one or two checks and has a tantrum then we start all over again, it must be 3 checks in a row. When she uses the pass we right pass on the board but it does not count as a check. In three weeks she has only had one tantrum regarding homework or bath. I should be thrilled and I do act thrilled to her but inside I am resentful. I am resentful that it takes this kind of effort to get such simple things accomplished. I should not be I know and I’m working on it.

Right now we are working through “due process” with the school to try to get our son’s IEP labeled correctly. Right now it is a language based IEP. His “language exceptionality” is based in his Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) diagnosis of Asperger’s. We have brought this up for years and been brushed off. So we are now working with an educational advocate and hope to make progress, time will tell.

Mr. had a surgical procedure, nothing major, but his recovery took longer than expected. He missed a good bit of school because of it and he discovered upon his return to school he could say that his surgery site bothered him and that he would go to the clinic and Mom would come pick him up. So we had to address that issue.

His anxiety at school has been increasing and he wants to be at home with Mom. I am flattered and happy that he is most comfortable at home but he still has to go to school.

It’s Soccer time and Lil Bro and Miss Fabulous are both playing soccer now. The Hubs was recruited to coach Lil Bro’s team. There are 6 four and five year olds on the team, two of which are prone to crying when they don’t score a goal. They are cute as can be and the Hubs is doing a great job with them.

Miss started out strong and confident at her first practice. Second practice the coach tried to give her instruction as to how to kick the ball correctly and that was not a big hit with her. She went into passive aggressive mode where she missed every ball that came her way and only gave the appearance of participating but really was just kind of bopping around in the general area. I asked her what she thought of coach and she said that she could not understand him when he spoke. I told her to just do what he was showing her to do and she didn’t need to worry about understanding his words. As we know she is a very visual person and the coach was giving very good instruction visually, despite his accent.

So we hope that she will continue to be willing to show up to practice with out a bunch of boo-who. The evaluator who worked with her last spring recommended soccer to help Miss be a part of a team where the attention is not focused on any one person and you win by supporting the team.

Sometimes and Mostly

2011-01-25T08:42:00.000-08:00

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Albert Einstein
I hear ya Albert, we have had some of that ourselves around these here parts. For instance certain ones don't like getting a bath, they have a tantrum regarding said bath, they therefore fail to earn dessert and they still have to take the bath independently. They understand these facts completely but yet they continue to carry on in the same way repeatedly with the belief that things will be different this time.
All in all we are stable.

Tantrums have been just that and not spiraled into rage outburst.
Homework is a hassle but that's life.
Sometimes we choose to do our best on school work and sometimes we don't. Sometimes is better than never.
More often than not we make good choices.

Do I, the Mom, think underlying issues are resolved? Probably not, but I also think that will be a long time coming if ever. But we are doing as well as one would expect with the alphabet soup that is our life! Go team!

And now I share some hope inspiring thoughts for the day...

* Accept that some days you're the pigeon, And some days you're the statue.

* Always keep your words soft and sweet, Just in case you have to eat them.

* If you can't be kind, at least have the decency to be vague.

* If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, It was probably worth it.

* It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to be kind to others.

* Never put both feet in your mouth at the same time, Because then you won't have a leg to stand on.

* Since it's the early worm that gets eaten by the bird, sleep late.

* The second mouse gets the cheese.

* When everything's coming your way, You're in the wrong lane.

* Birthdays are good for you. The more you have, the longer you live.

* You may be only one person in the world ... But you may also be the world to one person.

* Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once.

* We could learn a lot from crayons... Some are sharp, some are pretty and some are dull.

Some have weird names, and all are different colours, but they all have to live in the same box.

*A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour.

Revvin' in 2011

2011-01-03T09:49:00.000-08:00

Hello all! Here's hoping as you read this you are reflecting on happy times during your break from school and what not.

The Loo-Loo Crew is holding steady:

Mr. Man has gone 6 weeks with no aggression!
Miss Fabulous is making continued slow progress in her attachment to family members, having real feeling and owning them, and taking responsibility for her choices. We have even seen some appropriate big sister behavior and interaction with Lil Bro. Fantastic!
We had our Family Anniversary Day and everyone shared what that liked best about the other members of the family and what they liked about being a part of this family. Lil Bro at age 4 said, "I wike being in this fam-o-lee because I wike to wuv my Mommy and Daddy." He gets it! Love him!
The Hubs and I just celebrated our 17 year anniversary!
They have all been sick with the usual colds and cough and we have finally lost the battle and are saddling up to see the pediatrician today in fact.
Big Sis has been doing well. We are dealing with the hormonal 11 year old stuff where her mood swings like the wind is blowing. But no major issues as yet.

Big Sis making doggy treats!

Big Sis with the Fur Babies - Jasmine and Chico.

Mom and Miss Fabulous at school!

Mom and Mr. Man at school!

Miss lookin' cute!

The Cuddlers!

Update

2010-12-10T13:13:00.000-08:00

Things have been busy for sure so I have been neglectful on the bloggy front.

Thanks to those who have inquired on how we are here in Loo Loo Land!

· We took a trip to visit family up north in November. The kids traveled well, which is always a plus! Miss Fabulous had a visit with Grandma and Paw Paw while we were away since the Dad was staying behind to finish some work on the floors here at the Loo Loo Ranch. Miss enjoyed time as the only child and swimming in the hot tub!

· The school seems to be getting a clearer picture of Mr. Man and Miss Fabulous and seem to be meeting their needs well this year. After Mr. yanked out clumps of his hair in frustration during a meltdown the school started making accommodations in handwriting and homework. I have been really impressed with this since he did not melt down at school but at home regarding school; they still saw it as significant. And that equals help!

· The speech teacher called me following some testing she had done with Miss. The testing was to get an overall view of Miss’ abilities academically. I went to the school for a meeting with her and she showed me the results of the testing, which were on the low side and therefore qualify Miss for continued help via her IEP. But she wanted me to see why Miss’ scores were low, because she clearly “was not feeling motivated to do her best.” For instance Miss correctly identified infantry as a vocabulary word but was not able to identify the colors red and yellow or apple. The only thing that surprised me is that my 7 year old knew what infantry was! Both the teacher the speech teacher and the IEP coordinator have indicated that they have Miss’ number and understand her lack of motivation at times. Rolled into that she has some areas, which are clearly not strengths for her such as word tenses, and she is getting help in those areas as well.

· We are still dealing with homework tantrums.

· Mr. Man was sick last week with an ear infection, sinus infection and viral tonsillitis. His temp was 103.2 with both Motrin and Tylenol. Poor guy!

· Miss still visits the school clinic when she is not happy about something in class. They usually send her packing with in 2 minutes once her temp is negative.

· Lil Bro is doing awesome in school and life in general.

· Big Sis is doing well too, we have had to revamp our at home schooling schedule. I guess it is typical to have adjustments when you begin schooling at home.

· On a sad note my kitty cat who is 17 years old and who I raised on a bottle because his Mom and litter mates all died, has bone cancer. The tumor is located on his rib cage and is aggressive. Right now he is comfortable and that is our goal but in the next few weeks that will likely change and we will need to make the humane choice on his behalf.

Keep on keepin’ on!

Teacher Conference

2010-11-11T06:22:00.000-08:00

Tuesday was teacher parent conference night and we had a meeting with Mr. Man and Miss Fabulous' teachers and some of the support staff. The consensus was that Mr. needs some extra help and some accommodations such as typing homework instead of hand writing sentences. The support staff and teacher were concerned that he had recently ripped out a bunch of his hair and since homework stresses him out they felt it appropriate to make accommodations. The Hubs and I were on board with that!

Mr.'s situation is such that even though he does not melt down at school his teacher is very well aware of how stressed he is at times. He is driven by the need to be done first, if he isn't done first then he feels that his work doesn't count at all, that it isn't valuable. And it doesn't matter how many times it is explained to him this is the way it is in his mind.

It is reassuring that he seems to be on track for getting needed help this year at school.

Both of the kids have new speech teachers this year and they both are gung ho. Miss' speech teacher wants to test test test and I said go for it! Miss had just taken a reading assessment that day and she scored as a beginning reader in the second grade. Much lower than she had scored the last time she was tested. I asked the teacher if she felt that was accurate and she said no and I said me neither. I said that I would guess that Miss Fab did not feel like taking that test at that time. Mrs. Teacher said that was correct because she had to keep instructing Miss to get back to work and that this was important and that she needed to do her best.

A typical thing to direct a student on as a teacher but with Miss probably the most wrong thing to say. She said that she would retest her as soon as she was allowed to and that we would see how she did then. I honestly considered recommending that they use candy and let her know the higher the score the more candy she'd get. She'd ace it but that seems inappropriate.

We looked over some of the work that Miss had recently done and the teacher mentioned that her grades were not as good as they were getting into the real second grade curriculum and we said that was consistent with what we had seen in the past. She recognized that there were answers that were obviously wrong that she felt Miss probably really did know the answer to. That was encouraging to feel that the teacher understood that. It is just Miss way of rebelling against being told to do something that she doesn't want to be doing. She is not comfortable to tantrum there at school but she will refuse to answer their questions correctly so take that!

The teacher seemed to understand that Miss is not always on the level but that she is a pretty cute kid any how. Miss seems to be having better peer relationships in school. The teacher said that she feels Miss has the concepts that are being taught and that she tends to be a ring leader in her small group and that her group tends to do the best in terms of the concepts that they are working on. I told her that was consistent with what Miss was sharing at home because she had told me that she was "very popular" and that "everyone wants to be in my group and I have to say whoa there slow down a minute people!" Her teacher said that was accurate.

I hope that this positive trend carries on. This is the time of year where we tend to see the most stability from Miss. And I'm thankful for it!

This is Sparks the firefighting dragon. As room Mom for Mr's class I was assigned to the job of drawing Mr. Sparks. The kids will be decorating him on Friday. On Monday I am commissioned to help with Miss' class hero. These characters are for a contest related to the schools book fair. Reading counts!

This is just a cute pic that I found when I was uploading Mr. Spark. Dad took these three kids hiking while Miss went with Mom and Nan shopping.

And that's one to grow on!

Temple on Asperger's

2010-11-04T19:03:00.000-07:00

So true!

FUNNY AND SWEET

2010-11-04T08:25:00.000-07:00

I received this in an e-mail, hope it makes you smile!

1. HOW DO YOU DECIDE WHOM TO MARRY? (written by kids)

You got to find somebody who likes the same stuff. Like, if you like sports, she should like it that you like sports, and she should keep the chips and dip coming.

-- Alan, age 10

-No person really decides before they grow up who they're going to marry. God decides it all way before, and you get to find out later who you're stuck with.

-- Kristen, age 10

2. WHAT IS THE RIGHT AGE TO GET MARRIED?

Twenty-three is the best age because you know the person FOREVER by then.

-- Camille, age 10

3. HOW CAN A STRANGER TELL IF TWO PEOPLE ARE MARRIED?

You might have to guess, based on whether they seem to be yelling at the same kids.

-- Derrick, age 8

4. WHAT DO YOU THINK YOUR MOM AND DAD HAVE IN COMMON?

Both don't want any more kids.

-- Lori, age 8

5. WHAT DO MOST PEOPLE DO ON A DATE?

-Dates are for having fun, and people should use them to get to know each other. Even boys have something to say if you listen long enough.

-- Lynnette, age 8

-On the first date, they just tell each other lies and that usually gets them interested enough to go for a second date.

-- Martin, age 10

6. WHEN IS IT OKAY TO KISS SOMEONE?

-When they're rich.

-- Pam, age 7

-The law says you have to be eighteen, so I wouldn't want to mess with that.

- - Curt, age 7

-The rule goes like this: If you kiss someone, then you should marry them and have kids with them. It's the right thing to do.

- - Howard, age 8

7. IS IT BETTER TO BE SINGLE OR MARRIED?

It's better for girls to be single but not for boys. Boys need someone to clean up after them.

-- Anita, age 9

8. HOW WOULD THE WORLD BE DIFFERENT IF PEOPLE DIDN'T GET MARRIED?

There sure would be a lot of kids to explain, wouldn't there?

-- Kelvin, age 8

And the #1 Favorite is.......

9. HOW WOULD YOU MAKE A MARRIAGE WORK?

Tell your wife that she looks pretty, even if she looks like a dump truck. -- Ricky, age 10

School Days, making progress!

2010-10-31T09:44:00.000-07:00

After the weeks homework battle things improved greatly. There was a book report that Miss had to accomplish on Wednesday which included making a sheep out of a milk jug. We waited til the last minute in part because of how much time her regular homework had been taking because of the battles. But ... the last minute went well so no complaints. Our milk jug sheep was a big hit in the classroom and Miss liked that. For the book report itself we found the points that needed to be shared together and I wrote them down for us and then Miss rewrote the report independently. She did very well with that and got gobs of praise about what a big girl she was and what an awesome job she is doing. I hope that we are on the right track to shape her behavior toward homework in a positive way. We love helping the kids with homework it can be an really enjoyable time together but the manipulation can not be supported. I think we are on the right track.

Mr. is struggling with homework but this week went better. For him he needs to know that he can leave the homework and come back to it. He doesn't handle feeling trapped by the homework well and he starts to unravel. But the realization that he can walk away and take a break and return back to the work seems to be helping. Writing is a huge challenge for him and tends to overwhelm him so writing one sentence at a time and going to play for a few minutes and then coming back is working for him at the moment.

Friday I got to volunteer in Mr.'s classroom and it was very interesting to see him in that environment. Other teachers were having fall parties but Mr.'s teacher choose to have a centers activity day. We did a sink or float activity with different veggies and the kids had to predict whether the item would sink or float and why. There was a counting activity with pumpkin seeds where the kids got to scoop out pumpkin seeds from the pumpkin and then guess how many seeds they had and then actually count them. They also made a prediction about the size of the pumpkin by cutting a piece of yarn that they guessed would go around the whole pumpkin. There was a leaf rubbing center and a mat weaving center. It all went really well and the kids never missed the sugary treats!

Sink or Float Center

Counting Pumpkin Seeds

Mat Weaving Station and it was Crazy Hat day so yes that is Mario

on my son's head. :-)

Leaf Rubbing Station

Homework Headaches

2010-10-27T09:10:00.000-07:00

Thanks for all the comments checking in on me!

Overall Miss Fab is doing well and is obviously stable at the moment. However, she is digging in with both heals regarding homework. Despite getting A's in math on her report card she maintains that she does not know how to do the work. One minute she can count money and the next she has no clue. She wants us to do the work step for step for her. In the past this gag worked pretty well for her. She is very believable and as a parent your natural instinct is to help the child. Unfortunately she is clearly manipulating the help and now that we have our ducks in a row and clearly understand her level of ability it is time for her to get to work.

She is going into full on rages, ripping up the papers with her aggressive erasing technique and flat out refusing to move forward. After an hour and a half for 5 problems and a full on rage I decided that we would give her 10 minutes to get the work done or Dad would take her to school the next morning and explain to Mrs. Teacher why the paper looked the way it did and why it was still not complete. She was clearly torn. She did not like the thought of him coming to class and talking to Mrs. Teacher but she also did not want to give in and do the work. She completed one more of the math problems and it was done correctly but refused to do the last problem.

Dad took her to school the next day and asked Mrs. Teacher if Miss Fab knew how to do this work and she was confident that she did. He explained what had happened etc. The teacher said that Miss refuses to answer when she is called on sometimes and sometimes she does not complete her work. Dad explained in the past that it had been determined that was willful behavior and having to do work during recess time had encouraged her to get her work completed in a timely manner.

We have a conference scheduled with Miss Fab's teacher on Nov. 9.

Mr. Behavior Guy was not all together helpful yesterday. He seemed to talk out of both sides of his mouth saying one thing one time and another thing the next time. He started falling back on "I'm using this method and that method" regarding homework help and trying to determine which method works best. The Hubs and I were perturbed and explained numerous times that we were confident that Miss understood the work and she needed to do it. He would agree with that but his actions didn't support that. It was disheartening because this guy has been coming to our house for 2 years, once a week to work with Miss. He has seen her in a full on rage many times, he has watched the manipulation she uses and still she can convince him that she doesn't know something that she does know. What chance do with have with a teacher? None.

Ultimately the suggestion was to work the homework through with Miss on a separate piece of paper and then have her redo the work on her actual homework sheet to turn in. This way she is still having to accomplish the work independently and she can not maintain that she doesn't understand it. The consequence within the "method" is that she has to do the work twice if she isn't willing to do the work independently the first time. We are going to give it a try. If she refuses to do the work independently the second time, having the answers and the work right in front of her from the first time, then it is clearly willful and we are to stick to her not moving on to anything else until she does it. We are in for some lonnnnnnnnnnng nights.

On a positive note the weekend went pretty well. The Hubs and I took Mr. Man and Miss Fabulous camping, in a tent this past weekend. Big Sis went to Grandma's for a visit and Lil Bro got the weekend to himself with Nana.

Miss took this picture of Mom and Dad.

They fell asleep, you would have thought they were rowing!

It was a really nice experience for the kids. And Mom made it through too.

Dad was in his glory!

It's enough to make you pull your hair out!

2010-10-21T21:14:00.000-07:00

Side one.

Side two.

Anxiety is in full swing and Mr. Man had a meltdown that included pulling two big handfuls of hair out. He has not done that in a long time. Second grade is proving to be a challenge for him. His teacher call me recently and let me know that she had already met with the speech teacher and the coordinator for the IEP to have some changes made to meet his current needs. Awesome!

Although he can handle the actual problem solving for the math problems understanding the word problems and what they are asking him is a challenge and since he does not like to be wrong or to get anything wrong that is not going over so well with him. Although he does not act out at school his teacher is aware of how much he is struggling on a personal level and cares about the child. Love her!

Miss Fabulous is giving Mom and Dad a hard time about homework to put it mildly. She is displaying typical RAD behavior regarding homework. She wants an audience. She gets answers wrong on purpose and then a major drama occurs when she is asked to correct it. She will carry on for an hour and longer and then finally says oh fine and does the work that she was capable to do all along.

Dad and I made a decision that she will now do her homework at her desk in her room and not at the kitchen table. She was shocked to hear it but homework moved along at a better pace tonight so who knows. She cooperated and did her reading assignment nicely. When asked what it was about she recalled actual facts and had clearly retained the information that she had read. We were thrilled and told her that because she had done so nicely she earned play time before we took her spelling pre-test.

She felt the need to sabotage herself a bit after having earned a reward and so the spelling test did not go as well as we could have hoped. However, after she got the nonsense out of her system she spelled the words all perfectly well. It was amazing to see. The skills of manipulation are impressive to say the least.

It does seem that yet another teacher has been sucked in to Miss Fabulous trap but I can't hold it against her. After all she is up against a skilled master of manipulation. We keep working at it. We have put in for a conference with Mrs. Teacher.

Miss Fabulous report card was impressive, she in fact surpassed her "gifted" brother by miles. How's that for scary smart?!

Our first born has lost her Internet privilege for the time being. When your child goes to virtual school on line that can be tricky to enforce let me tell you. However, Dad and I have made it clear that earning the right to use the Internet outside of school activity in part will be based on adhering to the restriction that is in place. She made some unsafe sneaky choices and for her own safety needs to understand why that is not okay. She is a good kid and really even an easy kid to parent but even the easy ones need tweaking now and then.

Miss Fabulous had her first ever dental appointment today at age 7. I know bad Mom award but I plead RADical Bipolar as the reason she has not been before now. I am happy to report that she has excellent teeth and needs no fillings. Mr. Man also had his dental appointment today. Their dentist is awesome! She asked if he was a "juice monkey". I told her that he had been as a toddler that it was a huge coping tool and it helped his anxiety level to suck on a sippy cup with juice but that he doesn't do that anymore. He has several "juice cavities" but Dr. Dentist said that once we get those filled he is otherwise in good shape and no worries.

On one hand it makes me feel like a loser Mom who let her kid get cavities. On the other hand I plead Asperger's Disorder and Anxiety. I knew the risk but I decided that they were baby teeth, we could get them fixed and if the darn juice helped him calm down so be it. In the end I can live with it.

I Love October

2010-10-10T08:59:00.000-07:00

Cause it ain't September! Miss Fabulous is fabulous once again! She seems to be benefiting from the 1/4 ml dose increase. She is sleeping again, her frustration tolerance is improved, she is making appropriate choices more often than not and is currently bouncing next to me on the mini trampoline. Bounce bounce bounce. That kids burns off everything she eats!

Yesterday we went skating with some friends. Miss was overwhelmed and nervous at first, she hung back with Mom. Before we left she was skating around the floor for the first time ever! She has been to the skating ring a bunch of times with summer camp but would never skate. But in the comfort of being with her family she was brave enough to try. That is the positive side of her being comfortable with her family!

Lil Bro is doing great at Banana School! He is making friends and has some favorite friends. His handwriting is improving and he can write his name now to the point that we can read it!

Big Sis is doing "outstanding" according to her virtual teacher in her on line school. We still battle the lazy factor but that is to be expected.

Mr. Man is doing well overall. He is starting to display typical 'Asperger' struggles with the curriculum in school. Math word problems are a challenge and he even scored a 58 on a recent test. For a child who is not comfortable getting anything wrong that went over like a led balloon.

Fall is here and even in the Sunshine State it is less hot. We have been spending a lot of time outside!

Dr. Psychiatrist Appointment

2010-10-03T06:02:00.000-07:00

The appointment went well. For two years Miss Fabulous basically had volunteer mute ism with the doctor. Now she is comfortable to talk with him and play in the room with her siblings with out giving much attention to him or what we are talking about. Progress.

I typed up a document telling what I had observed in the classroom. Dr. felt that we had handled the situation very well and to leave it at that. It needed to be addressed, it was a addressed with clear limits set, and let's not feed more attention into it than we have to.

In terms of bringing it to the schools attention Dr. felt that we should not. If they ever bring it to our attention we have a record made of the issue with her psychiatrist and her behavior therapist and since this has been an on going issue since she came home to us 5 years ago there is an on going record of the behavior.

Behavior therapist asked about counseling and Dr. Psychiatrist does not feel it is necessary at this time. He feels that she is getting appropriate help at home and making outstanding progress. She is bipolar and some of these behaviors are simply going to be a problem for her at various times in her cycling and as she matures she needs to learn best how to handle the behaviors, we are appropriately guiding her in that way.

Dr. Psychiatrist nudged up her meds by a quarter ml. She had grown and inch and a half and gained 4 pounds since the last time her meds were nudged up.

Miss had a big ugly rage Saturday over seemingly nothing. She did not get to go to the dog park with everyone else because of it and she earned staying at home and helping to clean the patio to do something nice for the family that she mistreated. She did very well the rest of the day.

Thoughts?

2010-09-30T11:07:00.000-07:00

Just blogging in here. Things have been up and down lately. September is not an easy month for Miss Fabulous and never has been. We actually took custody of her in the month of September (5 years ago) and I saw behavior from her that I had not observed before that time (during other visits) including a weird unprovoked tantrum. The first of many.

We have an appointment with Dr. Psychiatrist tomorrow and I will be discussing with him behavior that I observed Miss engaged in in the classroom. It was not appropriate and yet the teacher and students were not aware of what was going on. When she came home that day I told her I had passed by her classroom while I was there doing some volunteer work for another teacher. I said that I had seen her doing something that was not okay to do at school and I asked her what that behavior was. She told me exactly what I had seen and more, not good.

I have already discussed the situation with the behavior therapist and got his input on it. Tomorrow we will talk to Dr. Psychiatrist and see what he advises. A parent never gets used to dealing with this stuff.

As I said to the behavior therapist my fear is that Miss is a loaded gun. Her view point of right and wrong is 'what are the odds of getting caught'. He agreed.

If you have any thoughts or suggestions bring it on! Thanks in advance!

Gotcha Day No Mas

2010-09-20T22:13:00.000-07:00

I let go of gotcha days. Maybe they will make a come back later. They are unsettling to my kid with RAD and no one noticed when we did not do them.

Yesterday was Miss Fabulous 5 year anniversary as a loo loo crew member.

She had a major blow out Thursday evening. But didn't blow out again through out the weekend. In fact she did great Sunday and that was her gotcha day. She has never done well on her gotcha day, accept she did.

She and I spent 40 minutes in a therapeutic talk Friday about her blow out Thursday. We talked about what was really bothering her. She doesn't like it when we get down to the nitty gritty. She feels outed and she doesn't like that. Understandable. But she can't work through what she won't admit to. So we are working on that. It's going pretty well. In the past she would have tantrumed and raged to avoid the talk. After a big bad battle it would have avoided the talk, but not any more. Now after the rage we go back to the talk. So at least some of the time she is skipping the rage. Progress.

She is doing better than ever in school. Her beginning of the year assessment last year was "low intermediate" and "beginner" scores which are as low as they go. This year she scored "high intermediate" on everything which included reading, writing and listening skills. I gave it to her and told her she should be proud that her scores actually showed how smart she is this year.

But it seems that since she is doing better than ever at school we are getting more mess at home. As Jeri said, we should be flattered that she is comfortable enough to release her anger on us. I am working on it. As her behavior therapist stated "she is comfortable enough with you all to hurt you." Well we are working on that too.

Keep moving forward...

It's Like Pulling Teeth

2010-09-17T17:24:00.000-07:00

Or at least having a crown put on one. This week Lil Bro had to have a crown put on a baby tooth. I was relieved to hear that this tooth was a product of poor formation in the womb and not poor dental habits at my house. All his other teeth were just fine. Now he has a yucky silver tooth in the back of his mouth and I have to say how cool it is and what a great job he did. The truth?

I hate that darn thing and I hate that when a person sees metal in a 4 year old's mouth we naturally think "poor dental care" which is a form of "poor care". But I'll just have to get over that one.

The truth is that Lil Bro did not do well at all but if the meds they gave him did their job he has no memory of it. The drug combo that they give him makes him "drunk". We now know that he is a mean drunk and so we hope he never takes up that habit. In fact he was very much like Miss Fabulous when she is not stable on her bipolar meds. It reminded me how much of what she deals with is chemical in nature.

Miss is doing well at school although she hates the way her new class runs. There is a lot of independent work because the teacher is handling both 2nd and 3rd grade classes. Miss does not like independent work but she is handling it just fine. Her work looks better than ever. Her teacher "loves having her in class" her behavior is classified as roll model. She comes home and rages over homework and bathtime.

We are working with her behavior therapist in helping Miss to connect the two worlds. If you can be a roll model at school you can certainly keep yourself from raging at home.

It is very much like the guy who is charming and well liked at the office but comes home and beats the snot out of his wife for burning the potatoes. Not good.

So we are working on it and yeah it's a little like pulling teeth or at least dealing with a drunk 4 year old who is having a crown put on.

You don't know Jack?

2010-09-14T06:38:00.000-07:00

Lil Bro's school had a Fairytale Ball. Lil Bro went as Jack of Jack and the beanstalk.

Mr. went as Mario, it's not a fairytale but he wasn't going as anything else.

Miss went as a tap dancing ballerina who was not going to go on the fairytale horse and buggy ride.

Lil Bro was all about the fairytale buggy.

This is Lil Bro with his pony friend Cody!

Miss enjoyed the face painting portion of the evening and waited in a longgggggggg line for it.

Here is Big Sis who went as an 11 year old who was not going to dress up. She did however enjoy the face painting! Cute!

Group shot with the Nanster! Lil Bro was too busy to be taking pictures.

September - Me No Likey

2010-09-09T21:04:00.000-07:00

September is just not her month. Miss Fabulous has been a moody little person these days. She had another big rage but was able to keep herself from getting violent toward anyone else, so that is a plus. The long weekend was in deed longgggggggggggg. But we made it through.

She struggles to get along with any of us right now. Homework is not so fun at the moment but we are moving forward. Her reading ability seems to be improving. Her working independently on homework is improving because Mama got a clue with the evaluation and so has the confidence to stick with it.

I think also she has a teacher who is actually looking to teach and not mother, that is a very good thing.

Mr. Man is doing well overall but not so much in the homework department. He too is a challenge in that area at the moment.

My big girl who is schooling at home is doing awesome. She had become a bit lazy on the school front and was starting to give Mom a hard time. Mom laid down the law and she got back with the program and is working more independent than ever. Love having her here at home with me!

Lil Bro is still a sweet talkin' heart breaker who is still lovin' Banana school. He went to a new dentist today and she was awesome and totally made it a fun experience. He goes back next week for some dental work. He has one bad tooth that is due to a condition of how the tooth formed in the womb. But she will be "drunk" for the procedure and we hope that he is a happy sleepy drunk and not a mean belligerent drunk. At any rate the med combo used is safe, reversible if he has any problems and promotes a temporary 45 minute amnesia so he will not remember anything and we get to tell him how great he did even if he didn't and hey looky there your tooth is all better now.

I have less time to keep up with what's what in bloggyland because of the schooling at home but you are always in my thoughts!

He Loves Banana School!

2010-09-02T20:13:00.000-07:00

Okay so I am a little heartbroken that he is in love with Banana School (fake name, real name - different fruit). He is the baby and it has been a bitter pill to swallow to part with him each day from 8:30 to 1:00 pm. At first I thought that maybe I would be justified in removing him from banana school since he hated it. But I thought the experience would benefit him and since he goes to Kindergarten next year and he was having such a struggle separating from Mom I concluded that he likely needed the experience. But loving Banana school is a bit much!

And ... the teachers are spoiling him rotten. He is pulling this crying business every time things are not going his way. Like tonight he wanted cereal for dinner and not meat loaf. The answer was no you may not have cereal. He had a tantrum with mad crying and demanding cereal. I asked him if this is what he does at banana school and he said, "yes!" I asked if Miss Teacher picks him up when he does that and he said yes again. hmmmmm Me thinks it is likely so.

Miss Fabulous is still holding it together, impressively so. She was doing some of the fake I don't know how to spell cap in the second grade business tonight while I gave her a practice spelling test. I reminded her that any word she misspelled she would need to write 3 times so that she could remember how to spell it for the test. She was not happy about that information and started to growl screech at me. My new phrase around here is, "If you need to have a tantrum that is okay, we can handle it. And when you are done with that we will get back to _____." _________ is whatever the tantrum was supposed to be getting the person out of. Since we have started putting that into practice it seems like maybe some of the tantrums are being thwarted, dare I say it. Be sure to read that in a whisper.

Open House

2010-09-01T19:47:00.000-07:00

Because life likes to be funny, odd that is not ha ha, Miss Fabulous' teacher was moved to another school and Miss has been moved into a class that is a mix of both second and third grade students. The principal could have moved her to any second grade class but she choose to place her in this class.

My first reaction was that of a deer in headlights about to be splattered. But then I reflected on the fact that the principal had information in hand about Miss and her needs and so maybe there is a method to her madness. This class seems to primarily be made up of more advanced students, bright quick learners with good reading skills. Things that make you go hummmm? Since Miss has an IEP and is already being placed into extra resource opportunities it could seem as if something were a miss.

However, statistically the kids who fit the above description are well behaved. Let me just say the crowd that Miss has been running with since Kindergarten, those who need more help with reading and basic learning skills, are more often than not described as a "hand full". So maybe there is a method to the madness indeed.

The school had open house Tuesday night and The Hubs and I like the new Mrs. Teacher. I sent her the customary e-mail giving her a little heads up on my Miss Fabulous and was hopeful that she already had the heads up from the principal. Reading between the lines of what was said and what was not said I believe that she did already have the heads up.

She explained that Miss had been very helpful to a new student that day and that she seemed sweet with the student and so forth. She was clearly impressed but cautiously so. I looked her dead in the eyes and smiled and said, "She certainly can be but it is best to remember that she is a complicated little person and there is more to the story than that." She responded, "Absolutely and thank you so much for the e-mail with the back ground information, that is really good to know." In the past what we have heard from other teachers is, "Oh I think we will do just fine, she won't have any problems in my class." So at least at the start we are remaining positive that this situation has the potential to be a good fit for Miss.

Despite her rage on Saturday all in all she seems to be making good effort to handle the change that has come her way. She is putting on a good face and continues to say that things are fine and that she likes the new teacher. I know the reality is that this has rocked her at her very core. Mrs. Teacher #1 has left her and so she feels abandoned. She has lost students from her class that she did not want to lose and perhaps gained people she is not interested in gaining. Her recess time is different and so she no longer sees her brother and her friends that she has been seeing at recess since Kindergarten her class now goes with the third grade students. These changes would be difficult for a typical child who has not experienced trauma. She really is doing well with what she has going on, at least for now.

Progress!

Sliding Into September With A Crash (updated)

2010-08-29T11:17:00.000-07:00

Given the goings on of the last few weeks with Miss we pretty much figured we were headed toward September Slides as usual. September and March are not our best months, which I came to learn is not uncommon for those battling bipolar disorder. The moods they are a swingin'.

Miss Fabulous had a yuck-o rage Saturday. We knew she was off and we did what we could to help her through the day. We kept her busy. But as the afternoon arrived she wanted to go in the pool and I had to say no because the pool is yucky at the moment and we are working on it with chemicals, STRIKE ONE. Moments later she and Big Sis headed off to play ponies. They had all afternoon together and Mr. wanted to join the game and it was time to let him join because they had already had plenty of time with out him, STRIKE TWO. Not long after I realized that one kid had not brushed their teeth and direct that child to brush. Then I realized that likely no kids had brushed their teeth. I took an accounting and sure enough everyone needed to brush, STRIKE THREE. Miss no likey that directive! She did not rage at this point but decided that she would not floss and use rinse as her way to control the situation. I knew it but I wasn't going to address it I was just going to make sure that she flossed and rinsed at bedtime and if she raged then, so be it. But you got to love siblings because they were not going to let this go and they called her out on it and instead of her giving me a moment to explain that it would be fine for her to floss and rinse next time, STRIKE FOUR and there she blows!

This time it was, "I hate you big Mommy!" It was with such hatred that she screamed those words but I still preferred that to "You aren't my real Mom!" I am guessing that birth mom is little Mommy? I dunno.

Any who the whole scene was ugly and Dad did a great job handling it. I loaded Nan and the other kids up and took them out of the house for ice cream. The whole thing terrifies Mr. Man, in the past he was a main target for physical abuse. Lil Bro takes it all in and then uses those learned skills when he is angry about something, that's no good. And it is disruptive to everyone so the few times Miss has raged I have removed the others from the house.

At any rate I think September will be memorable.

P.S. I forgot to mention that after the information we have received via the psychological evaluation that was done for Miss we see the need for her to follow through. A big part of the rage yesterday was because she did not want to include Mr. in playtime. So after we got back home from our ice cream outing and she was all calmed down from her rage Mom announced that it was Mr. and Miss play date time. Big Sis and Lil Bro were excused to go and watch a movie in another room and Mr. and Miss got to choose what they wanted to play together. At first Mr. was not cooperating either because he had moved on to something else, too bad so sad. That Mama says it is time to have fun so lets get to it. After about 15 minutes I announced that they had done a great job with the play date and that I was really proud. They asked to keep playing together, progress! I reminded them that it is really special that they are the same age and that they are both second graders. They have a lot in common and they should be really good friends. Blank faces that seemed to be hearing wank wank wanka coming out of my mouth but at any rate it was still progress!

I'm Trying ...

2010-08-25T06:47:00.000-07:00

to keep perspective.

I have been absent from the bloggy world for a few weeks because we have been busy busy busy with

kids going back to school
Lil Bro beginning school
Big Sis beginning her education at home
doctor appointments
family visiting from out of state
Mommy being sick
ect.

It seems that we are settling in to these changes and getting it together a bit more.

Big Sis and I both love love love her on line virtual public school. The curriculum is through K12 and so far I am really thrilled with it and so is Big Sis.

Lil Bro has been adjusting to heading off to pre-k and accepting that Mommy leaves and comes back. He seems to have wrapped his teachers right around his little finger so I guess that is going well.

Lil Bro had a speech evaluation through the public school system and we were surprised to hear that his speech is acceptable for his age however he has a mild language delay. It is really mild as in he scored 26 and if he scored 27 he would not be considered to have a delay. He struggled with questions, who type questions in particular. That was surprising to us as we had not noticed it but it seems that we probably instinctively reword things until he does understand. At any rate I am sure we will have that all fixed up in no time.

There is the name of a fruit in Lil Bro's school, let's say it's banana (it isn't but let's say that). He was none too happy about going off to "banana school" and requested "oh please don't send me back to that banana school, they got bugs!" He also explained that the circle time carpet "makes me cry!" "Oh please don't leave me on that circle carpet, it always make me cry!" Circle time carpet is when the Mom's have to go.

Although he is not happy with Mom leaving he has come to accept it and there are no more tears or complaints about banana school.

Mr. Man and Miss Fabulous are adjusting to life as second graders. Mr. Man is having a great year so far and has a wonderful teacher (we picked her).

Miss is up to her shenanigans. She has replaced rage outburst with things like smearing poop all over her rear end and the toilet seat when Mom said she could not go in the pool yet because it was not pool time yet. She is faking illness at school and it would seem running around in the hallway with her classmate. Why do I conclude this? Her classroom is 10 feet from the clinic and she took 5 minutes to get there. Why was she there? She pulled her loose tooth out and swallowed it and claimed it was wedged in her throat. She was apparently so convincing that the nurse didn't know what was up or down and called me to see how I wanted to handle the alleged tooth in throat.

I asked was Miss coughing or seeming to choke on anything? No.
Did she speak funny like she had irritation in her throat? No.

The nurse actually said that there was no way to know for sure with out an x-ray. That poor woman was so bamboozled that she actually considered an x-ray for a teeny tiny baby tooth that all medical evidence showed was NOT in the child's throat.

What was going on however is that Miss had a substitute teacher that day who does not fall for her stuff and so she was ready to go home for the day. The nurse kept Miss in the clinic for 35 minutes for this non-sense and gave her 2 cookies. I don't know but I don't think giving crunchy cookies to a person who may need an x-ray for a tooth stuck in their throat is a wise course of action.

I explained to the nurse when she called me that Miss had a behavior history and being that she had a substitute teacher that she did not like I felt pretty confident that she simply wanted to go home. The nurse clearly thought I was heartless and handled the situation by giving Miss cookies.

I bet you will never guess where Miss headed the next day for "chocking on a grape"? Yep she headed to the clinic the next day as well. The nurse seemed to have a better clue by day two. She kept her for 3 minutes in the clinic, did not call Mom and did not pass out cookies.

We have had a billion and two other shenanigans but I'll spare you. I will say that Miss is on Mama's 3rd last nerve and jumping! She has moved right past plucking and is jumping on my last nerve. I am however doing a bang up job not letting her see that.

I am trying to keep perspective and see the improvement that we have. Family life is more manageable than it was in times past. She is not raging 2 and 3 times a day. In fact her rages are few and far between. But I have to say I do get tired of the shenanigans!

I am trying to go through and read blog post and see how others are holding up.

Time To Laugh

2010-08-08T10:29:00.000-07:00

Traveling with a paper cup

2010-08-04T17:31:00.000-07:00

On the heels of the BIG tantrum (thank you all for the feed back by the way) I decided to take the crew on a road trip to Virginia. We are currently in a hotel in South Carolina and so far so good. Other than the 4 year old member of the crew wetting his pants twice today despite frequent potty stops, some of which did involve emergency pull overs with a paper cup for a potty. Boys are convenient that way.

We left at 9 am and arrived to the hotel at 5pm. We immediately jumped into the hotel pool and got our energy out. We then went to eat dinner and the crew is currently laying down in the hopes that they will go to sleep.

Miss Fabulous is at home with Dad as her last week of camp should be a rip roaring good time with a big party on Friday and Daddy could not join us on this trip. But we are bringing our cousins in VA back to FL with us so a good time shall be had by all.

As I am typing the littlest loo-loo crew member is in sleepy land. The medium size loo-loo crew member is going to join him quickly from the looks of things.

The Hubs got to register the kids for school today for the first time ever. We found out their teacher assignments and Mr. Man was placed with the teacher we requested, which is great! She is a teacher that Big Sis had at one time and she knows Mr. Man but more important he knows her which makes him more comfortable right off the bat.

I submitted the evaluation that was done on Miss Fabulous to the principal and requested that she place her with a teacher that would be a good match given her needs identified in the report. I said more than that but you get the idea. We do not know the teacher that she has been placed with but we are hopeful that this will be a good year for Miss to grow and blossom as a student.

Big Sis begins virtual school on the 9th as well. We have already had the chance to meet with her teacher and we are loving the curriculum that is offered through the virtual school. They use the K12 curriculum and Big Sis was placed in the advanced courses so she and I will be busy.

Well here we go, on the road again!

Big Lots Big Tots Tantrum

2010-08-02T16:21:00.000-07:00

The 4 year old had a mighty tantrum in Big Lots today. One man got so mad at him that he threw his cans of sardines and a few other things on the nearest shelf and stormed out of the store. Sorry Big Lots for the loss of that 2 dollar and 50 cent sale.

The whole hullabaloo was because Lil Bro wanted to go to the toys and I had exercised my parental authority and said no. For several reasons actually. He was not behaving nicely and was using a rude tone of voice in how he was speaking to the mama and he had already been warned about that. That isn't really the point, the point is that he was told no and he was not happy to have to accept that answer and so he kicked up a royal ruckus.

I could have left and gone to another store to get my Gain and dish liquid but I was tired and I needed those items and it would not have gone better had we walked down to the Dollar General. Mostly I was tired.

I was proud that I did not get huffy or anything when the lady toward the back of the line yelled, "Sorry about your luck kid but you aren't getting a toy!" I was composed and I didn't get flustered. I was confident that I knew what I was doing with this kid. If I had hauled off and slapped him the store would have been in a tizzy about that so clearly I was not going to win in this situation. My child was not behaving perfectly, their glares had no affect on his powers and my thought was if we bothered them all that much they could let us move to the front of the line so they did not have to hear us any longer.

Had I left the store then his tantrum gains the power to control where we are at and any time he wants to leave said location he will remember that tantrums are a sure fire way to leave. He was annoying but he wasn't a raging loo-loo, he wasn't endangering anyone and the store personnel had not asked us to leave. Most importantly I was tired. If he had been out of control like snot flying and people getting kicked then I would have left but my decision was to stay put. Right or wrong? Probably simply a matter of opinion.

This has become a problem lately with Lil Bro. I am hoping that it will pass and that I won't have to put forth a whole lot of effort. That sounds bad. Here's how I have been handling it. The kids usually get a little treat of some kind in the dollar range for good behavior. Lil Bro has not earned the treat lately, everyone else has. I talk to him after the fact and ask him questions about what happened to ensure that it is all computing for him. It is. He is fully aware that he is being a toot toot and that does not earn a dollar piece O junk.

Any thought filled feedback is welcome as always. Say what ya need to say!

Some some summer time pictures

2010-08-02T12:01:00.000-07:00

These first two photos were taken last fall, you can see how much they have grown in the new pictures.

Working on the farm.

Nighttime "can't sleep" issues, Daisy dog helped out.

Guard dogs.

The cat is the supervisor.

Playing a word game.

Miss Fabulous Room with the new bunk.

self portrait

The watering hole had too much bacteria in it to be safe to swim in, we improvised and played in the shower.

On our way to a different watering hole which was safe to swim in.

Just a swingin'.

Grateful Nation Spotlight Autism

2010-08-01T09:30:00.000-07:00

John Elder Robison

I love John Elder Robison and listening to him share this is so hopeful, I think, for families trying to put the puzzle of autism together. Hope this is helpful.

Keep Moving Forward

2010-07-31T09:16:00.000-07:00

I read this post and thought of my own beautiful boys. This summer has gone really well overall, better than the summers have been in years. Everyone is more stable than they have been in years.

The boys have become even more closely bonded. They say things like "we're the brothers!" I have been encouraging them how special their relationship is, not everyone gets a brother and it was important to Dad and I that they have each other. Mr. Man has taken this information to heart and when the two are playing together says things like, "Are we 100% brothers or what!?"

The pool has been sick with yellow algae and so for the past few days they have not been able to get in and play. Thankfully the pool should be back to swimable today or tomorrow. In the mean time I have been letting the kids play with the hose on the patio. They have used buckets sponges and soapy bubbles and it has been precious to watch.

Lil Bro has had fun watching the buckets fill with water and watching the ripples the running water makes in the bucket full of water. Toy alligators have gone for a swim, sometimes in the dog dish which is yuck but we have lots of soap involved so it all works out. It is awesome to watch his imagination at work and to know that he does not have the struggles that Miss Fabulous and Mr. Man have had to and continue to overcome.

Having a little brother that has such an imagination has been so beneficial to Mr. Man and his gains socially. Brothers rock!

Miss Fabulous is doing well at the moment. She feels real pride in applying herself and making improvement in her school work. I hope that this will carry over into the school year when it begins in a few weeks.

Sometimes Miss makes some funny observations. The way that she chooses to phrase things can be entertaining. For instance we were browsing channels and there was an advertisement for a program with a cesarean section on TV. Miss Fabulous looked at the TV and said, "Hey look they are letting that baby out of there." The Hubs said to me quietly, "Yeah they are letting him out of the clink." It was a hilariously precious moment with a healing kid just being a 7 year old kid and not being hyper vigilant and on guard but just living the moment.

Have you seen the movie The Robinson's? Mr. Man loves that movie and when he first saw it he said, "That's just like me and you isn't it Mom?" At that time he still struggled a lot socially and it was a surprising observation from him. Tears came to my eyes and I will never forget it.

The message in the movie is "keep moving forward." And that's just what we are doing. Thank you all for joining us along the way.

Article

2010-07-29T09:39:00.000-07:00

autistic-boy-booted-from-flight-mom-claims

Not happy news by any means.

I was on a flight in 2003 from Atlanta to New York and the flight was on the runway for several hours. It was during the black outs in NY and that was the reason for the delay. It was August and an airplane sitting for several hours with the AC trying to keep up produced a lot of condensation. It was dripping on some people and one young woman in her 20's was using an airline blanket that she had to keep the condensation off of her. A flight attendant told her that she needed the blanket, it was for someone in first class. The spunky young woman did not want to give up her blanket easily and understandably so.

The girl never cursed at the flight attendant but the attendant yelled at her and claimed that she had cursed at her and that she would be having her arrested when we landed in NY. At that point the head flight attendant joined the commotion and excused the riled up flight attendant and some what apologized to the young woman.

After 9-11 flight attendants needed to be given more authority to deal with what might come their way. Clearly the power had gone to this attendants head.

BTW I was on this flight on my way to meet Mr. Man in Russia! He was a tiny little cutie pie!

CAT scan and Blood Draw Y'all

2010-07-28T21:14:00.000-07:00

I picked up Miss Fabulous from school today, me and the crew that is. We had lunch at Taco Bell and that was just enough time wasted to be ready to head off to Miss Fabulous appointment for a CAT scan and Blood Draw. These had been ordered by her ENT to check for allergies and to get a look at what is going on in her sinus region.

I assured her this was just a picture of her nose with a really huge camera but like all cameras it could not hurt her. What she heard was the voice of adults on the Charlie Brown cartoon. With the info off of the recent psych eval I should have done a interpretive dance to communicate this message. I have foot pain and my back hurts so that is iffy at best.

Pure terror on the poor child's face as she lay there strapped on to the table waiting to see what horror was to become of her. She was frozen and shaking all at the same time with eyes wide open like saucers. The whole thing took 2 minutes if that and when the technician returned she immediately started crying. The technician felt sorry for her and started bringing her stuff like stickers and a bear. I remained calm and assured her that everything was fine and we moved along. She did not know that a blood draw was next.

Sadly I can not prepare her ahead of time because it doesn't help her, it just begins her anxiety sooner than necessary. We walked into the room for the blood draw and she saw the equipment and knew where we were. She sat quiet until the technician pulled out the needled and then she started screaming and kicking the technician in the leg. The Tech called for back up and I simply sat next to her and remained calm. The back up person was a gift. She was kind but firm and kindly called Miss out on the fact that she had simply entered into a state of drama. She started asking her age specific questions. Miss would pause the screaming and answer the questions and then continue screaming.

Afterward we went and got a soda, that was a hit. Overall I was really impressed with her bounce back. It didn't send her whole mood into a downward spiral. The rest of the day went well.

I was able to speak with Mrs. Summertime Teacher today. Miss is still not finishing her work but is putting forth more effort and the work that she is doing is better overall. She is earning a few minutes of recess at the end of recess. I love this teacher! Miss feels secure because she isn't getting away with things as much and she is getting praise for doing real work and consequences for not doing real work.

I asked Mrs. Teacher if she recommended that I take the recent psych eval and ask Mrs. Principal to match Miss with a teacher that will be more likely to motivate her in a similar that Mrs. Summertime Teacher has. She said definitely!

So that's my next move.

Say Yes

2010-07-27T10:10:00.000-07:00

I saw this over at building the blocks and wanted to repost it. It's very moving.

The Written Report

2010-07-26T15:31:00.000-07:00

We received the written report from the University this weekend.

"Psychological Evaluation for Learning Disability: WISC-IV & WIAT-II Interpretation"

"The current psychological evaluation will provide diagnostic clarification and recommendations based on M's performance."

"Relevant Background Information:" This could also be titled "Mom says ..." and "Dr. Psychiatrist says" and "Mr. Behavior Guy says."

"Methods of Evaluation: Clinical Interview, Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Fourth Edition (WISC-IV), Wechsler Individual Achievement Test, Second Edition (WIAT-II)."

"Behavioral Observations: ... remained silent and smiled when spoken to. ... obtained information from Psychiatrist and CBA due to concerns about selective mutism demonstrated throughout the clinical interview ... As voluntary mutism would preclude psychological testing ...

On the first day of testing M was pleasant and cooperative with the examiner. Furthermore, rapport was easily established with M. The examiner noted periods in which M seemed to tune out and disengage from the task at hand." She discusses how she handled that, pretty straight forward stuff.

"The examiner noted a pronounced tendency for M to be hasty in her decision making, arriving at answers impulsively without fully considering the sequential problem solving steps needed to deduce an answer logically. These behavioral observations were consistent across testing sessions and M demonstrated similar observable deficits in sequential problem solving strategy and impulsivity in giving answers on the second day of testing."

"Test Results and Interpretation: WISC-IV
general cognitive ability is with in Low Average range of intellectual functioning, as measured by the Full Scale IQ score. Her overall thinking and reasoning abilities exceed those of approximately 21% of children her age. ... verbal reasoning abilities as measured by the Verbal Comprehension Index are in the low average range and above 16% of her peers. The Verbal Comprehension Index is designed to measure verbal reasoning and concept formation.

... nonverbal reasoning abilities are in the Average range and above those of approximately 39% of her peers. ... designed to measure fluid reasoning in the perceptual domain with task that access nonverbal concept formation, visual perception and organization, simultaneous processing, visual-motor coordination, learning, and the ability to separate figure and ground in visual stimuli. M presents a diverse set of nonverbal abilities, performing much better on some nonverbal skills than others. The degree of variability is unusual for a child her and age and may be noticeable to adults who know her well.

... M's ability to sustain attention, concentrate and exert mental control is in the low average range. She preformed better than approximately 9% of her age-mates in this area.

... M's ability in processing simple or routine visual material without making errors is in the Average range when compared to her peers. She performed better than approximately 66% of her peers on the processing speed tasks. Processing visual material quickly is an ability that M performs well as compared to her verbal reasoning ability.

... M's speed of visual information processing us significantly better developed than her attention, concentration, and mental control. The direction and magnitude of this difference is rare, found only in 6.3% of the population". The terms "rare" and "uncommon" are further used to describe "visual information processing which is significantly better than her verbal reasoning concept formation ... 11 % of the population." ... "nonverbal reasoning and concept formation is significantly better developed than her attention concentration and mental control. The direction and magnitude of this difference is uncommon, occuring in only 15.1 % of the population."

When asked verbally the clinician indicated this was consistent with "her psychiatric diagnosis' ."

"Analysis of broader patterns across composite scores reveals insufficiently developed attention and concentration. Her working memory, auditory short-term memory, and long-term memory retrieval abilities are inadequately developed. M's auditory acuity, discrimination, and vocal processing abilities show insufficient development. Furthermore, insufficient language development and lexical knowledge contribute to her inadequately developed vocabulary and verbal comprehension abilities. It is possible that the scores were negatively influenced by insufficient use of encoding and rehearsal strategies. The extent of outside reading could have also impacted the scores. Additionally, the scores may have been negatively impacted by insufficient interest and reading patterns."

The report goes on to talk about the different levels of testing. Good information.

... "... no learning disabilities ... Her difficulties in school and the inconsistencies observed by M's family may be attributable to impulsiveness, low frustration and boredom tolerance and poor interpersonal coping." ... suggestions are giving for helping her in the classroom "would address her weakness in auditory learning."

... "Persistence is an area of difficulty for M. While she has the basic capacities of reading, she does not apply problem solving skills consistently and demonstrates deficient frustration tolerance. She has a proclivity for jumping to conclusion rather than working through the problem in a step by step sequential manner. ... rather than work through the steps she jumps to a conclusive answer that also seems to be arbitrarily assigned. Furthermore, M does not exhibit the ability to delay her responses and does not engage in retrieval of information from long-term memory in answering factual questions."

She's got it but doesn't choose to use it. hmmmmmm

This is my favorite part and for a parent that has been beaten up was parental validation. ... "The inconsistency seen across M's test scores at school are further evidence that her difficulties arise from an inconsistent application of her abilities. While her teachers may consistently state that M is persistent and effortful in her work, the test findings are more consistent with the parents conceptualization of the issue of M not consistently applying herself."

"While she may appear to be attending in class due to her consistent ability to maintain eye contact, this is misleading. M appears to to tune out and it is noticeable when she is no longer listening and comprehending what is being said to her." ...

The clinician encourages "a system of contingency management" at home and at school. And organized sport activity like soccer is also recommend.

It is a 10 page report so I have tried to hit the highlights here. Hope this is useful.

Little Bits of Normal

2010-07-25T22:39:00.000-07:00

I think it might be hard for anyone to really know what normal is anymore but as far as I can tell we had a bit of it around here this past weekend. Hold on there let me back the train up and mention our minor derailing on Friday evening.

Miss Fabulous in all fairness had not had the best week. I mean from her point of view with it kind of stunk it up bit. You know with the whole summer school/ enrichment program's Mrs. Teacher expecting her to do work and all and then not letting her have recess with the other kids when she did not do said work. And you know Mom called her out on several things this week, also in the no likey category. So I pretty much knew we had it comin so to speak.

Friday night she got through pizza dinner with no problems, go figure. However, when it came time to clean up the toys which meant get ready for bed which meant that we the parents would be discovering the fact that her pants were not clean which meant she would need to get a bath ... ah heck she just decided to blow her lid a big one. I mean it was no holds bar going right for the violence and aggression. Poor Dad was taken a back and it took him a minute or two to get with the program. He tried to block and redirect her but she wasn't having it and she wasn't being safe. He did a great job of keeping her safe and when it was all said and done she cleaned up the toys and got a bath. Bummer, I would have preferred to skip the rage outburst and just get right to clean up and bath but it wasn't my call.

Oh yeah so where is the normal you ask? After that she did pretty well for the rest of the weekend.

She played with the siblings. She did not want to include Mr. Man and we do understand that the sisters like to have some play time with out boys so we set a time when it would be Mr. Man's turn to join the "play date". Funny thing was she was all done playing when it was his turn to join. Mom directed the crew (the 3 oldest kids) to go ahead and enjoy their play date. Mr. Man wanted to play with his beanie babies and Big Sis was okay with that so they moved forward. 3 2 1 "Mommmmmmmmmmmmmm Miss Fabulous is being mean and has a bad attitude and isn't playing nice." Enter Miss Fabulous crying hysterically that Big Sis was tattling on her. Mom asked if what Big Sis said was true? To which Miss answered YES!!! I said then Big Sis was not tattling and that she could return to the play date or she could have a tantrum and then return to the play date. Banshee screams and door kicks and two minutes later she went back into the room and played beanie baby mania for all of 5 minutes and then Mr. Man was all done with the play date too.

Our current focus is to help Miss Fabulous finish things and follow through. Sometimes we have to play with a sibling for a few minutes just to be nice people and that's life. And ... tantrums won't get her out of what she needs to do. Darn! Going up sure can be full of a lot of things you don't want to do. And that's one to grow on.

This weekend included:

a trip to the mall where no one fell apart before during or after the outing. Good stuff!
A day trip to a Florida Spring which included swimming in water that was 72 degrees (sounds warmer than it is),
packing our own back packs for what we would need for the day (we are all becoming independent little people),
car trip, dinner out, changing clothes in a public restroom, piling in and out of the van multiple times,
loads of inquiring looks containing questions such as "are these people all together?" "is this a his hers and theirs situation and if so where is the Latino DNA giver?" "is one of those kids Asian too?" and last but not least "did that kid just try to pee in the grass over there?"

Yes it was a fun filled action packed weekend! As far as the peeing in the grass goes um well you see we have a pool and Lil Bro sometimes has to go pee while swimming and we don't want him to pee in the pool for goodness sakes so we have um well kind of said that yeah he could pee in the grass since we have a privacy fence and all. Probably not the best idea but ... anyway so when Lil Bro was swimming in the spring and I said "do you have to go potty" and he nodded yes and I turned to make sure that another adult knew to watch the other kids while I took him potty. Why yes I did turn around to see my 4 year old's swim suit half way down and he was preparing to pee in the grass and yes an on looker nearly hurt herself laughing her behind off.

What can I say? We keep it interesting!

Liar Pants on Fire

2010-07-22T14:24:00.000-07:00

Caught Miss Fabulous in some major story telling. Bold face look you in the eyes untruths.

She did not know that I already had the report from Mrs. Teacher about her missing recess because of not finishing work.

When she came home we had our chit chat time and I asked, "So how was recess today?" She said, "Uh fine well we didn't have recess today."

"You didn't?"

"Well some people did not finish their work and so we did not go out to recess."

"Humm, that sounds different than what Mrs. Teacher told me."

Blank face.

We talked on and it was not getting any more truthful on her end so I asked her why she was lying to me about recess. Very non-threatening tone of voice just curious kind of a thing. She looked sheepish and said, "Well I don't know what Mrs. Teacher already told you."

I suggested that she just go with the truth and that the stories would then be the same. That seemed to be a concept she had not considered. The truth was she was the only one that had missed recess, she had to sit out of recess while the other kids played. Two different stories for sure.

I explained to her in a 'for your information' kind of a way that things would not be going the way that they did last year and that the teachers were now aware that she was able to do the work and to do it on time. That is was totally her choice if she did not choose to do her work but then she was choosing not to go out at recess and play. "Either way is okay with Mom but I just thought you had the right to know."

Not that it is truly okay with me but I have come to accept that I can not make her do things and if she believes that her not doing something is upsetting to me it makes it all the more powerful to her.

She was very quiet and disconnected for a while. She sat on the couch pinching her arm. Then we had dinner and she seemed to come out of it. Bath time came and she made a big to-do about that but didn't rage or anything.

Then the evening moved on as usual and she read stories with Big Sis and then I tucked her in.

Summer School Drool

2010-07-21T12:18:00.000-07:00

Miss Fabulous started summer school this past Monday. Correction she began the "summer enrichment program" which last for only 2 weeks because of budget cuts.

At first the Mrs. Teacher seemed overly sweet and we had initial concern that we were going to have a repeat of the last school year for these next two weeks. Not so. Summer time Mrs. Teacher ROCKS! She is kind but says what she means and means what she says. Miss' tears did not get her recess time even though she choose not to do ANY WORK WHAT SO EVER.

Mrs. Teacher explained that she gave reminders to the group that anyone that did not complete their work would not be having recess time. She said Miss was very well behaved as she sat at her seat and refused to do any work. Mrs. Teacher explained that she would not be going out to recess and the tears came with minor drama. Mrs. Teacher asked Miss if it would be fair for her to have recess when she CHOOSE not to do her work and the other children did. Miss said that it would not be fair.

I am loving this lady! Thank you Mrs. Teacher for helping our little one with real true help so that she can continue to develop and grow in the right direction!

Today Mrs. Teacher explained that Miss put forth a better effort but still did not complete her work so no recess but Mrs. Teacher was pleased with the improved effort. Cool beans Miss Fabulous!

We are on the edge of our seat waiting for the written report and results of the testing so that we can make the school aware of Miss needs for the upcoming school year. A watched pot never seems to boil!

I was able to catch Mr. Behavior Guy up last night on what we found out via testing. He had been on vacation so this was the first he had heard of the results. This gives him good direction as to which direction to go in with Miss behavior education.

All in all the kids are doing very well at this time. Miss had a great weekend with really good behavior and choices. Mr. Man is struggling at times but is over all stable. Go team Loo-Loo!

More on the Results

2010-07-14T09:08:00.000-07:00

There was so much information it is hard to get my thoughts together with out the documents in front of me so I am spitting it out as it comes to me. Thanks for bearing with me. I will post more nuts and bolts scoring type information once we receive that in the mail.

Did I mention the clinician started by saying, "Let's start with the good news, the good news is that Miss does not have any learning disabilities. However, ..." I thought here we go, what on earth has been revealed?

Miss' low tolerance for boredom and frustration is consistent with her "psychiatric diagnosis' ", primarily Bipolar disorder. She is stable and does have the skills needed to work through boredom and frustration more appropriately. Tantrums and disconnect are quick outs.

She is comfortable with her family and more likely to go right to the tantrum portion of the event, aren't we privileged? In other settings she primarily disconnects. The clinician said that she disconnects often and as soon as she is bored or frustrated or things just are less than interesting to her. Again because she is staring right at you it can be difficult in a class of 20 plus kids for a teacher to realize that she is "checked out". The clinician said, "If you are a teacher that is scanning for eyes you will likely miss that she is not engaged."

Again not ADHD.

But she also felt that after reviewing all the class work that I had brought to her and the report cards and everything else that it seemed shocking that the teacher felt that Miss was putting forth her best effort. The speech teacher and the intern in the classroom all said the same thing though. Children with RAD have skills like a magician!

Miss has no actual processing or sequencing disorder but that is an area of weakness and challenge for her. The clinician felt that this seemed consistent with the malnutrition history and delayed motor skills that had come with that. However, Miss has all the needed ability to push past this challenge and preform better. The clinician said that it isn't that Miss doesn't have long term memory skills she just isn't interested in accessing them most of the time.

Her reading skills were much higher than we would have guessed. Again, she doesn't want to de-code so she just puts a word in but she has the ability.

More than anything the testing confirmed what we believed that we knew about her. I was not confident on how challenged she was or wasn't by processing and sequencing problems or if she had any actual disorder but my belief was that she could do better than she was doing.

With RAD it can be very difficult to trust what you believe you know about the child, at least it can be for me. It was both reassuring and validating but it was also sad to know that I'm not wrong. That she isn't the child she can so convincingly pretend to be with others. I would rather be wrong. I would rather her only hurtle in life be that she got stuck with a family that doesn't jive with her. That our dynamics are too challenging for her abilities. (Someone once said to us that Miss only problem was that we just had too many kids in our family. That we had more children than we could handle.)

To know for sure that she has all the ability to do better she just isn't ... I guess on the positive side is a confidence boaster in terms of how we parent.

The clinician emphasized that Miss needs to be pushed to finish things to the end and that it was crucial that we continue to work on this now before she gets to middle and high school. We need to continue to focus on her behavior being her choice and that she choose the results by choosing to behave in that way.

Keep doing what you are doing and hope for the best. I feel a little ~~yikes~~ unnerved about that.

While we had this hour and a half meeting with Ms. Clinician the 3 non-camper kids did really well sitting through that bunch of boring. They brought a puzzle to do and then Lil Bro climbed in my lap and started chanting "hungry, hungry, hungry". Mr. Man played with my hair and complained about how long we had been talking and Big Sis stretched out on the sofa at one point.

We are a funny group.

The Results Are In

2010-07-12T14:02:00.000-07:00

The nominees in the category of 'who knows that kid best' are:

Mrs. Teacher

Critical family members

But in Friend

and

The Mom

And the award goes to...

THE MOM!

Miss Fabulous has NO LEARNING disabilities, average to low average intelligence, wants things to be easy and instantly gratifying, her way, and she wants the easy route to getting there - excessively so. VERY low frustration tolerance, boredom tolerance and her way of handling this is to explode and tantrum or disassociate.

The clinician said that it would be easy to miss the fact that she has disconnected mentally in the classroom setting because she is "still looking right at you" but "she isn't there anymore".

At home and with family she is confident and comfortable to let it all hang out and so she explodes and tantrums. She knows the right behavior choice, chooses not to make that choice because she wants what she perceives as the easy way to what she wants.

She has isolated herself emotionally. Clinician said, "She has a wall up with borders and a mote. She is not interested in anyone getting in." She views other children as either a threat or competition that is in the way of getting what she wants. Therefore we see lacking peer relationships and bullying. At present she is not interested in being their friend she wants them to get out of her way.

I swear the clinician said all this.

We will get the written report shortly but she showed us all the info. Because this is through the university the supervisor has to sign off on the report before the clinician can give it to us and the clinician has to meet with the parents before she can present the report to the supervisor to be signed.

In terms of academics it is exactly as I/We suspected, she is capable of better results but the better results require effort on her part and she is not putting forth effort. This is the reason for the inconsistency. She needs to be motivated and made to push through to the results not babied with excuses made for her. I AM TALKING TO YOU MRS. TEACHER!

Processing and sequencing are not strong points for her but she does not have a disorder and still falls with in the normal limits in those areas, again she just needs to be willing to make more effort to use the skills that "she clearly has".

As soon as I get the results in writing I am going to meet with the principal at the school and explain how last year went, how this year needs to go and ask her to make her decision on this years teacher based on this information. This kid needs a butt kicker not a babier.

The clinician said there was a huge lack of effort on Miss Fabulous part during the testing. Whether it was math or reading she always wanted to skip on to the answer and not do any work. The answers were random and didn't seem to have base in knowledge most of the time. Even when she was guessing at words instead of decoding there did not seem to be any reason to what word she was guessing. We see this all the time. When she was interested in the topic then she she could sustain attention and put forth better effort.

She did not test with in the range of a child with ADHD. The lack of attention is from lack of effort.

Team sports was recommended because the emphasis is put on functioning as a group and no one person functions independent of the team. Soccer is at the top of the list.

Sadly most things that she recommended are things we are and have been doing. She seemed to understand that because she emphasised that Miss Fabulous knows what to do she is choosing not to do it. I guess the old 'you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink' applies here.

I will add more later as I remember it, there was so much!

The weigh in ...

2010-07-11T13:47:00.000-07:00

I am pruney from all the time we have spent in the pool this summer. We have had a lot of fun, mostly. Lil Bro is amazing us with his swimming skills. He has amazing breath control, swims fast and dives like a fisherman. His Dad is over the moon that he has a little athlete.

We went to see Dr. Psychiatrist Friday. That went well and I must say we were on our best behavior.

He is looking forward to the findings of the testing the university did. He said he faxed them the entire file so that "they would know what they were dealing with". I have an appointment Monday to meet with the clinician.

The doctor did not change any ones meds. The disruption that we have had lately is mild in comparison and he feels that the kids will level back out when school starts.

He asked Miss M if she gets angry and she looked at him with the "now I must kill you eyes" and said, "yes." Then she went back to playing with the siblings with the toys in the office. It's a plastic track kind of thing and some little people.

He tried to talk to her a little bit about why and she was not going to chat so he asked Mom and Mom explained that she doesn't like to get a bath for one. You know the usual stuff.

I am proud to report that Mr. Man only gained half a pound in 3 months and grew half an inch. Our attempts to keep his weight in check are working.

Miss Fabulous had gained a pound and a half and had also grown half an inch. The twins are still the same height. Too funny.

That's all for now.

Q TIP

2010-07-07T22:55:00.000-07:00

I am finding this post kind of swirly in my head but I'll try to be coherent.

When Mr. Man was in his wonderful pre school class there was a sign on the wall made out of cotton swabs that said Q TIP. I asked what it meant and the teacher explained that it was their reminder to "quit taking it personal."

Clearly that's an easy thing to understand but over the years I have had a much harder time accepting that phrase. I have learned the roll of the therapeutic parent and I think I do okay for someone that never had a back ground in psychology or social work. But my Mommy heart still takes it hard when my kid screams that I'm not her real Mom or that she wants her real Mom. Or when she is a raging ball of fury and I can't fix it.

Quit Taking It Personal

But somewhere inside I wrestle with what haven't I done? Where have I gone wrong that I can't get her to truly accept that I am her Mom and that we are her family forever. And the realization that this is how she sees things is even more difficult to accept. More difficult to Quit Taking It Personal.

Tonight Miss Fabulous had a major rage. She was screaming all kinds of things at her father who was helping her and she started screaming, "Mommy doesn't love me. I love her but Mommy doesn't love me, she hates me!" She said it repeatedly.

Once she was calm we moved a head with bath and afterward while I was doing her hair I asked what made her think that Mommy didn't love her.

Quit Taking It Personal

See my mind and heart had heard that she thought that I don't love her. That wasn't the case at all, she is very clear that I do love her and that "You think I am pretty and sweet and special." She said, "B___ my real Mom hates me." I hate that real Mom term but it is her term and how she sees things at this point in time and so I can respect that, I know what she means.

She explained why she felt that way, very simple and to the point. And I got it. The realization that her problems have nothing to do with me actually sunk in to my heart and not just my mind. Quit Taking It Personal because it has nothing to do with you, I got it.

The rages over hair and bath and being told no and whatever else are not about me, about us. Whoever the punching bag might be. I got it.

Now I just have to keep remember it.

More Pool Talk with the Loo Loo's

2010-07-07T11:17:00.000-07:00

The summer is chugging along. Overall things are going well. Mr. Man is struggling a bit. He is plucking Mom's last nerve for sure.

Miss Fabulous had been doing well through out the weekend, even with the extra day off. Yesterday after camp and while the Behavior Therapist was here she did not want to get out of the pool for dinner. She pitched a royal fit complete with banging on the sliding glass door and yelling and screaming. My neighbors obviously just do not care, which works well for me. This child is screaming "Mommy let me in" through an unlocked door which she had already been instructed to "come on inside when your ready".

We did such a good job of going about our business that she OPENED the door to yell LET ME IN! It was hard not to chuckle. She had her towel and the patio was shady and it wasn't cold either so she was okay to take her time to come in. If we had insisted that she come in she would have had a major rage in the house, where she was she was being perfectly safe and working it out of her system so we went with that.

She opened the door and said, "I am ready to come in now." So we told her come on in and go get dressed for dinner. She put her PJ's on and got into bed. I went and checked on her and asked if she was tired and she said no that she just felt better being there. Good choice!

She ate a double dinner and then went right out to sleep.

I think what might be behind the upset is the fact that she is not a good swimmer. Her fear over takes her and she doesn't trust herself, even in the water she can stand in the feeling of her feet not being under her when she tries to swim frightens her and she stops trying. It is okay with us. We tell her to keep trying and good job and that she will get there but she is unhappy with herself and she is in a place where she realizes there is no one at fault other than herself, if one wanted to put it that way. That in itself is huge.

Her little friends in camp are moving on to the deeper water because they are taking the test and passing it. She is too afraid to try to take the test. She is upset with herself about that and in addition her 4 year old brother who is the size of a 2 year old is swimming all on his own like a fish and everyone is really excited about it.

It is one of those things that I think most kids go through. Big Sis was 9 before she learned to ride a bike with no training wheels, and yes it looked ridiculous for this big ole' kid to be cocked over to one side because she had longgggggggggg out grown the training wheels. Whatever eventually she wrestled with herself and learned to ride. The pride and the since of accomplishment is huge when a person overcomes that kind of fear. But no one can do it for that person and that's where Miss Fabulous is at.

Ah summertime...

The Pool of Trust

2010-07-04T10:13:00.000-07:00

Lil Bro is all signed up for Pre-K which begins Aug. 9. This school offers a schoolers camp which I like much better and after talking with the Hubs was prepared to move Miss Fabulous over to it. The next day I went to sign her up, one day later mind you, and that morning a family with 3 schoolers had come in and taken the last 3 spots. Bummer.

We are looking for a different camp program. The things that we loved about the program have changed and so it is worth the change to move her somewhere else.

Big Sis is all signed up and enrolled for the virtual public school program which she will do at home starting Aug. 9. We are excited about this change.

Mr. Man is struggling. We messed with his meds and that was a mistake. Re achieving stability does not come as easily as resuming the med regiment he was on previously. Hopefully we will get there again.

Miss Fabulous has done well overall this weekend. She got into hysterical hyper laughter which she could not get control of. I was braced for the down side of that but it never came so that was good.

We have all been spending a lot of time in the pool together. Lil Bro is now swimming with no floaty suit, he is awesome! You can really see who a kid trust and who they don't in a pool. You can also see the level of trust they have. Lil Bro swims to Mom and Big Sis with no caution with total confidence that we are there to protect and help him. It is simply a knowledge with in him. I love it.

He will not swim to Miss Fabulous at all and he swims to Mr. Man with caution and thought. Interesting.

Mr. Man will let me float him on his back and cuddle him up like a baby. He sinks right in to me. But his sensory issues mean we have to be very careful where we touch him, avoid the pits.

Miss Fabulous never fully trust anyone in the pool. She may want to ride on a back with a "whale swim" but she is always in control in some way. Always aware of the side, of where she would look to make herself feel safe. As far as we have come in managing the behaviors we do not have her complete trust. It's sad, I'm not sure that she can trust another person completely. I hope that we are getting there little by little.

This Morning They Made Hot Cocoa

2010-06-29T08:08:00.000-07:00

Can we make hot cocoa?

Sure it's only 91 degrees already, go for it.

Big Sis can you help me?

Yes, let me do it.

Gathering of a box of cocoa involved lots of instruction and bossiness and a stool.

What's a serving size mean?

It means that you only need 1 packet of cocoa that you absolutely should not use 2 packs of cocoa to make your one self a serving that's what it means. You only need one.

Oh.

Gross! Don't taste the dry powder!

Oh. Why?

Because you need to wait for the water first before you taste it that's why.

Oh.

My finger hurts.

You aren't supposed to touch the hot water, duh. Get a piece of ice for it.

Oh.

Keep the ice on it because if you don't it will hurt a lot worse later, trust me I know.

Oh.

Two minutes later they strolled out of the kitchen with their mugs in hand as if they were 22 years old.

BTW his finger is fine, no children were truly harmed in the making of this post. :0)

Ah the weekend...

2010-06-27T18:56:00.000-07:00

I am still not a cool parent and I am still okay with that. I did send little friend home, no explanation just that it was time to go. The Mom didn't seem surprised.

I found a used bunk bed for a really good price and it was a perfect match for Miss Fabulous' room. Since she no likey change I never make a change with out consideration to how it is going to affect her and whether the change is worth the possible fall out. I addressed the change with her. Explained that her bed (meaning the mattress and sheets and animals and smells or scents) would all remain the same. I had hoped she would want to move to the top bunk but she did not so we skipped it.

It is not possible for Miss Fabulous to share a room with Big Sis all the time but it is possible for Big Sis to sleep on the top bunk from time to time and when we have company, we have that amount of stability at this time.

I was very careful about the transition. I gave her an activity to focus on but did not send her away from her room where we worked. I showed her how her things were all there and staying. She paced and entered and paced and entered and I made sure Dad and I worked as quickly as possible. She helped put the unwashed bedding back on her bed, now the bottom bunk. She immediately laid down and smelled her bed and rubbed the sheet, all very unconsciously.

I had given The Hubs the low down as to how we needed to go about this change and I explained about not changing the bedding and he looked at me funny and I explained the need for things to smell the same while she adjusted to the change. So he actually saw her smell her bedding. He told me, "Hey I saw her do that."

When her room gets messy because we haven't done well at picking up as we go I go in and clean it up and organize it while she is gone. When she comes in I show her that everything is where it belongs and we get back to working on 'things in their place' when we are done with them. She has trouble with organizational skills and she gets over whelmed with the mess. She isn't good at playing. It is uncomfortable to her. She seems lost and unsure what to do. She is just as impaired as children on the autism spectrum tend to be in this area but for different reasons. At this point in time Mr. Man has made loads more progress than she has in the area of play.

Back to the smelling ... I found that changing her sheets when she visited Grandma away from home was a big no no. The smell of clean sheets was unsettling and made the change and transition more difficult. The same thing applies when I clean up the room, I do not change the bedding because she finds great comfort in her bed. It is her safe spot.

And this room rearranging weekend got me to thinking about how different life is with children with traumatic backgrounds. And why it is so difficult when they enter into our lives. It took me a long long time to figure out something as small as changing the sheets on the bed was a huge upset to her.

That was the only change we sent her way this weekend. Otherwise we stayed home, half of us are sick anyway. We played quiet activities and she gravitated to the mini tramp A LOT. She didn't rage so as of right now I think we made it through this "project bed change" okay.

Ask me tomorrow.

I had visions of being a cool parent but ...

2010-06-24T22:59:00.000-07:00

I have resolved with in myself that is not happening. I'm okay with it. Really not as disappointed as I might have imagined about it.

I have determined I can't be cool and be right, I'd rather be right. I got sucked into the "can my friend come over" thing today. I made it clear up front that we were going to have good behavior. That didn't happen. Not that it was anything terrible but I have a child on the autism spectrum and he is the least of my issues in this house. We have to have order and a reliable way that things are done - consistency is our life line here. And I could be cool and let the friend do what she will like using every piece of expensive equipment in this house in an unsafe way and without permission, but I ain't gonna.

Yes I sacrificed cool to be right. I told friend to call Mama to make sure someone would be there when I brought her home. Looks of shock and dismay. I had no time to deal with it because I was moving Miss Fabulous into the bath just moments after she had banshee screamed in the back yard and gave consideration to taking on the above ground pool in a karate show down because someone tagged her in a game of tag. Go figure.

At any rate I didn't have time to deal with the tweens opened mouth shock and dismay. Friend called Mama and Mama really didn't want her to come home. Hmmm? Asked if Big Sis could sleep over instead. Nope. But here's the deal ... and I explained to friend that they did things different at her house and that was fine but that here when someone comes into the house they have to respect the way we do things because otherwise the children here with special needs start to fall apart and I am not really into that, you can understand. I pointed out the banshee scream episode outside with Miss Fabulous and reminded her that things can get ugly quickly around here.

She got it and admitted that she had not been behaving herself. The tweens got one more chance and they pulled it together and behaved. Go tweens!

Tuesday Miss Fabulous went to finish her testing at the university. That evening her Behavior Therapist comes to visit. She hasn't raged in front of him in months. We all kind of thought she had moved him over into a teacher status Tuesday I said, "Good to know that you are still in the family."

Miss Fabulous raged, all of the sudden and out of the blue because she got very angry at Lil Bro when he touched one of her toys. Dad was home and he redirected her and blocked and redirected her but her brain left the building the minute that Lil Bro touched that toy. Dad had to hold her and keep her safe and the CBA got a lovely report out of it and told Dad what an excellent job he had done. Go Dad!

She also has had a 'swiper no swiping' thing going on for the past few weeks at camp. She tried to leave with someone else's DS game and today all the kids got a special something for their hula day and she decided she would take 2 of those things after it had been explained that everyone only got 1. She hides these things in her cubby and when Nan picks her up Nan inquires as to what it's all about and then asks the staff who are quite surprised that Miss has whatever in her cubby.

It will be interesting to see how that all works it's self out.

And so it goes...

2010-06-20T07:58:00.000-07:00

Thanks for the thoughts regarding how to help with the eating situation!

We go the high fiber low sugar route. Carrot sticks, salad, apples and good stand-bys and a small serving of nuts. The issue that Mr. Man has with this med is volume. I knew of a man that was morbidly obese and his favorite food was oranges. Too many calories make a person gain weight no matter the source.

We are trying to do better with the water suggestion. Mr. doesn't like to drink water. All the kids drink watered down 100% apple juice as a main drink of choice but there are still extra calories. So we are working on it.

I also think that his metabolism changes on the med. I have no clinical proof but this is what I think. I think he becomes more prone to weight gain even with limited calorie intake. I have one kid who is like that by DNA. That falls in the not fair category. Keep the suggestions coming, it all helps!

BTW our Mr. Man is a happy little guy again. It is great that we have the right med to help him but it also makes me sad that he needs the med. Honestly I had hoped that we would take him off the med and find that he would do well without it. That was a no go.

Thanks also for the concern as to where I have been bloggy wise lately. All is well just busy with the summer goings on.

We went to a congregation gathering yesterday evening. It is always nice to be with fellow Christians, up building and happy. We don't get to sit in a chair and visit however while the kids go and play. We have a child that must be monitored around other children and we are the only ones doing the monitoring. We also end up monitoring other peoples children, like the kid that kept terrorizing the host's birds. The poor cocktail birds (Mr. words, ha ha) cockatoos were screaming they were so upset. I moved him out of the room and followed down behind him every time he decided he would go in there. He got the point and moved on.

When it came time to leave the party Miss Fabulous didn't want to go. Shocker. She started to throw a fit outside of the van. I was a few steps behind the rest of the gang and when I walked up she said, "I don't want to leave the party!" I said, "Oh okay, well go on back inside." Looks of confusion. I said, "Sure, not a problem go on back into the party they won't mind." Then she said, "NO!" with crossed arms and angry looks. I said, "Oh okay then well buckle up cause we are leaving." Then I said to Dad over the top of the car that if that fit got going up the block turn around and bring her back.

She thought about it but held it together and did not tantrum. I also didn't push the envelop and did not direct her to get a bath even though she was sweaty gross. Pick the battles I say. I knew she could bath in the AM. Everyone else got a bath and went to bed nicely.

I never offer a choice that I don't really mean. I was absolutely prepared to march her back into the party and explain that she was having a temper fit about leaving and ask who was willing to bring her home on their way home. There were a half dozen families who live close by that were still there and who would have done it. She really had been looking to have a fit all day but we had the Toy Story 3 movie planned that afternoon and I made sure that they all understood anyone having a fit would not be joining us. Then we had the party at 6 pm and I made sure they understood that anyone having a fit would not go. But when it came time to leave the party there was no more incentive to put her best foot forward and hold it together.

This is where the medication stabilization comes in. If she isn't stable on her meds it doesn't matter what the incentive is she is going to lose her cool and tantrum.

We have also entered into the fake o complaint phase of life again. She has more pains and problems than the geriatric population. Funny thing is that getting sent back to bed to "rest and make those hurts feel better" seems to miraculously heal her in about 3 minutes flat. I am thinking of writing a paper on the matter and submitting it to a medical journal, they are going to want to know all about this phenomenon. :0)

I love that kid, she keeps it interesting!

Medication Station

2010-06-17T21:33:00.000-07:00

Right now our hot topic is Mr. Man. I requested to his psychiatrist if we could reduce his Abilify dose. He had settled into summer well, the problem has been his non stop wanting to eat. For him it is a major side effect of the med. Miss Fabulous does not have that side effect or any negative side effect, thank goodness.

Well we are at week 1 of medication reduction, it. is. NOT. going well. Bad move Mom. We have requested to go back to the previous dose. Sadly the desire to eat has steadily improved as the behavior has steadily gone down the toilet. Aggression is coming back, he can't concentrate on anything for any length of time, no frustration tolerance, impulsive, etc.

The turning point for me today was when Mr. Man said to me as we were talking through what was going on with him, "Which one do you think is more important Mom, feeling or the eating thing?" I asked which he felt was more important and he said, "the feeling." I agree. I explained that I will have to continue to say no to extra snacking and he needs to do his best to understand why I am saying no and that he is still getting all the food he needs but that his brain is sending his tummy the wrong message. He is a very literal little person so this kind of reasoning works for him. Not so much with Miss Fabulous.

If any one has suggestions on ways to cope with the eating side effect of the med I would love to hear from you.

Otherwise the med is a great help to Mr. Man. He does not want to feel sad and angry all of the time and t his med really helps him. We also went through a lot of other meds before finding what med helped him so to just move on to another med because of the eating thing is not my first choice. We are looking for best quality of life out come.

Thanks!

On being fair...

2010-06-12T18:29:00.000-07:00

Life tends not to be, I've noticed.

In our brood of 4 we have 2 typical and 2 not as typical kids. The typical kids need to do typical things like have friends sleep over. Show of hands, who's eyes are rolling with me right now? I try to dodge that bullet as often as I can truthfully. But then there comes a time when it is time to man up Mom up and just do the right thing by my kids. I have lost complete control over the eye rolls and sighs at this point.

Today for lunch I served one kid a grilled bread sandwich. The kid was like, "Um Mom, um can I have some cheese on my grilled cheese sandwich?" Hello that is stressed out! I was like, "Oh so you actually wanted cheese on the grilled cheese sandwich? Oh, no problem. Coming right up." You know when a person slip trips and tries to act as if that did not just happen. It was somewhat like that. lol!

The kids played from 9:30 to 1:30 in the pool today. They had a quick lunch break and that was it. It is 7:25 pm and the 4 year old has not had a nap and is going strong. What's up with that? He should be ready to collapse.

This friend that was over is one of those situations where the kids get along really well but the parenting stiles are totally different. For example that Mom delivered her kid and my kid to me at nearly 7 pm and they had not been fed. I don't feel comfortable sending someone there own kid back at 7 pm and not have fed the kid. Maybe that's just me.

It is really kind of willy nilly over there and we can't and don't do things that way over here. Funny thing is, the kids want to be over here. Maybe it's the food. Or ... kids need structure to feel their best.

While the friend was over we had struggles with Mr. and Miss. Fabulous as they both are that is a given. Mr. is head first into the it'snotfairs and theyareleavingmeout I wantstoplaytoos while Miss starts out hanging back quiet and shy with near perfect behavior. If that lasted we would have a friend over every single day. I'd have them lined up around the block. It doesn't last and the down side is no fun.

So Miss had a rage in the pool. She never assaulted anyone which is awesome but verbally it was a rage. The banshee screams which non of our neighbors seem to care about where in full force. Big Sis says to the friend, "At this point she is attention seeking so what we need to do is just ignore until she gets her behavior under control." :-0 Okay there therapeutic sister, you rock!

As soon as Miss got herself under control Big Sis went and gave her love and a hug and she then rejoined the game. It was awesome!

We had another whale of a tale later on to the tune of "Mommy never comes back!" A bit delayed from last weeks travels (I am guessing) but we have made a point to keep Miss very distracted and busy this week. Maybe it helped, who can know.

In other news I have been meaning to mention that we did finally get approval for Miss M's testing. Yes I did say approval. Mr. CBA gave me the low down. They were concerned that Miss would attack the clinician during testing "given her history."

Honestly that was a bit surprising. Number one this university has a center dedicated to autism and in fact the autism center is where the psychology department is. Are they telling me they never get attacked over there? I doubt that.
But secondly Miss is stable and has been for months and I made that very clear. She hasn't even attacked the CBA in months. We already presented record of testing that we had done in Dec. and no one was attacked during that.

But most importantly she is 53 pounds and 7 years old and I wouldn't let her attend the testing packin' weapons, come on we that are not uncouth!

The whole thing made me laugh. This traumatized kid was very clearly just that, a traumatized kid. She refused toys and things to color with. She stayed close to me and chewed her fingers or picked her skin or fidgeted with her clothes. She clearly wanted to leave and she looked about as dangerous as a whipped puppy. But I guess once you attack social workers and finish the job by peeing on their floor and assault psychologist in your own home to the point they want to admit you to a psych hospital and your psychiatrist has a big fat file on what's up with you, and and and I guess any clinician in their right mind would have to consider that this kid that definitely seems to have some learning issues might possibly feel threatened during a testing session.

This is getting a little ramblingon at this point but ... I never knew that my parenting experience would be like this. I had visited this child every 6 to 8 weeks during a sixth month period before she was our daughter and came home to us and I thought I really and truly thought I knew what I was getting myself into. I had no clue.

I did not want to be a therapeutic parent. I would not have checked that box on an application to adopt. And yet here I am, doing what I can do and hoping it is enough to get us through.

Nan is RADified

2010-06-10T21:05:00.000-07:00

I have to share this. Our Nan called me from work this morning to report in on how the drive to camp went. Miss M wanted to go to Hardee's for a biscuit for breakfast and Nan said not today, but another day sure. Then she asked if she wanted this or that for breakfast. Miss M was not happy with this or that but she was holding it together.

On the ride to camp the sun was on Miss M's side of the car and she started a dramatization about, "The sun is in my face. I can't see the sun is in my face. Oh oh help help the sun the sun the sun the sun..."

Nan had a plan.

When they turned and the sun was now on Nan's side of the car Nan started her own dramatization but amped it up. Miss looked at her with confusion and said, "What are you doing?" Brilliant Nan said, "Oh I'm doing what you did. Did that work to get the sun out of your face?" Miss looked at her and said, "No." Nan said, "Oh darn I was really hoping that would work!"

Nothing more was said about the sun. Holly cow that made me 'bout pee my pants! Go Nan! She said, "I'm learning!" That's right, out crazy the crazy!

Pictures

2010-06-10T06:32:00.000-07:00

Too True Tuesday, better late than never

2010-06-09T08:00:00.000-07:00

So Miss Essie wants to know what we procrastinate? It might be faster to say what I don't procrastinate but what comes to mind at the top of the procrastination list is cleaning my own room. I hate house work period but I also hate living in dirt so I have to get it done. With 7 people here in this house and several pets house work is a revolving door that needs continuous tending to.

But my own abode my sanctuary my love nest ... is a pit, and I don't mean Brad. A shameful health hazard pit of disgust. I am doing good to keep the sheets changed and the toilet clean and let's be honest here sometimes the toilet is a little too gas station. If I think I need to put down the ring o paper then I know it is past time to take care of that house duty.

The thing is that there is just not enough time in the day in the week in the month.

A week ago Mr. wanted to show Mr. Behavior Guy something on the computer in my room. I was fully willing to embrace the impending meltdown because there was no way in this life time that the Behavior Dude was going to see the pit that is my sleep chamber. That really should have inspired me to get to work on the room and be willing to let Mr. Behavior Dude come see the whatever it was on the computer the following week. Fortunate for me that the computer got a virus and crashed so I scratched that worry off my list.

I also procrastinate making appointments. I am equally bad at canceling appointments. There are just so many that need to be made and attended. 4 kids, me and a husband to make dentist, doctor, school and so forth appointments for. I am going to plead overwhelmed in this case.

Oh well recognizing that there is a problem is the first step to recovery, right? Now if I can just locate step 2 we might make some progress!

Cruisin'

2010-06-07T21:57:00.000-07:00

Alas we have returned to reality. Thunk!

Boy that reentry is not easy when you have come to accept that every time you leave your state room the bed will be made and there will be a new towel animal waiting for you upon your return.

Man! We had to like make dinner and junk tonight!

But ... the little ones did excellent here at home with Dad and Grandma. My Fabulous Miss M is gearing up to give me the business for the next few days make no mistake about that, but they did very well while I was gone and that will make leaving again more doable! Go me!

The cruise was an absolute retreat and spending that time with my 11 year old girl who will have out grown me in a blink was priceless. She gets lost in the shuffle around here because she is capable and Mama has a lot on her plate. I try to address it often, that I notice it and want it to be different. And I do what I can do to make that happen. I try to set aside time with her in the evening as many nights as possible but the reality is I am tired and worn out from the day and probably less fun then I'd like to be.

So making sure that she has this one on one time with Mama is important for both of us.

The Nanster needed time away too. She is very good about backing us up and allowing either me or the Hubs to get done what we need to. She is very dedicated to our brood and this was our way of saying thank you to her.

I will be posting more pictures of the trip soon.

Intentional Parent Plan

2010-06-03T21:09:00.000-07:00

The attachment challenge has become more of an intentional parent plan over here in loo loo land. Today was awesome. Miss M who is fabulous as always was a bubbly happy little person today who was oh so happy to see that Grandma had come for a visit. I counted at least 6 hugs from the time she came home from camp until bedtime. They were all real and warm hugs the kind where you don't want to let go.

We had our reading time together in Junie B Jones and laughed as always. Miss has a little trouble comprehending the story if she is reading it because it is such a struggle but I kind of review what it is about in a fun way and she really enjoys it. I love reading with her just the way I always loved reading with my Mom.

In other BIG news I am going on a cruise tomorrow and will not return until Monday. I am taking Big Sis and the Nanster with me and Dad and Grandma are going to hold down the fort with the 3 younger kids. I have lists up and meals ready and planned so they should be okay. Dr. Psychiatrist and Mr. Behavior Guy are on stand by to help if Dad needs them, but I don't think he will. He's got this.

Big Sis is so looking forward to this time with Mama and so is Mama! I will have photos to share and likely stories to report as Lucy and Ethel head off on a cruise with a kid in tow. Should be fun! I hope everyone else has a great weekend too.

The challenge

2010-06-02T21:33:00.000-07:00

Well we have been seriously lacking for the past two days challenge wise, we will get back on track tomorrow.

All has been going well though so I am happy to report that.

The Fabulous Miss M pulled a minor fast one on the campers. It is such a nothing story really but other RAD parents will hear the ring of torture held within it.

Yesterday when Miss came home from camp she made this big ta-do over "where is my bathing suit from camp today?" We didn't know and we didn't see where it was a big deal, it'll show up was the thought. Or not, whichever.

But she went on and on about it, Lil Bro was finally like I'll find it. The Mama was NOT going to get sucked in to looking for it because I have learned that with all this ta-do something is up. Not playing, thanks anyway.

She finally let it go. When she arrived at camp today Nan asked the campers if they had seen it? They described it perfectly and then said, "We asked her about this yesterday. We asked everyone about it. We held it up in front of her and she said that it wasn't hers." Then they looked at M and said, "Why did you do that?" Come on RAD parents you know the answer, say it with me now "I don't know."

Nan was awesome and said, "Great! Thanks for finding this for us so that M can wear it Thursday to swim time."

The real deal is that Miss wants a 2 piece bathing suit and we said no. Other kids have one so she wants one too. I understand and sympathize really I do. I was a kid once and wanted what others had. But 2 piece bathing suits have a tendency not to stay where they should accidentally on purpose like. So yeah they are out.

Tomorrow is swim time at camp and I can't wait to see how it goes.

A C challenge, what day is this?

2010-05-31T18:40:00.000-07:00

Today was an improvement over yesterday for sure. Not easy but the dogs never ran for cover! Miss M seems to be having some bipolar cycling going on. Her symptoms are so reduced with her meds that it isn't as easy to pick on the signals anymore but this evening she was playing with Big Sis and doing well and so I missed her evening meds by 30 minutes. Big Sis came to report that all was going well and then all the sudden Miss M became hyper and smacked her out of no where and then throw something at her out of no where. We had hit the happy hyper hour without our meds in place.

I had the still happy hyper Miss M come with me, gave her the meds, reminded her that she was having trouble calming down because we were a little late on her meds and further reminded her that it was important to calm down because the other side of the happy hyper is the big angries. Her face became concerned. I said, "You don't like the big angies cause they are not fun, right?" She nodded yes. I had her draw a picture while I fixed dinner. She does well at her spot at the table with an activity. She helped with dinner a little bit and with in 20 minutes her meds took affect.

Even so she still struggled to get to sleep, her appetite is increased, her mood shifts quickly and she has trouble regulating her temperature. One minutes she has a jacket on because she is freezing and 5 minutes later she is hot to the touch. These are some of the indicators we have become aware of when she is cycling. And if those things don't get our attention a day full of rages sure 'nough does!

I did not do a great job counting the hugs today but we got more than 6 in, she was not resistant to them and they were not stiff.

We had 20 minutes of reading time this evening with lots of animation and eye contact. And we did some one on one time in the store today picking out clothes together. She enjoyed that for about 10 minutes and then she was ready to go find the rest of the group.

The boys were all over me all day as usual so there is no challenge in cuddling them.

Big Sis is awesome and she and I are getting ready to have our time together right now. She is a hugger and so there is no challenge with her either.

Miss M is ready to get to camp tomorrow for swimming fun day!

What is with the blog curse?

2010-05-30T17:42:00.000-07:00

Today has been a very bad no good day. Even the dogs went running for cover in Big Sis' bedroom.

The fantastically fabulous Miss M raged off and on all day and we have not had one of those days in a while. She did not assault anyone however. I have to wonder if paying the pain and suffering fine yesterday was an encouragement, who can know?

That switch was flipped in her head from the get go this morning. She just could not rebound and bounce back. By 7:20 I was ready for Miss Miss to head off to bed. We brushed teeth and braided hair and read two chapters of Junie B which she really did enjoy and I did too. Sadly it was the first time all day I had enjoyed her company. I had to reach down deep inside to get through the attachment challenge today. I was not looking forward to any of it, but we pressed on. We didn't hit the mark but we got further today than we would have if I had not had the challenge on my mind.

We got in 4 real hugs.

She choose candyland as our 20 minutes of fun that she chooses. She wanted Big Sis to play too and that did not go well. My mistake. She just is not able to handle sibling interaction today at all.

We did 20 minutes of reading together with lots of eye contact and animation, Junie B is good for that! So I am counting that as our bonding time.

The other little loo-loos did awesome today and I am proud of them and thankful for them. At our religious service Big Sis and Mr. both participated nicely. Mr. was having a hard time sitting and so he leaned over to me and said, "The waiting is hard, when are we going to go?" How cute is that? He did well and never lost it and he felt very proud of himself afterward.

Dad stayed home with Miss M because it was not going to be good if she went. She did not handle Mom leaving the house with the other kids well at all. Dad had to peel her off the window in the front of the house, "Mommy don't go, don't go!" The drama was not pretty and I don't know why our neighbors have never called the police.

She settled down with Dad and they listened to the program over the phone.

We are hoping that tomorrow will be a better day!

Q and A time

2010-05-30T07:36:00.000-07:00

Struggling To Stand and GB's Mom asked me a question the other day and I thought they were worth (the questions :-) answering/journaling about via the blog.

On food dyes - how did we figure out what bothered the kids?

Two Words, LIFE Cereal. Food dye is NOT the be all end all problem for either of the two kids but it aggravates what they already have going on, badly. Mr. loves LIFE cereal but I did not get it often for some reason. Back a few years ago he was having a particularly good morning, so much so that we all kind of noticed it. THEN he at a bowl of LIFE and wham-o with in 20 minutes he was hyper as all get out like someone had pushed the go button, can't hold still, can't stop touching everything, etc. and he became aggressive about any little thing that he did not particularly like.

As a baby he had been allergic to wheat and dairy, we knew because as soon as he ate those things the eczema on his cheeks turned bright red. It was like a little STOP feeding me that sign. But around age 2 he clearly started to out grow those allergies and we slowly introduced those things again.

Our first thought with the cereal was is it the wheat? No because he was eating other things with wheat and not reacting. I thought preservatives but didn't really know where to begin on that and then I saw yellow # 5 and #6. What's that all about?

And so the process of elimination began. We cut out food with dye in it and his behavior improved and he did not have the dark circles popping up. When we got sloppy and let something with dye in it slide we got those consistent reactions.

With Miss M we have determined that red dye #40 is a problem for her if consumed in a large amount. Meaning sprinkles on a cookie is not going to set her off, but it will set off Mr. However, drinking a cup of drink with red dye in it is going to cause her to be hyper and aggressive and likely go into a tantrum.

Avoiding food with dye is NOT easy, it's everywhere and in everything that kids gravitate toward. But slowly progress is being made and more products are available with out dye. We don't get the cute yogurt like Dora and what not we get the good stuff with no dye and we eat it in our little cups. I sprinkle cinnamon or a few of the tiny chocolate chips on there because the real sprinkles have dye. They have all become used to it and it's just our normal now. At first they no likey not having sprinkles on the yogurt.

The question GB's Mom asked was if the other kids felt jealous because Miss M goes to camp and they don't?

When Miss M is here she is an attention seeker. She works hard to monopolize my attention because she does not want the other kids to have my attention. It's a work in progress but it is what it is. So the reality seems to be that 1. the kids have accepted that Miss M goes to camp. We have explained the reasons why and they have come to accept it. In the past Mr. has expressed a lot of 'it's not fair' regarding the matter but not so much lately. 2. The other 3 kids are getting to go and do things just not at a camp. We go to the library and to parks and they are still into the pool at this point.

Thanks for the questions!

So far today has been challenging regarding the attachment challenge. Miss is out of sorts and has already had a big tantrum, no assaulting others however.

AC day 1

2010-05-29T17:38:00.000-07:00

I had to bring out that letter from Miss M from the last post much sooner than I thought!

We had a very good snuggle hug this morning and then that switch flipped in the brain. An hour and a half in the pool but Miss had trouble playing nicely. We all came in for lunch. She got herself dressed and then Nan tried to help her with her hair. That did not go well. Nan walked away to "check on something on the stove" which is code for this is where I need to give you some breathing room for a minute.

Dad heard the cue and went that way to see if he could help. Too late, mentally Miss M was already gone and the RAGE had taken over. It took about 10 minutes for her to get back in control. She thoroughly trashed her room. I came to check in with her and then she took a little nap before she cleaned up the mess.

When she woke up she came to tell me that she had cleaned everything up and she had. I let her know that she owed the pain and suffering jar money. We took care of that. We talked it out as to what went wrong and what could have been done different.

The rest of the day went well though.

We got 6 real hugs in.
I braided her hair.
We played checkers but then decided we were better at go fish.
Everyone else went out for a bit and so we read 2 chapters in Junie B Jones and read a 3rd chapter at bedtime since reading is part of our routine.

Lil Bro and Mr. gave me a good 25 hugs each and by the end of the evening Mr. climbed in my lap with his blanket and laid down like a baby.

Big Sis and I have had 5 big squeezes and I am off now to have some Big Sis time since the younger kids are asleep.

Progress over time

2010-05-29T08:42:00.000-07:00

Essie the accidental mommy had this post the other day and I could relate to it regarding our fabulous Miss M.

And just like that she covered up the dog, who had climbed into bed with her, with her own PJ's before she headed off to camp. BTW I don't know where that NY t-shirt came from but things tend to just appear around here.

This is a child who at one time was not safe with animals (unsupervised) and now she lovingly tucked in a 60 pound dog with HER PJ's before she left the house.

I want to take time to recognize the areas of progress because the areas of struggle are still so very hard.

There are some Mommies who have been having a rough patch with their hurting healing kids and my heart and thoughts are with them. I hesitated to post this next bit because I don't want to make anyone else's struggle at present more painful and frankly seeing where someone else's child did something positive can hurt when you feel like you are down in the muck with your own kid. I know. But ...

This is going in a frame and whenever she is giving us the business I am going to go and look at it!

It says, "I love you Mom and Dad. You are the nice people ever. I thank you, you are special to me." She took a long time writing this because she wanted to use her best hand writing and although I had to spell most all of the words for her I was not allowed to look at it until she was done. Precious.

The Hubs said, "Look at that, all positive colors there are hearts and a star and a smiley face!"

At our house stars mean Star Power - Stop, Take a breath, And Relax.

As Brenda says, "Never, Never Quit!"

Attachment Challenge

2010-05-28T21:25:00.000-07:00

Here is the Challenge:

10 hugs a day

10 minutes of FUN attachment-inducing games (involving touch and/or eye contact)

20 minutes of doing something fun YOUR CHILD wants to do

Christine has issued this challenge and starting Saturday I am going to start tracking the progress. These are the most basic of things that need to be happening daily for a healing attaching child, and in my opinion they need to happen for any child daily. But do we always hit the mark? Well meaning yes but life gets busy and one child demands more strongly for attention than the next and the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

So it's a great reminder and I am going to play along.

It Must Be The Peas...

2010-05-27T13:57:00.000-07:00

Thank you for the reassuring comments regarding testing. I agree that this teams being thorough is a very good thing. We have an amazing psychiatrist and he is the one that sent us to this location for the testing so I will go in faith, just as so much has gone in a positive way in terms of getting help for Miss M we continue to be on that path. Thank you again for the cyber hugs and support!

Summer is under way here in Sunny Florida. The kids are out of school and Miss M is spending her days at day camp swimming and crafting and getting all that energy out. She comes home and swims in the pool and eats dinner and cuddles and sleeps well. Yeah summer!

Monday she fell off the bounce house slide at camp onto the rubber something or other. It probably smarted for a moment but there was no bruise no mark nothing was twisted or broken it was just an everyday kind of ut-oh, right? Oh no! Miss Miss put on her best drama and had those poor folks at camp guessing all day. They called and let us know what had happened and what they had done about it and I cringed because they had sooooooooooo fed the attention beast. It all worked out not too bad. She woke up at 10 pm with the fake-O drama in effect. We checked her out again, still no sign of anything. Got the pack of frozen peas on it and gave her a big dose of Motrin and called the on call doctor who told me to do what I had just done.

The next day at camp was an outing to the public pool. You would be amazed at the miracle a bag of frozen peas was able to work! She popped out of bed and was ready to roll. She said, "It must be the peas!" :-)

Wednesday Miss came home from camp with a scull and cross bone tattoo on her face. I was not wild about that. For one I don't think that a camp should put tattoos on a kids face because they don't come off easy and you can't cover them up on the face. Honestly my little darlin picked that tattoo because she knew that Mom would not like it, right O! Not a problem. Mom made sure to let camp director know that Miss M is not to have any tattoos from now on, period.

Lil Bro was back at the pediatricians office today. He is not really sick sick but he finished his antibiotic and he still has some cough and what not going on. She said he also has an ear infection going on. That kid never lets you know. So poor guy had to get a shot in the butt and goes on another round of antibiotic. Here's hoping that clears it up.

While we were there they gave the kids lolly pops because Lil Bro got a shot. I let my Mr. have one. It was just a tiny yellow lolly pop, what could it hurt?

The dark circles and the behavior started 20 minutes after he ate the darn thing!

Anyone that has a child with aggression and hyperactivity issues please explore food dye allergies. We have determined that Mr. is allergic to yellow #5 and #6 and red dye #40, although we just aim to avoid them all. Miss M is allergic/reactive to red dye #40 but she doesn't have a problem with the yellows or other colors.

Here's some info from CBS news on the subject.

Rescheduled

2010-05-26T14:13:00.000-07:00

So our clinician at the university called to reschedule our testing appointment for tomorrow because she had not obtained the information from Dr. Psychiatrist or Mr. CBA and her supervisor wants her to have that information for a more clear picture before she proceeds forward.

I guess that is good and them being thorough which is what we expected from the university but for some reason it kind of has me freaked out. Did my story of my kid freak them out? Do they suspect that I'm nuts? I mean I whole heartily embrace the fact that we are all a little "different" over here in loo loo land but that's not Miss M's problem. And this testing is specifically for academics and possible learning disabilities.

Any thoughts out there? Help a stressing Mama please!

The Pool Is Up and Running!

2010-05-24T21:27:00.000-07:00

The fabulous Miss M was at day camp during this photo shoot.

Dinner Out

2010-05-22T08:15:00.000-07:00

The Hubs went fishing yesterday. He caught the biggest fish of them all.

So my BFF Nanster and I took the kids out to dinner. Nan and I have a theory that we are really Lucy and Ethel, but we aren't sure which is which. First our waiter was a well meaning little guy but completely discombobulated. He took our orders but when we noticed everyone around us getting food we thought perhaps he had not put our order in the computer. hmmmmm? He scurried around to scrounge up our food and in the process of dutifully refilling our drinks he knocked my drink into Nan's salad. Poor wet pants Nan and poor doofy waiter guy who assured us that in 7 years of waiting tables this is only the 2nd time that has ever happened to him and he isn't even lying.

I think the same angels that shut the lions mouths for Daniel must have clamped my jaws shut too because how I refrained from calling him on that load is a mystery even to me. I thought what an amateur! I have a kid healing from RAD she can convincingly lie about something that you saw her do to the point that you must at least question your own sanity and vision.

We don't go out much and when we do it's always like this. If the kids do well, as they did last night, then we get some goofy family with problems sitting right beside us or a hyperactive waiter who spills stuff on us. Other peoples lives must be pretty boring! hee hee

Testing - intake day

2010-05-20T21:18:00.000-07:00

The Fabulous Miss M and I headed over to the university to start the process for a FULL psycho-educational evaluation. FULL as in the size of the clinicians eyes as the intake of information was underway. I kind of love how every clinician looks at the angel baby in front of them and then the process that's going on in their head as to how the kid I am talking about is supposed to be this angel in front of them. Never fear I have video footage and you can talk to the various professionals who have witnessed it.

The clinician took the FULL history down. Pages and pages this lady was writing. I also gave her permission to get information from the Psychiatrist and the CBA. I told her what I had observed regarding Miss M's learning struggles, took her report cards and interim reports, told her about all the extra help she is receiving in school and still struggling, showed her the testing that we had done by the Linda-Mood Bell center, gave her Miss M's latest test scores from class and the weekly state assessments.

Miss M's demeanor was that of a traumatized unsure kid. She was offered toys, she refused. She was offered crayons and paper, she refused. She stuck close to me and looked at the clinician with big scared eyes when addressed and otherwise she picked at her skin and clothes and looked off into space. She had a bug bite on her arm that she picked until it was raw and then right in the middle of the intake she let me know that the bug bite hurt. I offered her itchy cream and she said that would make it sting. I offered her a band-aid and she accepted that and the we went on with the intake and she went back to looking off into space.

I asked her when we left if she felt uncomfortable at that place and she said no that it was fine. That's not true and so I am guessing that it will surface a little later. I asked her later in the evening if she wanted to talk about any of the things that were talked about in the meeting. She said no. I told her that everything that we talked about was okay things to talk about and that this was just something that kids do for school. She said okay.

I wanted to address it but needed to keep it simple and say it in a way that I thought would best sink in for her. We are scheduled to go back next week and begin the actual testing which will be video taped as well. (PS I forgot to say that the person doing the intake and I spoke in "code" so while Miss picked up on some minor things she did not understand the big words that we used, mainly she was bored. I did not give any info on birth mom and that situation because I don't want memories to be implanted for Miss. I will give that info to the clinician at another time. I did inform her of the "flashback" which touches on trauma history but that is what Miss had shared with me.)

This evening as we drove home I thought about all the help we have sought to deal with the issues at hand

first our child's physician
then a child psychologist that had already worked with our son, who advised us to seek out a
therapist who specialized in RAD
then a psychiatrist was added
then the local child services was added, insert Social Worker # 1
and 2
then a child psychologist who came to our home to work with our family was added
then a Certified Behavior Analyst was added (all before she was 6 years old)
and we are still at this ... now with a University involved doing FULL psycho educational testing

Let's balance that with all 4 kids are sick again (because I think they never really get over it).
The dog is sick again and back on antibiotics too.
The "twins" have had special 'guess what Mom you get to do extra stuff for class this week because it's the last 3 days of school and the teachers have to keep them busy' - Pajama Day, Bubble Day, Pizza Party Day and and and times 2.
The 4 year old is being a MAJOR toot toot who does not want to take his antibiotics so I had to take him back to the doctor but this time we had to go to the Urgent Care doctor because his doctor is on vacation this week so insert snarky looks from the Urgent Care doctor when I describe that he will NOT take his meds, then she had a go at him and understood what I meant. I explained that I had put the CBA on the job the night before and that I was making more progress with the 4 year old then the CBA was. He noted that we don't have an easy kid in the bunch. Question Mark.
Today Big Sis had a dentist appointment 1 hour before Miss M's appointment. Mr. C had his routine disrupted which does not and did not go well. I actually threatened to have his CBA come to the dentist office. The man next to us was getting really tired of the twerpy kid (Mr. C) who seemed way to big to be having this baby fit. He tried to back me up and had over heard the threat and so piped up, "She's going to call him!"
Mr. C quieted down so it was Lil Bro's turn to go bananas over being told he could not turn the stupid bead game upside down on it's wire top. The thing is big and heavy and he was clearly going to break it so no you may not do that. Insert the wham-o! I had to take this child out to the bench in front of the dental office while he through a major tantrum. He was all sweaty and snot faced and a complete crazed person. Then Big Sis comes out and tells me I have to sign her out so I had to drag the sweaty snot faced banshee into the dental office so I could sign her out. I so do not love those looks of 'why is your child such a whacko you must not know how to parent.' I should however be used to them by now, shouldn't I?

As my dear friend stated the other dear, "motherhood is not for sissies!"

Too True Tuesday

2010-05-18T07:44:00.000-07:00

Okay boys and girls today we are talking about how we could have been cool if it weren't for these kids of ours.

Honestly there are so many examples where do I begin? I'll go with this one. None of my children have entered into pre-school with scissor skills and I don't care. That makes me uncool for sure. The fact is my children are dangerous with scissors and they cut stuff off with scissors that was not meant to come off. Such as? Such as the hair of baby dolls, parts of their clothes, parts of their shoes, bed linens, etc. I am not going to mention any one specific name but I think we all know who she is.

Granted her scissor performance has matured over the last 6 months, she just turned 7. But at age 3 when scissor skills usually get started, let's just say I wasn't ready.

I have been "talked to" by everyone of my kids pre-school teachers about how behind they are in this skill and how they need the opportunity to blah blah blah. I smile and say, "Oh yes you are exactly right we will have to work on that for sure." In my mind I am thinking no way. Uncool parent right here!

Lil Bro is now 4 and he has absolutely no scissor skills what so ever. Why? Because he has an uncool Mom who is kind of paranoid with the scissor action. I should be embarrassed and say that I am going to work on it. That's what I should say.

Do you hear me saying that? Nope.

So there I will take my uncool parent award and display it with pride.

Adrenaline slowing drugs help aggression ...

2010-05-18T07:07:00.000-07:00

Adrenaline slowing drugs help aggression in children, say doctors.

Interesting article, thought I'd share it.

Schools Out for Summer

2010-05-17T20:30:00.000-07:00

Some of you suggested that the end of the school year may be affecting the Fabulous Miss M. I think that is likely right on. I don't know why I didn't think of that. Maybe I am getting rusty? Maybe I was lulled into a sleepy state by the little girl who had been doing so very well? It's like my reasonable self understands that even when things are going well they won't stay that way indefinitely but it seems that my Mama heart goes "hooray we made it she is cured." sigh

The intern left the classroom a week or two ago and Miss M was not okay with that. She likes her main teacher better but she had become used to this person being in the room and in charge. She no likey change. Mrs. Teacher is back in charge of the class. She babies Miss M and lets her get by with way too much and frankly this is all unsettling for Miss M and it makes losing this teacher to someone else all the more upsetting for her.

Miss M had been writing things like "the best thing that ever happened to me is that Mrs. Teacher is very nice to me" in her journal. Those things just feed into the teachers view that she knows best how to handle Miss M.

Oh well we keep on keepin on!

You are my best comfort!

2010-05-17T13:00:00.000-07:00

Things continue not to be lovely with the Fabulous Miss M. I don't think that she really wants her birth mom, she was just turning 2 years old the last time she was in her birth mom's care (and I use this term loosely) and she is just now turning 7 years old. I don't think she has many concrete memories of her birth mom and I think the things she has remembered via flash backs are not good. But I also think that kids with attachment issues and trauma history like to keep their options open, if only in their mind, and that disconnect factor means that she doesn't necessarily put it together that lack of care while with birth mom makes that a not good option.

She had a major tantrum yesterday and assaulted The Hubs. She was banging on the sliding glass door because the other kids came in the house because she wasn't playing nicely. She got mad that they did not want to play with her anymore but doesn't seem to check into the reality that they don't want to play with her because she is not being nice. In her world she is simply being wronged and so she rages. As my fifth grader says, "Question mark?" Another question mark is why does she bang on the sliding glass door instead of just coming inside? It wasn't locked and no one told her to stay outside. My guess is the attention that she believes banging on the door draws. I was taking care of the boys and their bath so the Hubs was handling her tantrum. He directed her into the house because he wasn't comfortable with the door banging and was concerned she would hurt herself.

It all played out with in 20 minutes which is greatly improved from the hours this used to take.

She had asked for grilled cheese at lunch but I was making a quick lunch and told her to choose something else. At dinner I had more time and fixed grilled cheese. She would not eat her dinner. Question mark?

She is back to pulling out some major retro stuff in the RAD department. I'll be honest it makes me wonder how much has she healed and how much is a con artist at work that I fall for hook line and sinker? It's baffling and disconcerting.

But ... my Mr. has had some real up building comments for his Mama lately. Today he said that his behavior guy was his buddy and then he said that Daddy was his best buddy and then he said, "but you are my best comfort Mommy." I haven't found a way to bottle it yet but when I do I'll pass it on!

Sticks and Stones

2010-05-15T21:21:00.000-07:00

may break my bones but words will never hurt me. I remember saying that as a kid. I wonder who came up with the phrase. Not enough to google it but still I wonder. It isn't true. Words can tear right through our heart. Words like, "I want my real mom!"

Yes the Fabulous Miss M hit below the belt today. She was on her way to her room for being inappropriate and I'll just leave it at that. She was angry.

She just woke up struggling today and I am not sure the reason why. Apparently thoughts of the past had come a knockin and her heart was hurting so she decided to hurt mine. It worked but my therapeutic Mom brain kicked in and we used it.

I went in and asked her why she wanted her real Mom? What is a real Mom?

She said a real Mom is the person that takes care of you "I guess". I asked her who took care of her and she said that I do.

We talked about a lot of things and something that she did seem to follow was the fact that we are her real parents because we have papers from a judge that say so. I brought out all of the kids birth certificates from the state. They all pretty much look the same and the wording is such that she can read it herself. Each child's name and then our names as the parents. I showed her that we have a special safe that we keep these papers in because they are important to us. She seemed to take it all in.

The fact is she is hurting today. Her hugs were stiff and fake, she had Chinese water torture on her radar today, she did a million and two things to push me away and yet try to remain in control of me and my attention.

We will get the train back on the tracks and keep on keeping on. A few days ago she was doing amazingly well and she has made a great amount of progress lately but it does tend to be 3 steps forward and 2 steps back and today we took a few steps back. Hopefully tomorrow we will once again be moving forward.

It was amazing to see Mr.'s reaction to what Miss M said to me. He had that shock face :-0 and said, "She must be trying to tell a joke or something. You are the real Mom!" He can give me a hard time in his own way but that kid has a sweet heart.

Progress

2010-05-12T22:23:00.000-07:00

I love the picture that is now the header for the blog. The other picture is beautiful and classic but this picture captures each child so perfectly - Big Sis the little mother, The Fabulous Miss M wide eyed and a little unsure but smiling, Mr. C with his head phones tuning out the over stimulation and Lil Bro the ham! They are all so different and have unique needs that are at times difficult to meet but they are also a united group.

Tonight I had all 4 kids at bedtime routine time all on my own. We have made such progress. All 4 had their bath. Miss M had an issue at the start of bath time but pulled it together nicely and then asked to take her horses in the tub and she actually played like a regular kid. She scrubbed the tile with her sponge and combed her horses hair. She went to bed nicely and is sleeping soundly. In fact I went in to check on her and she did not startle awake with terrified eyes of confusion, she is asleep and peaceful.

It won't last, it can't. She is a person with mood disorder and she is growing so that just doesn't allow for constant stability but ... we are enjoying it while it is here and taking time to really look at where she has made progress.

She asked me one of those obvious questions that our kids ask. The I am going to try to push your Mom buttons right now because I don't want to do homework because I'd rather jump rope kind of question. I just reminded her that she was a smart kid and I knew that she already knew that answer and she said, "Oh yeah, never mind about that." It was kind of like she caught herself in what she was doing? But that was the end of that button pushing session. A year ago that would have simply been the "go" moment and a hundred obvious questions would have followed in the attempt to make me up set.

She is now able to wait for an apology from Mr. when he has hurt her feelings instead of getting angry and acting on that anger. She is going to be upset and mad but she cries and hears Mom say that she will have her apology in just a few minutes but that right at this moment we need to be patient while Mr. gets regulated and back in control of his brain. Amazing!

We made it!

2010-05-10T15:35:00.000-07:00

The day went very well. Mr. and Miss M hung in there without any major incident. It was interesting to watch both of them deal with things that came there way and to see them use the skills they have learned and to see where the right medications have given them the needed help to stabilize and bounce back.

The look of anxiety, what is this going to be all about?

We even survived Lil’ Bro’s Mickey Mouse ice cream head rolling off his cone and into the floor beside him. That was not a magical moment but we did manage to get another scoop of ice cream.

We drove like the wind at the speedway!

We had lunch at Lady and the Tramp - Tony’s Restaurant. It was a really nice meal and all the kids enjoyed it and behaved. The kids were thrilled with the parade and the marching band that played outside. In fact when asked what her favorite parts of the day were Miss M explained, “I liked seeing the princesses, the parade and the marching band and I liked eating.”

The carousel ride was nearly a problem but we made it through and at any rate we got to go round and round for 32 seconds after standing in line for 45 minutes. Totally worth the wait – NOT!

When asked what was his favorite part of the day Mr. answered, “Shopping!” Now that’s a boy that’s been raised right!

The Hubs and I discussed the day and it is never easy with Mr. and Miss but for them they did great. Our last ride of the day was the riverboat ride. It was a difficult wait in line. Mr. was crumbling, Miss M cried, then there was the fake tarantula issue, Big Sis had a “why do these kids have to ruin my life” moment, but all and all we came through it okay. MP3 player, magic gum, replacing certain little ones more strategically and voila we survived.

Miss M did not want to be in this shot, she was having a moment. Not a problem.

Hooray, all smiles! (Notice the shirt? We felt it only fair for folks to be warned in advance.)

At that point we knew that the little ones were toast and it was time to move toward leaving. We headed to the front entrance, stopped by a shop so that Lil Bro could get his goodie, Big Sis had to potty the second we arrived so she and Nan went and took care of that, Lil Bro had a melt down because he wanted a $72 train set to which Mom said no, Big Sis bought a stuffed Dalmatian dog because heaven knows we do not have enough stuffed toys in our house, kissed The Hubs and Big Sis who were going to stay on at the park, we headed for the tram, we headed the wrong way and then had to figure out how to get to where we needed to be, we got to were we needed to be and then got on the tram, we sat down happy to finally be sitting and Nan asks “Do you have your keys to the van?” Nope. Who does? The Hubs. Where is he? In the park. Where are we? Now circling the globe on a Disney Tram with 3 kids who have had enough of this good time.

We got the keys from The Hubs via the help of Disney staff. Got back on the tram and … The Fabulous Miss M has to potty right this very second. I told her that I understood and that as soon as there was a potty Mommy would take her potty. “But I have to pee NOWWWWWWWWWW!” Roger that but Mom does not have a potty. “But I am going to pee my pants and I don’t want to pee my pants.” Just do the best you can. “But I feel a drip!” It will be okay. “No it won’t you will be mad at me if I pee my pants!” At this point tears are welling up in her eyes and she is hanging on to that slippery slop by a finger nail. I told her that I would not be mad but even if I were mad what would that mean? What would Mom do if she were mad?

She just looked at me blankly as if she didn’t know. Her brain was in another place and time I think. No one gets punished around here for peeing their pants and they never have so what is going on in that head? I dunno but that question brought her back to reality. She held it and as soon as we got off that tram Mama hunted down a potty and that kid went and went and went. I was like high five for holding that kid o!

They were looking forward to some pool time at the motel but our trip around the globe had clearly stole our time. The stomachs took over and they all made the choice to get in the pool in the morning instead. I cannot begin to describe what a level of progress this is. No one had a melt down over this issue. They all ate their dinner (I use that term loosely) and then fell asleep on Mom’s bed.

The room was a nice set up and I could not believe how cheap it was, really good find. It wasn’t the Hilton but it was clean and awesome for an economy hotel. Miss M and Big Sis had bunk beds and Nan had the single bed next to them and the boys slept in the big bed with Mom and Dad.

It was an awesome day and many happy memories were made! Thanks for sharing it with us!

It's A Small World After All - Disney Here We Come!

2010-05-07T21:29:00.000-07:00

I love that ride and so do the kids! And Saturday we'll be on it!

We decided to cash in on our give a day get a day tickets. Sure this is one of the busiest weekends to go to Disney World. Sure it's going to be 91 degrees tomorrow. Sure I had to board the fur babies because we have not all stayed over night away from home since Miss M was 3 years old. Why are we doing it right now just a few weeks prior to school being out for the summer? Because ...

my Bipolar child is stable at the moment. She is handling things not going the way she would prefer they go. She is being patient with her moody brother who is on the autism spectrum. And we have missed these windows of opportunity before and regretted it. So the Hubs and I pow-wowed on the matter and he agreed to do it now.

We are leaving early Saturday morning and checking into our hotel, that's right the Loo-Loos on location baby! The room was a great deal and has a kid fort with in the room that has bunk beds and a single bed so the two girls and Nan will be sleeping in there. We have lunch reservations at the restaurant with the Lady and the Tramp theme. The Fabulous Miss M is going to lunch dressed as Tinker Bell, oh yes there will be pictures!

We have sunscreen and juice boxes and we are ready to roll! Here's hoping we have a happy out come to report!

Each of the kids helped pack their bag with their clothes and such in it and each kid is responsible for their bag. I think this is probably the best age for them to go as a group - 10, 7, 6, and 4. We are go for lift off!

Dog Day

2010-05-07T06:20:00.000-07:00

So the dogs needed their shots updated and there is a place that is 45 minutes from here that does the vaccines for cheap. They don’t require the examine fee of $35 per animal so it’s worth the drive. I was taking my big dog and Chihuahua and Nan’s Chihuahua.

Let’s just say that Daisy the dog gets a bit absolutely terrified as soon as we pull up to a vet office. They all look the same and so she knows where she is as soon as the van stops. She is 60 pounds of pure muscle and now all 60 pounds are in a “I’m gonna die” panic. Which leads to the two Chihuahuas firing up the vocals and wrapping their leashes around my legs. It took us 10 minutes to get into the building.

Daisy has a muzzle as a safety precaution because in the throws of being panicked she may make a wrong judgment call and bite someone. It only last for about 2 minutes and then she has it off so I have to plan this strategically when needed and only at the right moment.

Meanwhile we are being glared at from all angles because we have a “bad dog”. When I say we please don’t think that I had any real help with me, what I had was a 4 year old playing a leapster and refusing to do anything that he was told to do. He saw that Mom was completely incapacitated and apparently decided to strike while the iron was hot and take advantage of the situation.

Someone came and put us in a room to get us away from everyone else. So it’s me, a 4-year-old boy, 2 Chihuahuas and a 60-pound dog that thinks the world is coming to an end all in a 5 by 6 room. At this point I knew how incredibly stupid I was for going on this adventure but it was a 45 minute drive one way and there was no way I was giving up now.

And cue Attila the huntress and Olive Oil her assistant with vaccinations and bad attitudes in hand. Commence more glaring and then the nasty comment, “You need to be able to control them!” Honestly I thought I was controlling them, no one had been bitten so what else was she looking for? I am not Caesar Millan and I did not advertise that I was. I am simply the lady looking to get some stinkin vaccines for these crazed animals for cheap.

So I ask Attila, “Okay, what do you want me to do then?” She said, “Well put one of the little ones on the table. Do they bite?” I said no because Jasmine is almost 6 and she has never bitten anyone. Apparently Jasmine opened her mouth to breath and Attila labeled her a biter and went looking for a muzzle for Jasmine the Chihuahua in her door o muzzles. The tiniest one was too big for Jasmine the killer Chihuahua so she came up with some cone thingy that completely covered Jazzy’s eyes and mouth. It was a bit over the top. Poor Chico received the same treatment and after observing this Daisy the Dog was sure her assumption that the world was ending/the sky is falling was absolutely correct. I put her muzzle back on and the 2-minute clock started. 1 2 3 shots and then Attila told me to take the posse out to the lobby again. The 4 year old decided he didn’t want to follow. I wasn’t in a position to argue so I figured I would send his father for him later. Thankfully he decided to join me and it wasn’t an issue.

Amanda the Good Witch helped me at the front desk. She took me and the posse behind the counter where we were less of a disturbance. I paid and we were on our way and taking all 3 dogs at the same time to the vet is officially in the top 5 on my list of “don’t ever do this again.”

Discovery Health Psych Week, Bipolar Kids

2010-05-06T19:47:00.000-07:00

Discovery Health Psych Week, Bipolar Kids

Points of interest, the others all look good too but these are the ones that I have seen:

Chase
Kelsey
Bipolar Mysteries-Teresa
Bipolar Mysteries-Kristen

These kids were all familiar in some way with how their illness affects them and what we deal with here. Something that I kind of wonder about is that even though I have seen video of other kids, labeled Bipolar and also labeled RAD, rage their rage has never been anything close to what we have dealt with from the Fabulous Miss M. I'd be interested to hear if other Mom's have noticed the same thing? Is it simply because these are kids and so there is caution as to what is published or what their parents allow to be published or is my kid the Gold Metal Winner for rages?

Need A Laugh?

2010-05-04T05:25:00.000-07:00

Need a laugh? There are 6 parts to this stand up session, it is pee the pants funny! After you click here if you look on the side bar you will see 1/6, 2/6 etc. but they are not in order. Have fun!

More Photos of the Weekend

2010-05-03T22:35:00.000-07:00

Here are some more cute photos of the campers weekend. Yes that is my husband up a tree.

The little kids looked at the pictures from the weekend and Miss said she would like to go, Mr. not so much. She seems a bit braver these days and in fact said, "I'm not scared any more." So we will probably be trying a family camping trip soon.

Gone Daddy Gone

2010-05-02T23:25:00.000-07:00

The Hubs and Big Sis went on a Kayak trip this weekend with another Dad and his son and the son's friend. They had a nice time and now I am so planning a weekend get away with Big Sis!

The little kids did very well this weekend. Mr. and Miss do better when Big Sis is not an option. It seems that they no longer view the other as competition but rather, all there is. Interesting how the dynamics affect how any given child may do with situations and issues at hand.

And ... the med dose increase is most definitely given the Fabulous Miss M her bounce back, back. We had really good progress from Oct. to Jan. with no rage outburst and then Jan. started to turn into Feb. which was heading toward March Madness and the rages made their return to the tune of once or twice a week. Still better than 2 and 3 times in a day but also still not much fun.

I was reading a post on another Mom's blog about kids with RAD who are also diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder. I really appreciated that post and it's info and it definitely supports what we have seen with Miss M.

We were kind of in this weird-o holding pattern regarding attachment progress until we were able to find the right meds to help the mood disorder. The issues themselves that have come from trauma and neglect and and and ... are still there but the things that we are doing to help her actually seem to help her when her brain is functioning at a more normal rate.

She handled Dad and Big Sis not being home this weekend. She was able to express that she didn't like that they were not there and that she missed them. Lil Bro is helping by acting as a tiny theaputic person. He does not like it when Mom leaves even to go to the store. He is smart and has amazing social skills and is able to initiate roll play that helps him work through those feelings. In play with dolls or sometimes a stuffed animal (this weekend it was bunnies) he says,

"Bunny baby sad because Mommy Bunny gone. It okay Baby Bunny, Mommy Bunny always come back.

But I want her and I cry and I miss her.

But Mommy always come back and Daddy Bunny and Nanny Bunny takes care of you. Everybody takes care of you.

Mommy always comes back."

I noticed the dialog coming from Miss M during play was more positive again this weekend. She definitely has picked up some of Lil Bro's self comforting message. I was able to go to the store and come back without her having a meltdown. Progress!

The Stomach Ache

2010-05-01T11:30:00.000-07:00

Yesterday when Miss came home from school she took notice that Dad and Big Sis were not home. She did not say anything but I smelled the burning rubber from her wheels turning. The next thing was she went into the “My stomach hurts!” drama. This is something she does when she feels upset but doesn’t really have the words or strength to verbalize the problem. I always go at it from a caution angle because I don’t want to assume the child has an emotional issue-stomach ache and in reality she dug something out of the trash at school, ate it, and now has typhoid Mary.

After the fact we do get down to the heart of what was causing her fake-o stomach ache and try to think it through and learn from it but in the heat of the moment we must first deal with what is at hand.

Her timing wasn’t great for her but was perfect for me. I had ordered pizza for dinner and it was arriving at the same time that her fake-o tummy pain started. Bummer. I first recommended she sit on the potty, old stand by you know. We had progress there but alas no relief from the fake-o tummy pain.

She said, “Do I have to take a bath?” Frankly it was Friday and I didn’t care if she took a bath or not so I said, “Do you want to take a bath?” To which her circuits got crossed up and confused and so she said, “Huh, okay.” I put her in the bath we did a quick job and she came out of the bath in worse shape than ever with this fake-o tummy pain.

Not to worry I have the cure sweetie, Mommy already has rice and applesauce all ready for you because the pizza will make you throw up if your tummy is hurting this bad. “Noooooooooooooo! I want my pizza!!!” Not a problem I exited stage left while she got her PJ’s on, came back and tucked her into bed at 6:30 and brought her rice and applesauce in bed.

It was pretty darn amazing the speed at which this miraculous recovery took place. Her tummy was 100% a okay in no time flat.

I’m confused

2010-04-30T19:47:00.000-07:00

Yes that is a general statement in regards to myself but this time I am confused on a specific topic.

Miss M’s weekly progress report last week reads as follows:

“Another great week for M! She is such a good, polite and thoughtful child.”

Behavior Scores –

Listens Carefully, Outstanding

Stays on Task, Satisfactory

Follows Directions, Satisfactory

Treats Others with Respect, Satisfactory

Follows Class Rules, Satisfactory

Does Her Best Work, Satisfactory

Miss M’s weekly progress report for this week reads as follows:

“Has been caught talking over the teacher or during work time again. She is really behind in work this week. Please go over all worksheets sent home. Thank you!”

Behavior Scores –

Listens Carefully, Outstanding (? How does one listen carefully to an outstanding degree when one is talking over top of the teacher?)

Stays on Task, Satisfactory

Follows Directions, Satisfactory

Treats Others with Respect, Satisfactory

Follows Class Rules, Outstanding (? A major 1st grade rule is no talking during work time. How is talking during work time outstanding behavior?)

Does Her Best Work, Outstanding

The comments sounded like she did better the week before but the scores say she did better the week she was talking over the teacher? That’s a thinker.
These weird-o things that happen all. the. time. are a big reason we decided to pursue testing outside of the school. It is of course the standard testing that our county uses and the school will have to update her IEP accordingly but we won’t wonder what kind of ~~being given the answers~~ coaching she received through out testing.

To whom it may concern:

I am seeking direction as to where to sign up for something or even anything to be easy or even just to go in a normal way regarding my children and myself. Thanking you in advance.

Sincerely,
Loo-Loo Mom

Houston we have reentry.

2010-04-29T23:24:00.000-07:00

Our reunification went well Wednesday. It was Mr. and Big Sis who were having issues but we made it through.

Miss really picked up where she had left off, doing better than she had been doing before the ¼ mg dose increase. She was able to communicate verbally to me during our cuddle time that she had missed me and had cried for me once. You no doubt have come to realize that Miss can be somewhat dramatic. Her explanation of how she felt when she cried was pretty darn cute even though it was clearly over the top and a bit of a put on. She said, “I said to myself don’t cry M don’t cry but my heart just break open and I cry.” I don’t care if she was for real or not that is darn cute!

I think she is indeed making good progress with attachment. She is always going to be a person who struggles with a chemical imbalance and the more stable she is the better she is going to do in all areas, maybe.

Many of the trauma memories that affect her, with or without her realizing it, are going to be a challenge for a long time in terms of healing or resolving and putting them to rest.

We are taking her in May for psycho-educational testing at a local university as recommended by her psychiatrist. It’s affordable and because these are students they do a better than average job in terms of being thorough because they are being graded on the work they do. Her IQ, processing issues, learning disabilities and so on all affect her ability to function so knowing more in these areas will help us to help her. Because we are having the testing done we can be confident that the results are accurate and we remain in control of the results and presenting them to the school.

The kids’ interim reports came out today and once again Miss M’s grades had been whited out and changed by hand, again. A N (not demonstrated consistently) was changed to an S (satisfactory) and a U (unsatisfactory) was changed to an N (not demonstrated consistently). In short there are question marks as to why these kind of things keep happening for a child who clearly struggles academically. Having these upcoming test results will hopefully tell us what our little Miss has going on.

Speaking of what’s going on, Miss also picked up right where she left off at school. Aftercare called me today to inform me that Miss had been involved in a situation with her arch nemesis H. H is the little girl who Miss was found to be bullying at the beginning of the year. H has become fed up with Miss being a “Bossy pants” and “meanie”. Miss describes H as either her best friend or as being mean to her. It would seem H is her best friend when she does as she is told and she is mean when she tells the adults on Miss M. In a lot of ways it doesn’t sound all that different then a lot of little girl relationships, accept our Miss is NOT like a lot of other little girls at this school and history shows these ARE areas of concern. And these are not acceptable choices to us as a family, this is not how we treat others. Yet it seems quite accepted which is frustrating. But it sounded like the director handled it well and that’s what I told her and I thanked her for letting me know.

Miss struggles with perceptual difficulties within relationships. She plays the part that she believes a situation calls for and when she is comfortable she is the aggressor. We believe she is reaching a level of comfort at school where she is kind of getting the clue that nothing really bad is going to happen no matter what she does there. She has heard through the grape vine that going to the principal’s office involves getting a talking to, calling home and sitting in a desk outside her office – big woo! I am pretty confident that was not a good understanding for Miss to come to.

We keep working on the healing and working to rewire those connections that currently lead her to do what she does. I am grateful that she has made the progress that she has, even though we have a long way to go we have already come far.

What’s Dem-A-Crazy?

2010-04-28T11:09:00.000-07:00

I was just reading the accidental mommy blog and commented that parenthood was not a democracy and my little guy said, “What’s dem-a-crazy?” Funny stuff!

It means that parents make the decisions because it is our God given right and we know best and have the child’s best interest in mind. That said, sometimes we mess it up. We aren’t perfect either.

Shortly I’ll be going to pick up the fabulous Miss M from Grandma, I have that pit, I might puke, feeling. Being in an abusive relationship is not easy, you never know what is going to set the abuser off and it is more complicated when the abuser is your child.

She has had a good visit with the grandparents, she always does. She even wrote a little song and Grandma e-mailed it to me.

TODAY IS TUESDAY, TODAY IS TUESDAY

APRIL 27, APRIL 27

YESTERDAY WAS MONDAY,

TOMORROW WILL BE WEDNESDAY

HIP, HIP HOORAY!

MY GOING HOME DAY

That sounds like such a sweet awww kind of a song, doesn’t it? All I could think was holly heck she is going to kick my butt when she comes home! We talked to her on Monday and gave everyone an update on Mr. When she is at Grandma’s house she has a whole different voice tone, very sweet and kind of sing songy. That’s the voice that started out on the phone and then she realized that Mr. was with Mama and I heard her wheels start turning and her voice tone changed and … frankly I’m dreading the reunification of our clan. I am trying to talk myself out of it, it isn’t going as well as I hoped. The break from having to always be on watch and on alert is so needed and helpful but it’s hard to go back to reality. I always wonder was it a mistake to go for the break?

Maybe it will all go well and we won’t have any major acting out.

Maybe pigs really will fly!

Outta Here!

2010-04-26T20:25:00.000-07:00

The adenoids are gone!

Our Mr. had a successful adenoidectomy and nasal whatever! The surgeon removed two HUGE adenoids which were completely blocking his nasal passage. The doctor said that he had a head full of stuff, which he cleaned out. He is recovering at home with Mama and the crew.

When they called me into the recovery room the terror in his eyes was the same that I saw at the orphanage the day they plopped him unclothed in to my lap. It was partly the meds but my Mama heart hurt.

When Miss M had her tonsils out at age 3 she made a huge fuss and insisted that they get "Mama now!" A bug eyed nurse came to me and said that they did not usually have the Mom come back so soon but that Miss was insisting and they wanted her to calm down. They didn't know her, ha!

But Mr. goes inside himself when he is in pain or sick on his stomach and for me that is more difficult to take. I think I handle the yelling better because I know exactly what's wrong and what's going on. With the introvert my mind wonders how bad is the pain and what else might be wrong? What's coming next? I am not really a big fan of surprise I guess. Okay I have my own control issues, most of which have been overcome by this point due to parenting a child with RAD. Let it go has a whole new meaning, survival.

As soon as we came home Mr. wanted to crawl into Mama's bed with Mama. He slept for 2 hours and woke up doing much better. I think more of the surgery meds had left his system. He ate a fruit chiller right off the bat and then took his pain med where he drew a picture that said, "Happy as a whale!" I think that sums it up nicely. In fact he was doing a little too well after said pain med and we have not needed to give it to him since. We are going to stick with the usual pain relievers, the ones without the pretty yellow coloring added to it.

Pre-surgery pic!

Recovering

At home with a fruit chiller, just chillin!

What have you done for you lately?

2010-04-25T09:17:00.000-07:00

Corey posted that question a few days ago and honestly it was hard for me to think about what I had done for myself, a common Mom issue. But ... yesterday Big Sis and I had a day together and we got pedicures, had lunch at our favorite restaurant, and did a little shopping! Then I came home and went to bed at 7pm! Fun!

Here is a pic of our toes.

The Hubs said it best, "That's really orange."

I am going for tropical here and I let a 10 year old pick the color.

Miss M is enjoying herself at Grandma's and we have had a relaxing weekend here at home too.

Medication Station

2010-04-24T08:23:00.000-07:00

Well even the dog is on antibiotics. Daisy the dog developed a cough and $120 later we had a prescription for antibiotics. She takes it well with cheese and is getting into plenty of mischief so we aren't concerned.

Lil Bro does not take his antibiotics well. The pediatrician has "trained" me on how to administer the antibiotic, it doesn't work. He waits until the antibiotic is in the back of his throat then gargles it and spits it out at me then he bites the syringe. I called the pediatrician and we decided to go with the chewables. That is working out better.

Mr. gets his adenoids out on Monday and I am feeling a little nervous. I am confident in the surgeon but Mr. has never had anesthesia and we have no family history to tell us if it could be a problem so we have to just hope for the best. We discussed the other meds that Mr. is on and everything is cleared there.

Big Sis is feeling much better and she and I are off today to have her earned reward from achieving straight A's, she choose to have the day with Mom!

The Fabulous Miss M is off for a mini vacation at Grandma's house. She is thrilled! She is also doing well at the moment stability wise. It is hard to imagine that a 1/4 mg increase can make a difference but it has, at least for now.

Mrs. Teacher called ...

2010-04-21T23:02:00.000-07:00

dunt dunt daaaaaaaa

My first reaction was a ringing in my ears and earths gravity seemed to get stronger just for a moment. "Mrs. Loo-Loo this is Mrs. Teacher." Gulp! A million panicked thoughts ran through my mind all at once, like whatever she has done at school was so bizarre that Mrs. Teacher felt better to call me at home off the record or it has come to the schools attention the Miss M is stealing lunch money from other kids and threatening their loved ones if they tell or ... you get the idea. In that brief 2 second pause what ran through my mind had me running scared!

So why did Mrs. Teacher call? To recruit me and The Hubs to volunteer at the spring fling this Saturday. Awkward pause with insect chirps in the background, Uhhh yeah okay we can do that. Because I could not come up with a proper excuse fast enough, darn! I mean I am so proud and glad to be able to support my child's class and school in this way. (big toothy grin)

Our dear Nan had carpal tunnel surgery Tuesday and is at home recovering. She is doing well and hopes to benefit greatly from this procedure. I got to be the "responsible adult" in charge of her care. The surgery center began to question that when I passed out as they talked about the surgery. So embarrassing! Here is poor Nan with her wrist all bandaged up and the staff is getting me a cup of juice and trying to get me to snap out of it. I made the statement that it is obvious I could not handle all the attention she was getting.

And while Nan and I were getting surgery and passing out guess who was in charge of the little Loo-Loos? That's right The Hubs and because Mr. Behavior Guy was already scheduled to be there he got assist Dad. They went to the park.

Then it was time for baths and Miss got upset because she wanted Mommy and Mr. got upset because he did not want a bath. When I came home Mr. Behavior Guy said, "All in all it went great and the outbursts did not last too long." I noticed that he had indicated there were plural outbursts to which he replied, "Oh yes, they both lost it. But they recovered quickly." Hooray for progress!

The ¼ mg med increase seems to be making a difference for Miss M. It would appear that all the issues are better coped with when the brain is working optimally.

Mr. C was struggling this afternoon. The Wii remote was not working properly and our living room computer is infected with a nasty virus. The Hubs is working to clear the computer of the virus but so far there has been no success. Those two changes in his universe sent him in a tail spin.

Miss M informed me today that H from school was mean and made her cry. I asked what happened apparently when I said, “Is that right?” To which Miss M replied that H had made her cry 2 times when she called her a bossy pants and a meany. I asked what she was doing when H called her those things and in short it seems that she was indeed being both a bossy pants and a bit of a meany. We gently reminded her to let the teacher take care of issues in the classroom because that is Mrs. Teacher’s job and that way other people will not call her names and hurt her feelings. She was done talking about this at this point in the conversation.

Poor thing, the dots do not connect for her that her behavior is offensive to other children. In her mind they truly are the mean one for calling her on what she was doing, “So and so always be mean to me when he tells on what I do.” No longer doing what she is being told on for never enters into the picture.
And that’s one to grow on!

In other news, Lil Bro has strep throat and needs to see the ENT about possibly removing his adenoids. Mr. C's surgery is on Monday. We did the blood draw on Monday, that went great - NOT! But it got done and 1 wii points card later we were all doing fine.

Big Sis is currently sleeping on the couch with a very yucky looking sore throat and it would be my guess that her strep throat is back/never really left.

In the last post we received sweet comments about how hugging our group appears and we all are but… I think that is a huge contributor to why everyone keeping getting sick. Oh well we are building up immune systems.

Braving the Drizzle

2010-04-19T08:51:00.000-07:00

We had a relatively normal weekend. Hooray for us!

We had our appointment with Dr. Psychiatrist on Friday, he adjusted Miss M’s meds slightly elevating one med. She has grown a bit since being on this med regiment for the past 10 months.
Miss was very RADtastic this weekend bringing out all of her passive aggressive Chinese water torture drip drop drip drop Lord give my strength behaviors. But she never raged or even tantrumed so we just keep on keeping on.

She is in that mode where she isn’t much fun to play with if you are another kid. She is having a real hard time making the right choice right now, and is having lots of perceptual problems as to what is really going on with sibling interactions. It seemed like a lot of attention seeking in the form of attempting to get the other child in trouble. She did not go about it all that swiftly however since the adult was present (in the same vicinity) and clearly observed the goings on and the fiction as well. But there was nothing earth shattering and she did not blow up even when she was over reacting so … that’s progress, again.

Mr. did well overall but did fail to earn one Wii time for becoming aggressive. He and Miss do not want to feel that they are being denied access to Mom but I do have to go to the potty at times and Nan is completely with in her rights to say, “No you will not go in there while Mom is in the potty.” But he got the train back on the tracks and did great otherwise.

Lil Bro got a fat lip at the park. He was running up the slide and lost his footing and BAM! busted his lip. Thankfully we know someone that lives right next to the park and so we ran over there for some ice in a baggy. The lip was bleeding significantly, as they tend to do, but a baggy of ice and a pop cycle later we all were able to move on.

Since that wasn’t enough excitement we decided to take the crew to the beach for the afternoon and since we are the Loo Loo’s and yes Smokey the bear died the night before the day I (as a toddler) was supposed to get to see him, it rained. It was a drizzle kind of annoying rain and so we went to the beach anyway because once we set these ‘no likey change’ kids in motion it is not a good idea to change the plan if at all possible.

Here are some pics from the day, pardon the occasional fuzzy spot on the pics they are rain drops.

Here I am braving the drizzle.

Longing to be out there with Dad surfing.

The smile is not reaching her eyes today.

Nan keeping watch.

Silly boys!

Beach Bums 2010

Speaking of Chores

2010-04-17T22:21:00.000-07:00

I mean how cute is he!?

Little Man insists on getting the water bottle and scrub brush to "cleanz da for" when Mom and the big kids are doing chores.

These two are no good at chores but they sure are cute!