Revvin' in 2011

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.
  
  
 The PJ crew!

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!

Ah the weekend...

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.

Intentional Parent Plan

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

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?

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?

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!

AC day 1

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.