Update

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!

Progress over time

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!"

 

Dog Day

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.”

Speaking of Chores

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!

Because things were not loo loo enough…

... Daisy the dog ate 4 to 6 ounces of semi sweet chocolate chips. It is 1 am and she is wide-awake and into everything. I can’t put her outside because she howls. She won’t go to sleep and a peanut butter filled kong toy only keeps her busy for about 10 minutes.

So since I’m up anyway I minas well make use of the time and play bloggy catch up.


In conversation with Miss I became aware that she has a teacher assistant in her class now. I think this is one piece of the puzzle as to what has been going on with her down swing upswing, whichever way we want to phrase the recent travels to tantrum town.

Miss began speaking of Miss Assistant a few weeks ago but I misunderstood and thought she was one of the inclusion teachers that Miss works with. All indications are that the assistant is to Miss' liking but still it is a major change (and we no likey change) in the classroom and I am sure not nearly as easy to monopolize Mrs. Teacher's attention.


We spend a lot of time outside doing physical activity normally but with the cold that we have been having that has changed too. This past weekend was beautiful and we spent the majority of the weekend outside. Although she is clearly still "off" we had no tantrums, until Monday morning 'I don't want to go to school'.

Mr. is doing much better at moving forward and not going into aggression mode when he gets stuck up on something. Last night we decided to grab a bite of dinner out. We don't do that often especially during the school week (change in routine) and he missed his last scheduled Wii time because of the outing. Because of the way Mr.'s brain works we cannot deviate from the schedule, meaning that if a time is missed because we were out and about that time is missed and we go to the next available time. It has to be law of the universe concrete for Mr. or he wants to "earn" Wii time all the time anytime. Dad made a boo-boo and gave in to some extra Wii time a week ago Monday and we are still trying to recover from that. Literal thinking says if I can have extra Wii time this time then I should be able to have extra Wii time anytime and I will attempt to negotiate and or harass you into reason.

At any rate he was upset because of having missed his last Wii time and I confirmed that I understood that he was frustrated and that next time we would be sure to give him the option of staying home so that he did not miss that last earned time. One grown up would stay with him and we would bring his dinner back to the house but this time he was now working toward earning his morning Wii time. Normally I would feel this is too cumbersome for a family but ASD works a little differently and the success that he has been having is worth it to us. I believe ultimately he would choose to go and miss the Wii time but it would processed differently in that case.

At any rate we went about getting everyone in PJ's and ready for Family Bible Study and then we all met in the living room. He fussed and complained and seemed close to melting down but never became aggressive.

Why does the dog who hates to get a bath jump into an empty bath tub and steal bath toys at other times? Why does the kid who will have a tantrum about not wanting to get a bath then not want to get out of the bath tub once they are in there? Why does a kid go for weeks with out poop in the pants but kick up the tantrums and then knock off the tantrums only to kick up the poop in the pants again? If I have to make a choice between the two frankly I’d rather have the poop. And that’s why we call this place Loo Loo Land!

Do I Make You Proud?

How's Winter Break Going?

The Lummox (aka Daisy the dog) uprooted a whole tree!

Lummox and Lil Bro

So far drugs and cookies are my friends.  *

Laundry is seriously backed up because I have taken to wearing my son's dinosaur socks.

Apparently the children have taken to foraging on their own.

The dogs are begging and the house is a wreck.

 

I found a pasifier for my pet.

She has a favorite chew bone that is hollow so I put peanut butter in side of it and she takes it in her kennel and gets all the peanut butter out and goes to sleep.  Yes!

*Note:  This is a joke, just what I thought of when I saw my twins hanging out on the couch.

Weekend Report

Thanks to everyone for the supportive comments regarding our 3-hour tantrum. Mr. is definitely doing better today as well. I guess his med dose change is the right one. The sign in sheet and regulated play times with the Wii and Computer are helping him as well. He asked when we would be done with that schedule. Ha ha.

He helped Dad with the repair of the closet door as restitution for the damage. He does not like this kind of activity where as Miss M is quiet happy with this kind of activity and the one on one attention that comes with it. He had to go to the hardware store with Dad and then help with the repair. We had a discussion about restitution prior to the hardware trip. I reminded him of when Mom got a traffic ticket for making a U turn where it wasn't allowed. I did not see the sign and did not knowingly make the mistake but I still had to make restitution for the mistake by taking a driving course and paying the State of Florida a lot of money. He remembered and got the comparison.

Miss M is struggling with emotions at the moment, lots of crying fits but no violence. It's been 2 months since she physically assaulted anyone. She seems to be using the techniques that she has learned to help herself regulate.

We are going on the 29th for a Diagnostic Evaluation to try to get a little more insight on the comprehension problems she has. They are becoming more evident as her aggression at home is more under control. She seems behind in her social play. Unless she is being physical such as running, jumping, swinging etc. she seems lost. She always wants her horse or pony or person (toy) to be an aggressor and she has come to accept that is not acceptable. We remind her and she turns it right off but then she doesn't seem to know just what to do. She will line the toys up to give hugs or try to follow the other childs lead in what the imaginative story is all about but I don't think she has the ability to "picture" things in her mind very well.

This isn't really new information but at 6 and a half she is definitely at an age where it stands out to me that she has these struggles. I think that perhaps it goes unnoticed more often than not in school and camp because there are so man opportunities to just be physical (run, swing and so on) that it just seems that she prefers those things and clearly she does but I really think that she does not understand imaginative play. It is so similar to a child on the Autism Spectrum but I don't see that as a factor with her. She definitely learned social behavior like being charming and being perceived as "a sweet girl". A child on the AS doesn't have the ability to do that. But she seems equally impaired to me in terms of comprehension and imaginative play, the ability to visualize to "picture".

The first step has been to regulate behavior and get these rage outburst under control, it seems we are there largely. Now I can focus more on trying to figure out what help she needs with these other issues.

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Further on the Weekend Report - Dad decided to take Daisy for a walk with the roller blades.

Things are under way now.

They are the tiny dot down the road so all went well.

No Miss M we do not take the Snow-Doh Man out with the stick.

Here he is still in one piece, no worries.

Here is the Nanster recovering with Nurse Chihuahua Jasmine by her side.

And that's news to me!

I'll Leaf You With A Thought

Here is a cute photo of my blog assistant.

Here are some shots of the tile floor as requested.  The Hubs did a good job!

Tile with no toys on it.

Tile by the front door, pardon the boo boo on the wall.  There are only so many hours in a day and it's on 'the list'.

Here is naughty Daisy where she does not belong.

She thought if she acted sleepy I would let her be.  It did not work and she was still sent packin.

Here are some pictures of the kids playing in the leaves up North.

Talking about Loss

Sunday we sat the younger kids down and explained about Lil' Bob passing away. They woke up Sunday morning asking where he was. Mr. C explained that "he must be in his bed" and then he said "well he must be outside."

I explained that Lil' Bob was a really old dog and that he was sick and that Daddy took him to the vet and while he was at the vet he died. Mr. C said "you must be trying to tell me a joke right Mom?" I explained that no I was not joking about anything that we were talking about. Jokes are difficult to understand when you have Asperger's Disorder and so he pretty much puts anything that he doesn't understand in the joke category.

I explained that Lil' Bob was really peaceful and that he wasn't hurt or upset at all and that Daddy was with him and so he wasn't scared. Mr. C crawled into my lap and cried. He just buried his face in my chest and cried. I explained that our other dogs were young and healthy and they would be with us for a long time. He seemed comforted by that and went and loved on Jasmine.
Miss M seemed totally not bothered and uninterested in the discussion. She didn't ask questions or make comments she just seemed interested in other things. She understands loss too well and moved right on to the moving on phase of things.

Yesterday on one of her school papers the activity was to write about a picture of a smiling girl holding a black cat. Miss M's writing is all over the page and hard to discern sometimes but in the scribble was clearly written "Milo I love cat." We have a black cat that lives outside named Milo and the cat in the picture was a black and white cat. It was nice to see her express affection for the cat.

Last week was week of unpleasants. Nan had to have some oral surgery which was none too fun. I made her chicken soup and she kind of lived off that for the weekend. She is doing much better now btw.

Miss M raged Friday morning before school. The whole I don't want to get up I don't want to get dressed I don't want to go to school I don't want to ride with Daddy to school, stuff. The deal is Nan takes the kids to school on her way to work. Miss M has a nasty habit of treating Nan badly in the mornings. So if she treats Nan badly then she doesn't get the privilege of riding with Nan, instead Dad will take her to school on his way to work. This applies to all the kids but for the most part the other two do okay in the mornings. That wasn't always the case.

Part of the whole Bipolar thing is that mornings are often really difficult for them. She literally wakes up and goes into these rages. Or the mind set that triggers the rage. So for the second time in 2 weeks she was tardy to school because she refused to go. Her teacher is a nice lady but doesn't seem to get what we have shared. She gobs on the sugar with Miss M which leads Miss M to feel that she can charm this teacher, cause she can. And in turn we believe has triggered some of this backsliding. Some teachers who have taught for a long time, have their own children who are nearly grown and doing excellent in school and the community tend to think they know it all regarding "their" students. And a lot of the time that is probably completely true. But with Miss M this is a whole different ball game and we need this teacher to get on board.

I e-mail the teacher whenever Miss M is late because of refusal to go to school. Those e-mails are public record ya know. Mrs. Teacher e-mailed me back around noon to say "She is having a wonderful day. Have a great weekend!" I e-mailed back and explained that it would be helpful if Mrs. Teacher would speak to Miss M about getting to school on time since she had been tardy twice in the last two weeks because of her refusal to go to school. I further explained that this has been helpful in the past at communicating to Miss M that was are all on the same team and worker toward the greater good, one united front. She did e-mail back that she had spoken with Miss M.

So we shall see how this progresses. Here are some pics from the week.

Nan in recovery with nurse Chico by her side.


Mr. C and his lovey Henry the Hippo.



Lil' Bro looking cute as ever.


The "twins" with their glasses. They were playing nicely together at this moment, that's why I took the picture.



Big Sis took this picture of Miss M in a happy moment. Cute!

Good-Bye My Furry Friend

Feb. 1994 ~ September 26, 2009


Saturday September 26 we had to make one of lifes difficult decisions. Our miniture yorkie, Lil Bob, had to be put to sleep. He was 15 and a half years old. We have had him for more than 13 years, since we bought our first home. He was with us before the children started arriving.


Dad was with him the whole time and it was very peaceful. He just went to sleep. The vet was kind and supportive and said that Lil Bob had a good long life and was well loved. What else can we hope for for man's best friend?


Needless to say yesterday was a difficult day for Mom and Dad, but life with kids with special problems doesn't stop because we're sad. We have to suck it up and suck it in because we don't want little ones to go spiraling downward piggy backing on our saddness. It's days like that when I just really wish there was a pause button on mental illness. Pause - okay Miss M none of your stuff today Mom and Dad aren't really up to dealing with it. Pause - okay Mr. C no OCD and Asperger's Disorder today Mom and Dad are sad about our long time furry friend passing away.

Sigh* there is no such button.

Kids and Animals

Thanks for the feedback! It was very helpful. We also spoke with Miss M's CBA and he agreed we should address it with the teacher. He recommended a meeting or a letter to explain why we don't feel it is appropriate in Miss M's case. I will let you know how it goes.
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The Sun Set was so beautiful last night as I headed out to take Daisy the dog for her evening run. (I ride the bike and she runs.)


When I checked on Miss M last night her guard Chihuahua Chico was at the foot of her bed.


Mr. C and his cat Bella had a lovely moment together when he came home from school yesterday. She is the grumpiest cat known to man. But she loves Mr. C.

Lil' Bro went to sleep sitting with me on the couch last night. Daisy the dog saw this as her opportunity for some cuddles from her favorite boy.









This is not trick photography, she really does smile.