So the DSM-V (which apparently is now called the DSM-5) reportedly has been finalized. It is projected to be published in May 2013. In some ways, I've been wondering what's been going to be in this new book for a long time; in other ways, I couldn't care less.
To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure how much it will affect us. M1's current diagnoses were made when he was 5, and I haven't felt a compelling need to get him reevaluated since. Technically his diagnoses are PDD-NOS (pervasive developmental disorder, not otherwise specified), ADHD (attention deficit hyperactive disorder) combined type, and GAD (generalized anxiety disorder). However, I'm almost 100% sure the anxiety was simply due to the fact that he was in kindergarten at the time and was basically running on 'high' 24/7, and I'm quite sure that if I had him retested now, the PDD-NOS would be a full diagnosis of Asperger's. Under the new DSM-5, however, it won't matter which of those he has. They're all lumped together under Autism Spectrum Disorder. OK, so theoretically this should make it easier for us to get treatment, since insurance companies and clinics will have to plan treatment for all cases equally. I've heard that some parents are upset that their child who was formerly 'high-functioning autistic' will now be under the same umbrella as a severely autistic child, but honestly, if they're all on the same spectrum, I hardly see that it matters. The treatment for both is similar and has to be tailored to the individual child regardless of the 'type' of autism.
M2's diagnoses have the potential to change as well. Right now she has the working diagnoses of mood disorder NOS, GAD, and separation anxiety. The first one has the most potential for change; that, however, was a given when we got the diagnosis. She has been stable now - more or less - for nearly a year, and sometimes I wonder if perhaps all her depression and manic actions were just a phase that she was going through. Still, it's entirely likely that they will recur at some point, because I can also be stable for years before again flinging myself off the deep end. I hope she isn't like me, but if she is, then I suspect any new diagnoses would fall under the new DSM category of 'disruptive mood dysregulation disorder.' That fits her manic/depressive phases to a T. But we shall see. Again, I suspect treatment for that would be similar to that of her current diagnosis, so what does it matter? What's in a name, anyway?
The one new thing that really caught my eye, though, is something I haven't touched on here, largely because it has only been a recurrent issue, not a constant one. Lately, though, it's reared its ugly head again, and I want to share it with you, not to embarrass my son (though no doubt it would) but simply to raise awareness of an issue that I find many families struggle with, especially families with socially impaired or ADHD children (primarily boys). It's to be called Internet use gaming disorder. In short, electronics addiction. M1 struggles with this and always has. It's hard to use the word 'addiction' when talking about a 10-year-old boy, but what else does one have to consider when catching your son with stolen electronics under his sheets at 12:30 a.m.? I struggle with whether this is really a diagnosis or simply another symptom of his Asperger's or ADHD, but I suspect that if I brought it to the attention of doctors after the DSM-5 is published, it's a diagnosis that would be added to his list.
Some people would say that I simply haven't parented him right. Either I've been too strict with electronics and he's begging for more freedom, or I've been too lax and just need to make more rules. Before we go further, let me tell you how electronics time works in our house. (I'm aware that these folks just need to go take a long walk off a short pier into a bayou full of hungry alligators, but I'm laying it all on the table today, so bear with me.)
Rule #1: No more than an hour or two of screen time per day. Some days we have no screen time; other days he gets the full complement. It varies.
Rule #2: All chores must be completed before screen time occurs. 'Nuff said there, I think.
Rule #3: When screen time is up, you must turn off the device within 5 minutes. I had to implement this rule when 'I have to save/get back home/finish this episode' turned into another 30 minutes of screen time.
On the computers, we have passwords, and the content is more or less controlled. On the TV upstairs, we have parental controls locked down for content and time. When they're borrowing an iPad, they have to stay where we can see or hear what they're playing. In other words, we're hardly lax parents, but usually when they ask for screen time, if chores are done, they get it. And yet, if you ask M1, we're tyrants. We never let him have as much screen time as he wants. When he does get screen time, he begs for more. He gets angry when you make him turn things off. He gets very upset if you don't say yes to his demands right away. If he's been promised electronics 'later,' you won't hear anything else until he gets that time... and if we're out somewhere, the instant we hit the door, it's, "Can I have my electronics time now??" If the electronics are in his room, he will be found on them at 12, 1, and 2 a.m. with great regularity. If I take them away, he steals them back - or, once and very memorably - steals his sister's electronics just to get his 'fix.' In many ways, his electronics obsession sounds like an addiction.
Unlike an addiction, however, I can't take away all electronics. I can keep them out of his room, yes, but he's going to need computers to do school work, to send e-mails, and to do research. He's going to have a phone to make phone calls and send texts - and probably play games - when he gets older. He will no doubt use computers daily in whatever job he has as an adult. This isn't like alcohol or drugs, which one can avoid simply by avoiding the atmosphere and/or the product itself. It isn't like gambling, which can be avoided with more difficulty but with a large degree of success. This is why I suspect that this diagnosis in the DSM-5 is simply a symptom of an underlying disorder, not a disorder in its own right. But I'm not the powers that be, and I don't get to make that decision. I can, however, keep an eye on him and decide if he needs special treatment for it. For now, like I said, I keep electronics out of his room and make sure he uses them under special circumstances only. If he gets older and the usage gets more disruptive and I'm no longer able to help (as teens rarely want to listen to their parents), there may be external help available for him, and maybe some books will be written on the topic in the next few years. I might not approve of the diagnosis as such, but it's kind of nice to know that it'll be there to fall back on if we have to.
Showing posts with label bipolar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bipolar. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Monday, September 19, 2011
'Process' is a Dirty Word
M2 and I visited the therapist last Wednesday. We visited the psychiatrist today. In both appointments, I got to hear the word 'process.'
I'm coming to really dislike the word... and all that it stands for.
Last week, we had a really productive appointment with the therapist, assuming that by the word 'productive' you understand that she got really sassy and announced point-blank that the only reason she hadn't bitten me during a rage is that she hadn't thought of it.
Alternatively, productive might mean that I now know how to properly put my child in a therapeutic hold instead of just trying to make do... for the record, I had been pretty darn close the way I'd been doing it already. I just needed to be told to stick a pillow against my sternum because apparently I'm not intelligent enough to figure that one out myself. DUH, Sarah.
I also know what to do in case biting jumps to mind next time.
Oy and effing vey.
Either way, the therapist and I then discussed the wholeprocess scope of what we've accomplished (anxiety seems to be under better control), what we want to accomplish, and what is even POSSIBLE to accomplish with a girl whose mood switches more often than Oklahoma weather... and that's saying a lot. The long and short of the appointment was that we now have another mood gauge chart (since M2 systematically destroyed the first one during one during one of her moods) and we're trying to see what we can do to motivate the girl to try to help herself. I'm on the fence as to how much it'll actually help, but the only thing we can do is persevere.
It's a bloody process.
Today we visited the psychiatrist, whom we hadn't seen since school began. The visit didn't encompass so much in the way of treatment as the diagnostic side of things. I'm trying to hold off on medication for as long as we can, until we can get as firm a diagnosis as possible. Plus, the psychiatrist is extremely reluctant to make certain diagnoses - pediatric bipolar disorder being one of them. I'm okay with that, too, but it means that I get to deal with more and more in the way of going through the diagnostic process. When we first visited, the doctor was hesitant to diagnose anything other than anxiety (generalized and separation), which means we tried Lexapro, which ended in ULTIMATE FAIL. Since then, he's watched and listened and tried to work out if there actually are any other diagnostic possibilities that fit her slew of symptoms other than bipolar disorder. Two sessions ago, he admitted the possibility of a mood disorder, NOS. Last time, he added depressive disorder to the list of probabilities. Today, though, he admitted he's pretty darn close to giving up the ghost and said that he really can't figure out anything else other than bipolar disorder, NOS.
Heh. Heheheheheheheheh. I have triumphed over the processing process!
I didn't actually want to win that one, though.
Anyway, because M2 isn't consistently up or down for days and days on end (she'll have two or three good days, then two or three bad, then another one or two good and another one or two bad), we're still holding off on formal medication. We're doubling her melatonin each evening, and M2 is going to keep a sleeping log, writing down the times she wakes up each night. If she's not consistently sleeping at night, the doctor wants to add some clonidine or trazodone and see if that helps. After that... well, after that we head to Lamictal, assuming she doesn't get extremely manic since Lamictal is primarily used for patients who tend toward the depressed side of things rather than the manic. I wouldn't be surprised, though, if the doctor actually begins to recommend medication soon rather than agreeing we should hold off... he tends to agree with the 'kindling' theory that young people who have untreated bipolar tend to become more difficult to treat over time. However, if she doesn't have bipolar, then maybe we could try another SSRI and see if she reacts as negatively as she did last time.
Mostly, it's all a crap shoot.
A process.
Sometimes even processing it takes too much effort.
-----
Next time, a funnier post!
I'm coming to really dislike the word... and all that it stands for.
Last week, we had a really productive appointment with the therapist, assuming that by the word 'productive' you understand that she got really sassy and announced point-blank that the only reason she hadn't bitten me during a rage is that she hadn't thought of it.
Alternatively, productive might mean that I now know how to properly put my child in a therapeutic hold instead of just trying to make do... for the record, I had been pretty darn close the way I'd been doing it already. I just needed to be told to stick a pillow against my sternum because apparently I'm not intelligent enough to figure that one out myself. DUH, Sarah.
I also know what to do in case biting jumps to mind next time.
Oy and effing vey.
Either way, the therapist and I then discussed the whole
It's a bloody process.
Today we visited the psychiatrist, whom we hadn't seen since school began. The visit didn't encompass so much in the way of treatment as the diagnostic side of things. I'm trying to hold off on medication for as long as we can, until we can get as firm a diagnosis as possible. Plus, the psychiatrist is extremely reluctant to make certain diagnoses - pediatric bipolar disorder being one of them. I'm okay with that, too, but it means that I get to deal with more and more in the way of going through the diagnostic process. When we first visited, the doctor was hesitant to diagnose anything other than anxiety (generalized and separation), which means we tried Lexapro, which ended in ULTIMATE FAIL. Since then, he's watched and listened and tried to work out if there actually are any other diagnostic possibilities that fit her slew of symptoms other than bipolar disorder. Two sessions ago, he admitted the possibility of a mood disorder, NOS. Last time, he added depressive disorder to the list of probabilities. Today, though, he admitted he's pretty darn close to giving up the ghost and said that he really can't figure out anything else other than bipolar disorder, NOS.
Heh. Heheheheheheheheh. I have triumphed over the processing process!
I didn't actually want to win that one, though.
Anyway, because M2 isn't consistently up or down for days and days on end (she'll have two or three good days, then two or three bad, then another one or two good and another one or two bad), we're still holding off on formal medication. We're doubling her melatonin each evening, and M2 is going to keep a sleeping log, writing down the times she wakes up each night. If she's not consistently sleeping at night, the doctor wants to add some clonidine or trazodone and see if that helps. After that... well, after that we head to Lamictal, assuming she doesn't get extremely manic since Lamictal is primarily used for patients who tend toward the depressed side of things rather than the manic. I wouldn't be surprised, though, if the doctor actually begins to recommend medication soon rather than agreeing we should hold off... he tends to agree with the 'kindling' theory that young people who have untreated bipolar tend to become more difficult to treat over time. However, if she doesn't have bipolar, then maybe we could try another SSRI and see if she reacts as negatively as she did last time.
Mostly, it's all a crap shoot.
A process.
Sometimes even processing it takes too much effort.
-----
Next time, a funnier post!
Friday, August 26, 2011
Random Friday-ness
I am sitting at home today. I have nowhere I have to be at a certain time. The third load of laundry is in the washer; load 1 is dry and waiting to be put away and load 2 is hanging on the rack. I plan to clean the house today, but if it doesn't happen I'm not too concerned because the grime hasn't yet reached critical mass.
The inactivity is lovely.
The best part about not having any appointments and not having to run all over creation (besides the obvious fact that I'm not sitting in one of multiple construction zones that plague our area worse than anything God cooked up for Moses) is that I can sit down and recap my week. Closure is good.
1. M1 has been stellar. When we had to be out of the house and run errands, he didn't whine once. He put up with our entire grocery list (all $250 worth) and didn't bug me for products or stop in the middle of an aisle and start whimpering about how tired he was. He busted a move and got all his schoolwork done before we had to leave for swim yesterday, which is no small feat. I think the boy deserves a treat today. I'm debating whether we'll go out for lunch or just giving him ice cream at home. Either way, he's earned it.
2. I'm very glad that I didn't sign M1 up for homeschool gym or banjo lessons and that M2 has accepted my decision that dance class isn't going to happen. More on nixing the dance class in a second, but my schedule is already tight. I hate feeling overscheduled, and I'm right on the verge as it is. One more could send me over the edge.
3. M2 lost a tooth, as most of you know. The other top tooth was already loose, but she discovered today that two bottom teeth are loose as well. She's ecstatic. I'm thinking the corn on the cob slated for dinner one night this week is probably not a great idea for her. Or maybe it is. She's all about speeding up the process.
4. M2 is still getting very worked up about violin, to the point where she will barely practice. I think it will be good to get back into lessons once September starts. I hope she'll manage to make a performance happen in December. I'm definitely glad I didn't put her in dance class, because I can only imagine the drama that would accompany a dance recital.
5. Speaking of drama, M2 sent me my first letter bomb this week. We have envelopes stuck to our bedroom doors for letters and crafts that we can send to one another (and yes, I participate), and M2 wrote me a nastygram reading: "Mom, I hate you. You er stuped." This was delivered with two dirty socks that she had ripped off her feet. I was amused. For the record, I still don't know what I did wrong, but I do know that her hobby horse now lives in my closet because it's a bloody miracle my bedroom door doesn't have a giant hole in it. When the girl gets into a rage, she gives a whole new meaning to the phrase 'beating down a door.'
6. I do believe that resorting to locking myself in my bedroom to escape my daughter's rage is probably cause for concern. So is having to follow her around the yard because she's in such a negative mental state that I don't trust her out of my sight and actually believe she would leave the property... NOT safe on our street. I think I'll be bringing our mood chart and a different set of expectations to the next appointment with the psychiatrist or psychologist, whichever comes first.
7. I hope everyone on the Eastern Seaboard stays safe this weekend.
I like Friday :)
The inactivity is lovely.
The best part about not having any appointments and not having to run all over creation (besides the obvious fact that I'm not sitting in one of multiple construction zones that plague our area worse than anything God cooked up for Moses) is that I can sit down and recap my week. Closure is good.
1. M1 has been stellar. When we had to be out of the house and run errands, he didn't whine once. He put up with our entire grocery list (all $250 worth) and didn't bug me for products or stop in the middle of an aisle and start whimpering about how tired he was. He busted a move and got all his schoolwork done before we had to leave for swim yesterday, which is no small feat. I think the boy deserves a treat today. I'm debating whether we'll go out for lunch or just giving him ice cream at home. Either way, he's earned it.
2. I'm very glad that I didn't sign M1 up for homeschool gym or banjo lessons and that M2 has accepted my decision that dance class isn't going to happen. More on nixing the dance class in a second, but my schedule is already tight. I hate feeling overscheduled, and I'm right on the verge as it is. One more could send me over the edge.
3. M2 lost a tooth, as most of you know. The other top tooth was already loose, but she discovered today that two bottom teeth are loose as well. She's ecstatic. I'm thinking the corn on the cob slated for dinner one night this week is probably not a great idea for her. Or maybe it is. She's all about speeding up the process.
4. M2 is still getting very worked up about violin, to the point where she will barely practice. I think it will be good to get back into lessons once September starts. I hope she'll manage to make a performance happen in December. I'm definitely glad I didn't put her in dance class, because I can only imagine the drama that would accompany a dance recital.
5. Speaking of drama, M2 sent me my first letter bomb this week. We have envelopes stuck to our bedroom doors for letters and crafts that we can send to one another (and yes, I participate), and M2 wrote me a nastygram reading: "Mom, I hate you. You er stuped." This was delivered with two dirty socks that she had ripped off her feet. I was amused. For the record, I still don't know what I did wrong, but I do know that her hobby horse now lives in my closet because it's a bloody miracle my bedroom door doesn't have a giant hole in it. When the girl gets into a rage, she gives a whole new meaning to the phrase 'beating down a door.'
6. I do believe that resorting to locking myself in my bedroom to escape my daughter's rage is probably cause for concern. So is having to follow her around the yard because she's in such a negative mental state that I don't trust her out of my sight and actually believe she would leave the property... NOT safe on our street. I think I'll be bringing our mood chart and a different set of expectations to the next appointment with the psychiatrist or psychologist, whichever comes first.
7. I hope everyone on the Eastern Seaboard stays safe this weekend.
I like Friday :)
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Watching the Crash
M2 has been 'up' lately. In general, this is positive. I deal much better with hypomanic/manic behavior than depressed behavior because having a child with ADHD is more or less the same thing, and I'm used to ADHD! The only difference between the two is the rages that can accompany a manic episode... ADHD kids don't really 'rage.' They get mad and throw fits, but the fits don't last three hours and don't involve breaking things, hitting, biting, kicking, etc.
Anyway, as I said, M1 has been 'up.' We went on a guided tour of the Gilcrease Museum yesterday with some of our friends, and it ROCKED. The tour guide/docent was an amazing woman with a deep love for kids, and it showed throughout the entire tour. The kids loved her; I loved her. Both kids (all the kids who attended) behaved amazingly well, showed off their knowledge, took turns, and were just impressive in their behavior. If you're local and ever get a chance, GO.
We got home around 12:30 p.m., and M2 promptly launched into a 20-minute crying jag. She stomped to her room and finished her cry before she came out and got a veggie corn dog for lunch... and then got upset all over again because my lunch wasn't ready when hers was and I was busy getting my lunch and filling the hummingbird feeder rather than sitting down with her.
After we ate, she spent some quiet time in her room and emerged back on top of the world and bounced around the house like a springloaded 4-foot-tall pixie-faced she-demon. I made a note in my head that something was bound to happen sooner or later. What goes up must come down, after all, and her moods have been extremely labile lately. We took the kids out for Cherry Berry last night, and then they got into a fight on the way home because M2 whacked M1 on the head, so he thought that meant he could grab her nose and twist. I had to become 'that mom' who's turned around in the car yelling at the children while holding the phone in her other hand because there's a friend having a crisis on the other end of the line and she's not hanging up till the conversation is finished. (No, really, I did have a friend with a crisis on the phone. I was even going to go crash her apartment with a bottle of wine till she texted me and said she was going to take some Nyquil and go to bed, and I figured wine and Nyquil really didn't mix.)
M2 didn't really want to go to bed at all, but we eventually got her nestled in between the sheets, and she stayed there till this morning... when she tiggered down the hall to announce her good-morning self to the world, fully dressed and as chipper as could be.
She stayed 'up' all day, with only one minor meltdown occurring when she realized that the pearl necklace she had made for her flapper costume was lost (no doubt stuffed somewhere... she's so scatterbrained these days that I'm usually amazed she can remember her own name when I yell it).
Then... then... THEN...
Oz took M1 to swim practice and I tucked M2 into bed.
She waited about 3 minutes, then got up.
I tucked her in again.
She got up bawling her head off. The sad cry, not the mad cry. Not the I'm-crying-to-see-if-it-gets-me-attention cry. Not even the I've-got-something-to-tell-you cry or the I-don't-wanna-sleep-in-my-room cry. The sad cry.
This was at 7:30. If I tried to put her back to bed, she flipped out and grabbed me like a hoarder losing a doll collection. Then she'd cry some more. If I did manage to leave, she followed me out, wailing, and the process would start all over again. Staying with her didn't help matters, because she wouldn't close her eyes or loosen her grip enough to where she would fall asleep and I could extract myself.
She had no idea why she was crying. She had no idea why she felt sad, and yes, she really truly had been happy all day but was really truly sad now. She was scared, too, but didn't know why. She felt like nobody cared about her and that she should just go live somewhere else - she didn't know where, but she knew she'd have to walk there. Mostly she didn't want to talk, though. She just wanted to hang onto me for dear life.
By the time Oz and M1 got back home around 9:15, I'd given up trying to keep her in her room and had let her lay on the floor at my feet (not that I told her to be there... I just told her she wasn't allowed on my lap because I was trying to catch up on e-mails that I hadn't read in, oh, about 36 hours, and she decided my feet were an acceptable alternative). Oz told her that he was tucking her in, and she willingly got up and followed him to the bedroom, where - 45 minutes later - she's dead to the world and completely oblivious to the cricket that just scared the poo out of M1 because he thought it was "something mechanical" trying to drill into his room.
It's gonna be a long night, and my guess is that 'up' won't be here tomorrow. I think we're due for a day of 'down.'
Bleh. Mood swings. Who needs 'em anyway?!?
Anyway, as I said, M1 has been 'up.' We went on a guided tour of the Gilcrease Museum yesterday with some of our friends, and it ROCKED. The tour guide/docent was an amazing woman with a deep love for kids, and it showed throughout the entire tour. The kids loved her; I loved her. Both kids (all the kids who attended) behaved amazingly well, showed off their knowledge, took turns, and were just impressive in their behavior. If you're local and ever get a chance, GO.
We got home around 12:30 p.m., and M2 promptly launched into a 20-minute crying jag. She stomped to her room and finished her cry before she came out and got a veggie corn dog for lunch... and then got upset all over again because my lunch wasn't ready when hers was and I was busy getting my lunch and filling the hummingbird feeder rather than sitting down with her.
After we ate, she spent some quiet time in her room and emerged back on top of the world and bounced around the house like a springloaded 4-foot-tall pixie-faced she-demon. I made a note in my head that something was bound to happen sooner or later. What goes up must come down, after all, and her moods have been extremely labile lately. We took the kids out for Cherry Berry last night, and then they got into a fight on the way home because M2 whacked M1 on the head, so he thought that meant he could grab her nose and twist. I had to become 'that mom' who's turned around in the car yelling at the children while holding the phone in her other hand because there's a friend having a crisis on the other end of the line and she's not hanging up till the conversation is finished. (No, really, I did have a friend with a crisis on the phone. I was even going to go crash her apartment with a bottle of wine till she texted me and said she was going to take some Nyquil and go to bed, and I figured wine and Nyquil really didn't mix.)
M2 didn't really want to go to bed at all, but we eventually got her nestled in between the sheets, and she stayed there till this morning... when she tiggered down the hall to announce her good-morning self to the world, fully dressed and as chipper as could be.
She stayed 'up' all day, with only one minor meltdown occurring when she realized that the pearl necklace she had made for her flapper costume was lost (no doubt stuffed somewhere... she's so scatterbrained these days that I'm usually amazed she can remember her own name when I yell it).
Then... then... THEN...
Oz took M1 to swim practice and I tucked M2 into bed.
She waited about 3 minutes, then got up.
I tucked her in again.
She got up bawling her head off. The sad cry, not the mad cry. Not the I'm-crying-to-see-if-it-gets-me-attention cry. Not even the I've-got-something-to-tell-you cry or the I-don't-wanna-sleep-in-my-room cry. The sad cry.
This was at 7:30. If I tried to put her back to bed, she flipped out and grabbed me like a hoarder losing a doll collection. Then she'd cry some more. If I did manage to leave, she followed me out, wailing, and the process would start all over again. Staying with her didn't help matters, because she wouldn't close her eyes or loosen her grip enough to where she would fall asleep and I could extract myself.
She had no idea why she was crying. She had no idea why she felt sad, and yes, she really truly had been happy all day but was really truly sad now. She was scared, too, but didn't know why. She felt like nobody cared about her and that she should just go live somewhere else - she didn't know where, but she knew she'd have to walk there. Mostly she didn't want to talk, though. She just wanted to hang onto me for dear life.
By the time Oz and M1 got back home around 9:15, I'd given up trying to keep her in her room and had let her lay on the floor at my feet (not that I told her to be there... I just told her she wasn't allowed on my lap because I was trying to catch up on e-mails that I hadn't read in, oh, about 36 hours, and she decided my feet were an acceptable alternative). Oz told her that he was tucking her in, and she willingly got up and followed him to the bedroom, where - 45 minutes later - she's dead to the world and completely oblivious to the cricket that just scared the poo out of M1 because he thought it was "something mechanical" trying to drill into his room.
It's gonna be a long night, and my guess is that 'up' won't be here tomorrow. I think we're due for a day of 'down.'
Bleh. Mood swings. Who needs 'em anyway?!?
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
A Little Light Reading: Bipolar Edition
I lost some hair off the right side of my head today. I received a 6-inch scratch down my left calf. Tomorrow the bruises on my hips and right foot will probably make themselves visible.
I'm not complaining. They are what happens when you have a child with a mood disorder. Battle wounds, if you will. Today was a bad day, to be fair, but still. Battle wounds.
When I decided to blog tonight, I considered a few topics. I thought about writing an extremely lengthy and involved post about seeing both M2's psychiatrist and therapist on Tuesday, but I don't really want to rehash it all. I'd rather focus on the positive. I thought about describing the beautiful humidity-giving rain that we received yesterday and today and ignoring the mood issue altogether, but I couldn't simply brush off everything that's happened this week... today, particularly. It was when I looked over at my end table and saw the books I'd hauled off my bookshelf that inspiration struck.
Books.
Reading.
Education.
The following list contains books I've read while trying to figure out what's going on with M2. This is definitely not a comprehensive list of books on stubborn children or those with mood disorders; in fact, I'd love more suggestions. But it's a start. If you're struggling with a child and begin to suspect bipolar disorder, these are some suggestions.
This was the first book I read when M2 started having her fits. I really like Dobson's take on parenting... most of the time. I own a couple of his other books as well. But this one, while it might be useful for most children, didn't encompass what I deal with. It's helpful with M1 on occasion, but in general... no. Still, it's a good book, and I'm glad I have it.
After that, someone suggested this book:
"The Explosive Child" is, I have discovered, one of the most popular books for parents of children with mood disorders, ODD, etc. When I first read it, I thought it was sheer bunk. It's extremely simplistic, basically breaking all potential solutions into three categories, and after I read it, I thought, "What a piece of crap!" I thought about tossing the book and even laid it in the pile to go to Goodwill. However... and this is a big however... I found myself mentally referring to it on a regular basis. After a couple of weeks, I put it back on my bookshelf, where it's lived ever since. I have an inkling that the book will become even more useful as the kids' teen hormones kick in... I'm already using some of the methods with M1 when he gets angry and disrespectful. It may be simplistic, but the methods do work. Mostly. There are days when nothing's going to work, and I'm going to have to understand that, too.
This book came into my home when someone first mentioned bipolar being a diagnostic possibility. It is largely considered the 'bible' for many kids with bipolar disorder. It's extensive, exhaustive, and covers everything from the diagnostic process to how bipolar works biologically to medication options to inpatient treatment to... well, everything. It's an amazing book, but sometimes it's just a little too much. So when M2's psychiatrist suggested this book,
I got it. It covers a lot of the same topics as "The Bipolar Child," but it takes a lighter approach and talks more about comorbid conditions, such as the anxiety that M2 also has.
So that's that. I hope this helps someone. If anyone has suggestions, I'm always happy to hear them, because heaven only knows I'm going to need all the resources and help I can get.
Tomorrow... books I own regarding Asperger's disorder, sensory issues, and even allergies. In other words, books I've read for M1.
I'm not complaining. They are what happens when you have a child with a mood disorder. Battle wounds, if you will. Today was a bad day, to be fair, but still. Battle wounds.
When I decided to blog tonight, I considered a few topics. I thought about writing an extremely lengthy and involved post about seeing both M2's psychiatrist and therapist on Tuesday, but I don't really want to rehash it all. I'd rather focus on the positive. I thought about describing the beautiful humidity-giving rain that we received yesterday and today and ignoring the mood issue altogether, but I couldn't simply brush off everything that's happened this week... today, particularly. It was when I looked over at my end table and saw the books I'd hauled off my bookshelf that inspiration struck.
Books.
Reading.
Education.
The following list contains books I've read while trying to figure out what's going on with M2. This is definitely not a comprehensive list of books on stubborn children or those with mood disorders; in fact, I'd love more suggestions. But it's a start. If you're struggling with a child and begin to suspect bipolar disorder, these are some suggestions.
This was the first book I read when M2 started having her fits. I really like Dobson's take on parenting... most of the time. I own a couple of his other books as well. But this one, while it might be useful for most children, didn't encompass what I deal with. It's helpful with M1 on occasion, but in general... no. Still, it's a good book, and I'm glad I have it.
After that, someone suggested this book:
"The Explosive Child" is, I have discovered, one of the most popular books for parents of children with mood disorders, ODD, etc. When I first read it, I thought it was sheer bunk. It's extremely simplistic, basically breaking all potential solutions into three categories, and after I read it, I thought, "What a piece of crap!" I thought about tossing the book and even laid it in the pile to go to Goodwill. However... and this is a big however... I found myself mentally referring to it on a regular basis. After a couple of weeks, I put it back on my bookshelf, where it's lived ever since. I have an inkling that the book will become even more useful as the kids' teen hormones kick in... I'm already using some of the methods with M1 when he gets angry and disrespectful. It may be simplistic, but the methods do work. Mostly. There are days when nothing's going to work, and I'm going to have to understand that, too.
This book came into my home when someone first mentioned bipolar being a diagnostic possibility. It is largely considered the 'bible' for many kids with bipolar disorder. It's extensive, exhaustive, and covers everything from the diagnostic process to how bipolar works biologically to medication options to inpatient treatment to... well, everything. It's an amazing book, but sometimes it's just a little too much. So when M2's psychiatrist suggested this book,
I got it. It covers a lot of the same topics as "The Bipolar Child," but it takes a lighter approach and talks more about comorbid conditions, such as the anxiety that M2 also has.
So that's that. I hope this helps someone. If anyone has suggestions, I'm always happy to hear them, because heaven only knows I'm going to need all the resources and help I can get.
Tomorrow... books I own regarding Asperger's disorder, sensory issues, and even allergies. In other words, books I've read for M1.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Oh, Look! The end of the rope!
I have reached the end of my proverbial rope. I e-mailed M2's psychiatrist today to ask the name of a good counselor who deals with mood disorders in young children. He sent back a name (I love how prompt he is!), and I have called that office. We have an appointment next Thursday. I am looking forward to this. I am looking forward to meeting someone who understands that the word 'stubborn' doesn't even begin to describe the bullheadedness. I am thrilled that someone is going to have heard stories like mine before and will have suggestions on what to do. I'm hopeful that I will have options when M2 flies off the deep end with rage or melts into deep dark despair. The idea of recruiting another villager to raise my child is both exhilarating and relaxing. The relief is bringing tears to my eyes. M1 has asked if this means his sister won't be mad at him all the time any more.
It's time.
We can't go on like this.
C'mon, Thursday!
It's time.
We can't go on like this.
C'mon, Thursday!
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
When Thoughts Go Random
If I do say so myself, I'm pretty good at creating some very random posts on this blog. I even have a label for it. In my world, random happens.
This Memorial Day weekend was fantabulous. I couldn't have planned a better one if I'd tried. The part that makes me smile today, though, wasn't the first ever family bike ride or the spousally-condoned shopping spree or the impromptu construction of a combination bench/picnic table. Nope... it was M2 and her wandering thoughts.
Apparently her brain has skipped ahead a week and decided it's already out of school. Ergo, nothing that comes out of her mouth is required to make sense.
Some of the more memorable quotes of the weekend:
[after naming a stuffed baby kangaroo Ava and deciding it's female]
Her: "Do you want to hold him?"
Me: "Didn't you say Ava was a girl?"
Her: "I was using a very common voice. Herrrrrr-m. Her-m."
[she is inventing a game in the driveway that involves rocks and a stick]
Her: "This game is called scuba diving. It's a very express game. I have to sevens and eights."
Me: [pause] "What?"
Her: [looks at me impatiently] "I have to push these rocks around with the stick to win."
Me: "Oh... right."
[after I hear two consecutive massive thuds emanating from her room post-bedtime]
Me: "Are you jumping off your bed?"
Her: "No. I'm rolling off. I'm rolling onto my squishy pad!"
Me: "Squishy pad?"
Her: "All my blankets on the floor because my bed is falling and I won't sleep in it."
She's slept on the floor the last two nights. I'm not arguing, though. She's at least sleeping in her room without a massive tantrum. It's the little things, really. Disjointed thoughts FTW!
This Memorial Day weekend was fantabulous. I couldn't have planned a better one if I'd tried. The part that makes me smile today, though, wasn't the first ever family bike ride or the spousally-condoned shopping spree or the impromptu construction of a combination bench/picnic table. Nope... it was M2 and her wandering thoughts.
Apparently her brain has skipped ahead a week and decided it's already out of school. Ergo, nothing that comes out of her mouth is required to make sense.
Some of the more memorable quotes of the weekend:
[after naming a stuffed baby kangaroo Ava and deciding it's female]
Her: "Do you want to hold him?"
Me: "Didn't you say Ava was a girl?"
Her: "I was using a very common voice. Herrrrrr-m. Her-m."
[she is inventing a game in the driveway that involves rocks and a stick]
Her: "This game is called scuba diving. It's a very express game. I have to sevens and eights."
Me: [pause] "What?"
Her: [looks at me impatiently] "I have to push these rocks around with the stick to win."
Me: "Oh... right."
[after I hear two consecutive massive thuds emanating from her room post-bedtime]
Me: "Are you jumping off your bed?"
Her: "No. I'm rolling off. I'm rolling onto my squishy pad!"
Me: "Squishy pad?"
Her: "All my blankets on the floor because my bed is falling and I won't sleep in it."
She's slept on the floor the last two nights. I'm not arguing, though. She's at least sleeping in her room without a massive tantrum. It's the little things, really. Disjointed thoughts FTW!
Monday, April 4, 2011
Support
Thank you to everyone for the words of help and support that you sent after I posted about putting M1 back on medication. They were very kind. I particularly liked the comparison to a child with insulin issues. That one struck me as having a lot of truthiness.
I can't believe I just typed that.
-----
We went to see the pediatrician today for M2's 6-year-old well-child visit. She had to have blood drawn for a couple of tests (cholesterol, thyroid, CBC), and she didn't even scream once! Have I mentioned I love our ped and her staff?? I love them. The phlebotomist is also the x-ray tech, so the children know and love and trust her, and the nurse has been there for several years now, too, so between me and those two ladies keeping the girl occupado, M2 didn't even know she'd been stuck till there was blood in the vials. It actually surprised her when she looked down and saw. She started to get all freaked out until the nurse asked if it was hurting and she thought about it.
"No..."
And by then, they were done.
Bwahahahaha....
The rest of the visit went equally well. M2 is humongous. She's healthy. The doctor and I agree on plans of attack for various issues, should they arise. And theoretically we don't have to go back till she's 8! I love our doc, but hey, co-pays eat ya alive.
-----
Initially I was annoyed that I hadn't been smart enough to plan ahead and get a babysitter for M1 while we went to the doctor visit, but in the end, I think I'm glad he came. The doctor definitely got to see him at his 'best.' OK, mostly that means he went a little bit bonkers. We happened to be placed in a room right behind the doctor's desk, and so he kept trying to jump out and scare her if I had stepped out for some reason, like to take M2 to use the restroom or accompany her to the blood draw. He kept trying to answer questions that had been directed at M2. He kept trying to mouth EVERYTHING. I swear he's currently worse than a toddler about that one. Seriously. He put a plastic car and a library book in his mouth in the span of five minutes. At one point, I asked him to step out of the room so that M2 could change back into her regular clothes, and when I opened the door to let him back in, I discovered he'd escaped... all the way to the discharge area at the far end of the building.
It's a small building, and I found him easily, chatting cheerily away to the reception staff, but still. Gak.
In the end, when we go back for that med appointment on the 18th, I don't think I'll have any problems proving my point, if I haven't done that already.
-----
Finally, and on a completely unrelated note, Tractor Supply Co. has baby rabbits.
*collective awwwwww*
G'night, y'all!
I can't believe I just typed that.
-----
We went to see the pediatrician today for M2's 6-year-old well-child visit. She had to have blood drawn for a couple of tests (cholesterol, thyroid, CBC), and she didn't even scream once! Have I mentioned I love our ped and her staff?? I love them. The phlebotomist is also the x-ray tech, so the children know and love and trust her, and the nurse has been there for several years now, too, so between me and those two ladies keeping the girl occupado, M2 didn't even know she'd been stuck till there was blood in the vials. It actually surprised her when she looked down and saw. She started to get all freaked out until the nurse asked if it was hurting and she thought about it.
"No..."
And by then, they were done.
Bwahahahaha....
The rest of the visit went equally well. M2 is humongous. She's healthy. The doctor and I agree on plans of attack for various issues, should they arise. And theoretically we don't have to go back till she's 8! I love our doc, but hey, co-pays eat ya alive.
-----
Initially I was annoyed that I hadn't been smart enough to plan ahead and get a babysitter for M1 while we went to the doctor visit, but in the end, I think I'm glad he came. The doctor definitely got to see him at his 'best.' OK, mostly that means he went a little bit bonkers. We happened to be placed in a room right behind the doctor's desk, and so he kept trying to jump out and scare her if I had stepped out for some reason, like to take M2 to use the restroom or accompany her to the blood draw. He kept trying to answer questions that had been directed at M2. He kept trying to mouth EVERYTHING. I swear he's currently worse than a toddler about that one. Seriously. He put a plastic car and a library book in his mouth in the span of five minutes. At one point, I asked him to step out of the room so that M2 could change back into her regular clothes, and when I opened the door to let him back in, I discovered he'd escaped... all the way to the discharge area at the far end of the building.
It's a small building, and I found him easily, chatting cheerily away to the reception staff, but still. Gak.
In the end, when we go back for that med appointment on the 18th, I don't think I'll have any problems proving my point, if I haven't done that already.
-----
Finally, and on a completely unrelated note, Tractor Supply Co. has baby rabbits.
*collective awwwwww*
G'night, y'all!
Monday, March 7, 2011
Oi and Vey (said with a smile)
We had M2's psychiatric appointment yesterday. It went well! I do like the doctor more and more each time we go. This is good because I don't want anyone icky poking around in my kid's head.
It all went about as I expected. We sat down with the doctor and exchanged the typical formalities. He reviewed the history, and off we went. I explained the unpredictability of her behavior and sleep patterns. I went over the psychosomatic episode with the vomiting. I covered the fact that she whines about not having friends but is the one who separates herself from them in the first place (he got a chuckle out of that). Thus concluded Psych Appointment, Act I, otherwise entitled, "My Turn."
Act II: "His Turn." He asks questions. I answer. He sits back in the chair and asks a few more. He takes a deep breath, leans forward, and we launch into...
Act III: "Conclusions." He tells me that her behavior doesn't fit an anxiety profile but does fit a mood disorder profile due to the daily inconsistencies. He adds that there are definitely some elements of anxiety that are still there, particularly those of separation anxiety. All in all, this is nothing I didn't already know, but to hear it officially is two parts exhilarating and one part depressing. He gives me several medication options to consider if her current depression gets worse (or if the anxiety flares or if her symptoms turn manic). At this point, he tries to engage M2 herself, but she merely grunts at him, glares at me, and resumes playing with the wooden blocks he keeps in his office. He reassures her that she's not in trouble for not talking and tells her that she's a good girl. She remains silent, her back to us. He prints off some information about the different med options. We agree to meet again in four months, sooner if symptoms escalate. Exit, stage left.
All the way home, I received the silent treatment. I don't know why because she had told me for the past two days that she was happy to be going to see her doctor. When we got home, I asked her if she wanted to write a letter or draw a picture about her anger. She nodded.
Shortly thereafter, I received a letter. It read: "Behave yourself Mommy. Ph.Ph. [her version of blowing a raspberry]. Hmph! Lov, M2. [insert heart drawing here] Lov, the end."
Mood disorder or not, I'm saving that letter. Someday I'll upload it to passiveaggressivenotes.com.
I love her. When she's not driving me literally insane, she cracks me up.
It all went about as I expected. We sat down with the doctor and exchanged the typical formalities. He reviewed the history, and off we went. I explained the unpredictability of her behavior and sleep patterns. I went over the psychosomatic episode with the vomiting. I covered the fact that she whines about not having friends but is the one who separates herself from them in the first place (he got a chuckle out of that). Thus concluded Psych Appointment, Act I, otherwise entitled, "My Turn."
Act II: "His Turn." He asks questions. I answer. He sits back in the chair and asks a few more. He takes a deep breath, leans forward, and we launch into...
Act III: "Conclusions." He tells me that her behavior doesn't fit an anxiety profile but does fit a mood disorder profile due to the daily inconsistencies. He adds that there are definitely some elements of anxiety that are still there, particularly those of separation anxiety. All in all, this is nothing I didn't already know, but to hear it officially is two parts exhilarating and one part depressing. He gives me several medication options to consider if her current depression gets worse (or if the anxiety flares or if her symptoms turn manic). At this point, he tries to engage M2 herself, but she merely grunts at him, glares at me, and resumes playing with the wooden blocks he keeps in his office. He reassures her that she's not in trouble for not talking and tells her that she's a good girl. She remains silent, her back to us. He prints off some information about the different med options. We agree to meet again in four months, sooner if symptoms escalate. Exit, stage left.
All the way home, I received the silent treatment. I don't know why because she had told me for the past two days that she was happy to be going to see her doctor. When we got home, I asked her if she wanted to write a letter or draw a picture about her anger. She nodded.
Shortly thereafter, I received a letter. It read: "Behave yourself Mommy. Ph.Ph. [her version of blowing a raspberry]. Hmph! Lov, M2. [insert heart drawing here] Lov, the end."
Mood disorder or not, I'm saving that letter. Someday I'll upload it to passiveaggressivenotes.com.
I love her. When she's not driving me literally insane, she cracks me up.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
AAAAARRRRRGH!!!
Thank you. I needed to get that out of my system. November has not been kind to me so far.
First of all, we have NaNoWriMo. I think I'm doing well! I have written about 8,500 words in my projected-to-be 50,000+ word novel. I had more written this morning until the Blue Screen of Death appeared on my laptop and ate my work with relish. I hadn't seen the Blue Screen of Death in a long time. I haven't missed it.
Then we have M2. She's back to the girl she was before all the poo hit the fan back in March or April or whenever it started; I've blocked the date conveniently from my memory. We went to see the psychiatrist yesterday, and when I told him that she was back to baseline, we chatted a bit about the nastiness of the Lexapro and then he said, "So... if she'd been like this all along, you'd never have come in?" "Right." That answer pleased him, apparently, because the invisible wall that had been up before, the one that basically said he was taking me at face value and didn't really BELIEVE me, disappeared. He said we're left looking at three options to explain her behavior:
1. It was all a phase and we'll never see it again.
2. It's all anxiety, but she's one of the odd kids who just react negatively to SSRIs due to age, and if we have to try it again in a few years, she might have a different reaction.
3. This is the upswing in a roller coaster that will eventually include the rages again.
He thinks we're looking at option #3, though he'd like to see #1 or #2. We go back in three months or sooner if the symptoms return.
So there's that. Which is good. Never mind that I still feel like I'm on pins and needles around her waiting for the other behavioral shoe to drop, and when she's at home, she's like a leech stuck to my leg that can somehow make its thoughts heard in my head and doesn't SHUT UP. Today, after violin, we got home and she insisted on coming out to the chicken coop with me to collect eggs, add straw, clean out and refill water containers, get mail, etc. Leech. I love her dearly, but sometimes I need five minutes of silence. Five minutes. An eternity of silence in a mom's world.
M1... M1, M1, M1... he's the one that caused all the anguish today. The boy has. no. self-control. NONE! I don't understand it. I can tell my 5-year-old to go do a simple chore like picking up the toys in her room, and she will go, and she will do it, and it will be done, and more often than not, it will be done well. I mean, she's five, she ain't perfect, but she FOCUSES and she TRIES. That's what counts. The boy... the boy would honestly and truly lose his head if it wasn't attached. I think I've mentioned that next year I'm going to have him dress up as the Headless Horseman for Halloween just so I can watch him lose his head.
And he's sneaky.
And he lies.
And he doesn't CARE, because if it doesn't affect him or he doesn't think he'll get caught, it must not be wrong. I thought kids with Asperger's were supposed to be rule-followers. Where on earth did MY kid come from?? Oh, right... rule-followers as long as the rules make sense to them.
Today, he lost a library book. Not a big deal in and of itself. I thought I'd help him look for it, and in the process I found Halloween candy wrappers hidden in a drawer. He tried to lie and say they'd been there a long time, but it's only been a few days since I've opened that drawer, and they weren't there then. He finally owned up, but he lost the rest of his candy. I told him he needed to clean up his room in an effort to find the book, and when I went to check on him, he was playing his sister's Didj. I confiscated that and gave it back to her AND took his Didj as well. Anyone want it? Now that he has a DS (which lives in my room permanently because of this exact issue), he doesn't need the Didj. It comes with a blue plastic 'case.' I'd be happy to sell it to ya. And ship it. The process went like that for the rest of the evening. I gave him a 20-minute warning before it was time for supper, warned him that he needed to get to work on *something,* because he hadn't done squat, but it wasn't motivation enough. Twenty minutes came (with warnings) and went and he was no closer to being done than before. I told him he had thirty minutes to be at the table, gave him multiple warnings in between, and still nothing. I told him that he had 15 minutes if he wanted leftovers; nil. I started yanking allowance bucks, and that finally motivated him a little bit, but he still lost $5 before all was said and done.
The book is still nowhere to be found. Since it's not due till next Wednesday and I can recheck it online up to three times, I figure it'll turn up somewhere between now and then. No worries. My beef is that I do not have the time to stand over an 8-year-old boy and monitor his every move. When I say don't play the electronics, it means DON'T PLAY THE ELECTRONICS. When I say clean your room to look for a book, I mean that, too! I know he hears me; he can repeat verbatim what I tell him to do. But somehow the words don't make it from the ears to the brain. The brain is simply bypassed for the mouth.
Someone tell me that eventually a synapse somewhere will fire and he'll be able to monitor his own actions. Just humor me if you have to. I just need to know that at some point my son is going to quit stealing and ignoring and lying and will actually be able to complete a string of commands or own electronic devices (including flashlights) without a 24-hour monitor. Because if he can't start following rules and laws and commands, that 24-hour monitor is going to be attached to his ankle.
First of all, we have NaNoWriMo. I think I'm doing well! I have written about 8,500 words in my projected-to-be 50,000+ word novel. I had more written this morning until the Blue Screen of Death appeared on my laptop and ate my work with relish. I hadn't seen the Blue Screen of Death in a long time. I haven't missed it.
Then we have M2. She's back to the girl she was before all the poo hit the fan back in March or April or whenever it started; I've blocked the date conveniently from my memory. We went to see the psychiatrist yesterday, and when I told him that she was back to baseline, we chatted a bit about the nastiness of the Lexapro and then he said, "So... if she'd been like this all along, you'd never have come in?" "Right." That answer pleased him, apparently, because the invisible wall that had been up before, the one that basically said he was taking me at face value and didn't really BELIEVE me, disappeared. He said we're left looking at three options to explain her behavior:
1. It was all a phase and we'll never see it again.
2. It's all anxiety, but she's one of the odd kids who just react negatively to SSRIs due to age, and if we have to try it again in a few years, she might have a different reaction.
3. This is the upswing in a roller coaster that will eventually include the rages again.
He thinks we're looking at option #3, though he'd like to see #1 or #2. We go back in three months or sooner if the symptoms return.
So there's that. Which is good. Never mind that I still feel like I'm on pins and needles around her waiting for the other behavioral shoe to drop, and when she's at home, she's like a leech stuck to my leg that can somehow make its thoughts heard in my head and doesn't SHUT UP. Today, after violin, we got home and she insisted on coming out to the chicken coop with me to collect eggs, add straw, clean out and refill water containers, get mail, etc. Leech. I love her dearly, but sometimes I need five minutes of silence. Five minutes. An eternity of silence in a mom's world.
M1... M1, M1, M1... he's the one that caused all the anguish today. The boy has. no. self-control. NONE! I don't understand it. I can tell my 5-year-old to go do a simple chore like picking up the toys in her room, and she will go, and she will do it, and it will be done, and more often than not, it will be done well. I mean, she's five, she ain't perfect, but she FOCUSES and she TRIES. That's what counts. The boy... the boy would honestly and truly lose his head if it wasn't attached. I think I've mentioned that next year I'm going to have him dress up as the Headless Horseman for Halloween just so I can watch him lose his head.
And he's sneaky.
And he lies.
And he doesn't CARE, because if it doesn't affect him or he doesn't think he'll get caught, it must not be wrong. I thought kids with Asperger's were supposed to be rule-followers. Where on earth did MY kid come from?? Oh, right... rule-followers as long as the rules make sense to them.
Today, he lost a library book. Not a big deal in and of itself. I thought I'd help him look for it, and in the process I found Halloween candy wrappers hidden in a drawer. He tried to lie and say they'd been there a long time, but it's only been a few days since I've opened that drawer, and they weren't there then. He finally owned up, but he lost the rest of his candy. I told him he needed to clean up his room in an effort to find the book, and when I went to check on him, he was playing his sister's Didj. I confiscated that and gave it back to her AND took his Didj as well. Anyone want it? Now that he has a DS (which lives in my room permanently because of this exact issue), he doesn't need the Didj. It comes with a blue plastic 'case.' I'd be happy to sell it to ya. And ship it. The process went like that for the rest of the evening. I gave him a 20-minute warning before it was time for supper, warned him that he needed to get to work on *something,* because he hadn't done squat, but it wasn't motivation enough. Twenty minutes came (with warnings) and went and he was no closer to being done than before. I told him he had thirty minutes to be at the table, gave him multiple warnings in between, and still nothing. I told him that he had 15 minutes if he wanted leftovers; nil. I started yanking allowance bucks, and that finally motivated him a little bit, but he still lost $5 before all was said and done.
The book is still nowhere to be found. Since it's not due till next Wednesday and I can recheck it online up to three times, I figure it'll turn up somewhere between now and then. No worries. My beef is that I do not have the time to stand over an 8-year-old boy and monitor his every move. When I say don't play the electronics, it means DON'T PLAY THE ELECTRONICS. When I say clean your room to look for a book, I mean that, too! I know he hears me; he can repeat verbatim what I tell him to do. But somehow the words don't make it from the ears to the brain. The brain is simply bypassed for the mouth.
Someone tell me that eventually a synapse somewhere will fire and he'll be able to monitor his own actions. Just humor me if you have to. I just need to know that at some point my son is going to quit stealing and ignoring and lying and will actually be able to complete a string of commands or own electronic devices (including flashlights) without a 24-hour monitor. Because if he can't start following rules and laws and commands, that 24-hour monitor is going to be attached to his ankle.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
And we're off...
Off the Lexapro, that is.
I had posted a few weeks ago that I wasn't sure the Lexapro was going to cut it. (Read that post here.) A couple of you advised me to stick it out and see if things stabilized. I appreciated the thoughts and kept with it, but... well... things didn't get better.
Last Wednesday we had our med recheck. She'd been completely hyperactive every single day since being on the medication, but since there were fewer fits, I figured I'd go with the lesser of two weevils and stick with the meds. The doctor said that'd work and that if she was still hyper in a few more weeks and it was affecting her school performance, we could try to add a stimulant and see if her diagnostic combo was anxiety and ADHD. I still didn't think it was, but again, that'd be better than bipolar, and I'm willing to chase all angles.
We went home from the doctor's office with that plan on paper, and M2 instantly proved that it was the WRONG PLAN.
Here's when you know your 5-year-old has gone off the deep end: She is mildly irritated at you for telling her to quit bouncing on the furniture for the 500th time that day, and so she informs you - quite calmly - that she has a plan to kill you by burning the house down.
Hm.
I saw no sense in overreacting, so we simply had a chat about it, and she never did show any remorse. She didn't want the cats to die, but her brother and father were fair game. Concerns about being taken care of? None. "I'll just get a new mom." What if she's not as nice as I am? "Oh, well, I'll kill her, too."
Disturbing much???
But we got past it and she seemed to forget about it. She did inform her brother a couple days later that she wanted him to die because he was the "worst brother ever." Thankfully M1 is about as reactive as I am to things like that, so he just figured them was fightin' words and lit into her like he does lately.
Then yesterday her 'sister' appeared again. The 'sister' has appeared a few times since we started taking the medication, but yesterday was the first time it occurred to me that she might be something more than simply an imaginary friend. Last night M2 got out of bed and came into the living room - not an uncommon occurrence - and said, "Mom, why did you yell my name?"
The house had been silent. The only noise had been my computer fan. Even the TV was off.
"I didn't call your name."
"Really? I heard someone yell my name really loud."
"Really. It wasn't me."
"Oh... well, it must have been my sister."
Oh, my.
At that point I'd hit my limit. I e-mailed the pediatric psychiatrist and shared these tidbits with him as well as the fact that I'd talked to her kindergarten teacher who said that M2 had been almost impossible to keep in her chair and "quite distractable."
I got an e-mail back at 7:34 a.m. with instructions to discontinue the medication and just follow her moods and see how they go. I'd say we're back to square one, but that's not quite true. If the sister disappears, we'll know for sure that SSRIs aren't helping!
Back to charting moods. Wish me luck. :)
I had posted a few weeks ago that I wasn't sure the Lexapro was going to cut it. (Read that post here.) A couple of you advised me to stick it out and see if things stabilized. I appreciated the thoughts and kept with it, but... well... things didn't get better.
Last Wednesday we had our med recheck. She'd been completely hyperactive every single day since being on the medication, but since there were fewer fits, I figured I'd go with the lesser of two weevils and stick with the meds. The doctor said that'd work and that if she was still hyper in a few more weeks and it was affecting her school performance, we could try to add a stimulant and see if her diagnostic combo was anxiety and ADHD. I still didn't think it was, but again, that'd be better than bipolar, and I'm willing to chase all angles.
We went home from the doctor's office with that plan on paper, and M2 instantly proved that it was the WRONG PLAN.
Here's when you know your 5-year-old has gone off the deep end: She is mildly irritated at you for telling her to quit bouncing on the furniture for the 500th time that day, and so she informs you - quite calmly - that she has a plan to kill you by burning the house down.
Hm.
I saw no sense in overreacting, so we simply had a chat about it, and she never did show any remorse. She didn't want the cats to die, but her brother and father were fair game. Concerns about being taken care of? None. "I'll just get a new mom." What if she's not as nice as I am? "Oh, well, I'll kill her, too."
Disturbing much???
But we got past it and she seemed to forget about it. She did inform her brother a couple days later that she wanted him to die because he was the "worst brother ever." Thankfully M1 is about as reactive as I am to things like that, so he just figured them was fightin' words and lit into her like he does lately.
Then yesterday her 'sister' appeared again. The 'sister' has appeared a few times since we started taking the medication, but yesterday was the first time it occurred to me that she might be something more than simply an imaginary friend. Last night M2 got out of bed and came into the living room - not an uncommon occurrence - and said, "Mom, why did you yell my name?"
The house had been silent. The only noise had been my computer fan. Even the TV was off.
"I didn't call your name."
"Really? I heard someone yell my name really loud."
"Really. It wasn't me."
"Oh... well, it must have been my sister."
Oh, my.
At that point I'd hit my limit. I e-mailed the pediatric psychiatrist and shared these tidbits with him as well as the fact that I'd talked to her kindergarten teacher who said that M2 had been almost impossible to keep in her chair and "quite distractable."
I got an e-mail back at 7:34 a.m. with instructions to discontinue the medication and just follow her moods and see how they go. I'd say we're back to square one, but that's not quite true. If the sister disappears, we'll know for sure that SSRIs aren't helping!
Back to charting moods. Wish me luck. :)
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Great Expectations; or, Please Don't Walk On By
I had the grand idea for this post last night when I was sitting around moping and feeling like I was an awful parent who just needed to phone it in to DHS (our state equivalent of Child Protective Services) and quit.
I do know better, but PMS does nasty things to my mental state, and we've already established that I'm REALLY good at self-degradation.
Well, that and making pies.
That post tomorrow.
Anyway, the thought process was still roiling in my head this morning, so I sat down to type. And then I thought, "Well, what do I want to say? What do I want to accomplish?" I started typing a draft, of all things, to get it out.
Next thing I knew I had typed three pages and had not only flogged the dead horse so thoroughly it was no longer recognizable as a horse, I'd lost myself somewhere in the middle. I really need to follow my own 'This Should Be a Rule for Presidents' guide and make sure that nothing I type is longer than the Gettysburg Address.
Yeah, like that'll happen.
But here I go, putting words down and publishing them without thinking, which is really what I do best anyway. I'm totally a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of person.
HA!
Sorry. Those of you who know me best are probably rolling on the floor laughing at that one. I don't think I'd even know what to do if my pants started flying through the air with me in them... other than panic and maybe start planning what I'd do when I started hurtling back toward earth.
I digress. That's also what I do best.
The point I want to make here is that I'm at a place where I no longer want to talk to other parents about parenting. I'm done. I've hit a wall, so to speak, somewhere between discipline and judgment.
I'm not a harsh mom, I don't think. I'm not perfect, and I do lose it sometimes (and apologize later), but I'm not The Wicked Witch of the West, either. Consequences are fair - run in the house too many times and you'll be running a lap around the back yard, put holes in your closet with a drumstick and the drumsticks are confiscated and you help repair the damage, insult my food too many times and you can make your own, etc. Warning is given, and I make sure the kids understand where I'm coming from and that they're able to follow through. When left to their own devices, I have discovered their own punishments are remarkably similar to mine (which probably has a lot to do with nurture vs. nature, but that's another post).
Yet I have discovered that apparently according to 'THOSE' people, I'm draconian.
You know the type of people I mean, especially if your child happens to act up in public:
-- The supposedly well-meaning grandparent who eyes your screaming child and says, in all the charming goodness of his or her heart, "She looks like she needs a good spanking." Yes, because THAT has worked so well, and I'm going to do it in public!
-- The woman who has no children of her own who offers up advice like, "Can't you just talk to her?" Can't you see we're past that? Don't you think I tried??
-- The man who makes the snide remark to "himself" as you walk past, muttering, "Brat children need to be taught a lesson." So do you, sir, thanks.
-- The mom whose kids wouldn't IMAGINE acting out in public (that day) who raises an eyebrow juuuuust enough for you to notice. Makes me want to stick my tongue out in an effort to echo the maturity. I usually bite it instead.
-- The looks from people as they try to figure out why your son is crouching down as he walks down the Halloween aisle because he's petrified something is going to make noise from above him. (OK, yeah, I got nothing for this one because it IS rather unique.)
*sigh*
I know there are people out there whose children just don't do the same things my kids do. I'm happy for them!! I'm rather jealous, to be honest. I'd love to not have to worry about children dashing across the parking lot on impulse because I'm "so mean and I hate you and you've ruined my life and EVERYTHING!"
Yeesh.
My kids' behavior has nothing to do with the fact that they've both been to see a psychiatrist, either, because I *know* there are 'normal' kids out there who do similar things and whose parents dole out similar punishments, and labels have nothing to do with it. I could put a T-shirt on my kid that says, "I have [diagnosis]. What's your excuse?" but it wouldn't change the way I deal with my kids one iota, and I doubt it'd change anyone's method of reacting TO me, either. Some people just love to be all up in your business, if you know what I mean.
But I'm tired of it. I'm tired of the looks and comments like I mentioned above. I'm tired of reading about people who use similar methods of discipline and then seeing folks - sometimes 'experts' - come back and share how those methods are "wrong" and the parents are "just not listening" to their kids and "should try X" the next time. Sure, there are times we could all use a tip or two, but let's not lambast the parent for TRYING. A kind word and gentle advice goes a long way. Plus, parenting is tough enough for anyone without extraneous 'help.' It's a constant battle, a war. There are peaceful days and there are days where you swear nobody's coming out alive, starting with yourself. There are days when you seem to be training the troops and others when the troops turn on you. Tactical maneuvers are met with marshaled forces. Some battles aren't worth fighting and others aren't worth winning, but then there are the ones that can decide the war if you don't dig deep into the trenches and hang on for dear life.
I could go on and on with my metaphorical speech, but I think I've made my point. I've also gone way past my word quota.
All I ask is that the next time you see a mom struggling with her kids in the grocery store, don't walk on by. Ask if you can help. After she gets done crying and telling you her life story, she might appreciate it. And she'll definitely thank you for not judging her.
(OH, and to all you folks who commented last week about M1 and his listening issues, thank you SO much for the laughs and the tips. It was just what I needed. I wish touching and eye contact would work, but Asperger's boy dislikes touching and can't handle eye contact. I'm going to do more lists, though, because those have worked in the past. I needed reminding, and I appreciate it!!)
I do know better, but PMS does nasty things to my mental state, and we've already established that I'm REALLY good at self-degradation.
Well, that and making pies.
That post tomorrow.
Anyway, the thought process was still roiling in my head this morning, so I sat down to type. And then I thought, "Well, what do I want to say? What do I want to accomplish?" I started typing a draft, of all things, to get it out.
Next thing I knew I had typed three pages and had not only flogged the dead horse so thoroughly it was no longer recognizable as a horse, I'd lost myself somewhere in the middle. I really need to follow my own 'This Should Be a Rule for Presidents' guide and make sure that nothing I type is longer than the Gettysburg Address.
Yeah, like that'll happen.
But here I go, putting words down and publishing them without thinking, which is really what I do best anyway. I'm totally a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of person.
HA!
Sorry. Those of you who know me best are probably rolling on the floor laughing at that one. I don't think I'd even know what to do if my pants started flying through the air with me in them... other than panic and maybe start planning what I'd do when I started hurtling back toward earth.
I digress. That's also what I do best.
The point I want to make here is that I'm at a place where I no longer want to talk to other parents about parenting. I'm done. I've hit a wall, so to speak, somewhere between discipline and judgment.
I'm not a harsh mom, I don't think. I'm not perfect, and I do lose it sometimes (and apologize later), but I'm not The Wicked Witch of the West, either. Consequences are fair - run in the house too many times and you'll be running a lap around the back yard, put holes in your closet with a drumstick and the drumsticks are confiscated and you help repair the damage, insult my food too many times and you can make your own, etc. Warning is given, and I make sure the kids understand where I'm coming from and that they're able to follow through. When left to their own devices, I have discovered their own punishments are remarkably similar to mine (which probably has a lot to do with nurture vs. nature, but that's another post).
Yet I have discovered that apparently according to 'THOSE' people, I'm draconian.
You know the type of people I mean, especially if your child happens to act up in public:
-- The supposedly well-meaning grandparent who eyes your screaming child and says, in all the charming goodness of his or her heart, "She looks like she needs a good spanking." Yes, because THAT has worked so well, and I'm going to do it in public!
-- The woman who has no children of her own who offers up advice like, "Can't you just talk to her?" Can't you see we're past that? Don't you think I tried??
-- The man who makes the snide remark to "himself" as you walk past, muttering, "Brat children need to be taught a lesson." So do you, sir, thanks.
-- The mom whose kids wouldn't IMAGINE acting out in public (that day) who raises an eyebrow juuuuust enough for you to notice. Makes me want to stick my tongue out in an effort to echo the maturity. I usually bite it instead.
-- The looks from people as they try to figure out why your son is crouching down as he walks down the Halloween aisle because he's petrified something is going to make noise from above him. (OK, yeah, I got nothing for this one because it IS rather unique.)
*sigh*
I know there are people out there whose children just don't do the same things my kids do. I'm happy for them!! I'm rather jealous, to be honest. I'd love to not have to worry about children dashing across the parking lot on impulse because I'm "so mean and I hate you and you've ruined my life and EVERYTHING!"
Yeesh.
My kids' behavior has nothing to do with the fact that they've both been to see a psychiatrist, either, because I *know* there are 'normal' kids out there who do similar things and whose parents dole out similar punishments, and labels have nothing to do with it. I could put a T-shirt on my kid that says, "I have [diagnosis]. What's your excuse?" but it wouldn't change the way I deal with my kids one iota, and I doubt it'd change anyone's method of reacting TO me, either. Some people just love to be all up in your business, if you know what I mean.
But I'm tired of it. I'm tired of the looks and comments like I mentioned above. I'm tired of reading about people who use similar methods of discipline and then seeing folks - sometimes 'experts' - come back and share how those methods are "wrong" and the parents are "just not listening" to their kids and "should try X" the next time. Sure, there are times we could all use a tip or two, but let's not lambast the parent for TRYING. A kind word and gentle advice goes a long way. Plus, parenting is tough enough for anyone without extraneous 'help.' It's a constant battle, a war. There are peaceful days and there are days where you swear nobody's coming out alive, starting with yourself. There are days when you seem to be training the troops and others when the troops turn on you. Tactical maneuvers are met with marshaled forces. Some battles aren't worth fighting and others aren't worth winning, but then there are the ones that can decide the war if you don't dig deep into the trenches and hang on for dear life.
I could go on and on with my metaphorical speech, but I think I've made my point. I've also gone way past my word quota.
All I ask is that the next time you see a mom struggling with her kids in the grocery store, don't walk on by. Ask if you can help. After she gets done crying and telling you her life story, she might appreciate it. And she'll definitely thank you for not judging her.
(OH, and to all you folks who commented last week about M1 and his listening issues, thank you SO much for the laughs and the tips. It was just what I needed. I wish touching and eye contact would work, but Asperger's boy dislikes touching and can't handle eye contact. I'm going to do more lists, though, because those have worked in the past. I needed reminding, and I appreciate it!!)
Thursday, September 9, 2010
HELP!
I need help. Lots of it. I'm in the midst of a crisis with M2. Not that this is anything new, of course, but here I am again. The great Circle of Crises. Pass the Mike's and the chocolate - time to dig back into the trenches.
My baby is growing up, which does contribute somewhat to the mental mess that I am this week. She came home from school yesterday toting this:
I discovered this was loose about a week and a half ago. I thought it had a month to go before it came out. With M1, it would have taken that long because he wouldn't dare touch a loose tooth. Even the dentist, last time we were in, commented on how loose his tooth was and proclaimed that he'd never seen a tooth that loose that didn't fall out on contact with any solid substance. M2, on the other hand, is a different species. I knew this, but I still couldn't have predicted the enthusiasm with which she attacked that tooth. Within a week, I had narrowed it down to "it'll be out in a week or two," and by Tuesday afternoon, I told her violin teacher, "It'll be out by the end of the week." So I wasn't entirely surprised when she came home Wednesday afternoon and told me she'd been bored during naptime and yanked the tooth and it bled a LOT and she got to go see Miss Gayla to get her necklace.
I suspect this boredom during naptime may be related to the purported vomit session during naptime today. Nobody saw it, nobody smelled it, and she's as healthy as a horse, but she got out of naptime and got to go to the office again and people made a fuss over her.
I may be the only one who suspects this particular scheme, and I may be way out in left field with it, but she's not above it.
Which brings me to the real, honest-to-jeepers reason I need help.
We went and visited her psychiatrist last week. After the whole rigamarole with The Scheduling Queen, I don't think they dared to move me again. So we got in and the doctor gave us several options ranging from doing nothing to doping her up with lithium. Since the doctor was still fairly well convinced it was anxiety, I decided to give that diagnosis a fair shot and try an SSRI. I mean, honestly, if the diagnosis really WAS anxiety, that'd be lovely! Much better than bipolar. Easier to manage. Something I have experience with and can work with.
He prescribed her 5 mg of Lexapro to be started last Saturday. The main side effect we had to worry about was mania because in many children and adults with bipolar, SSRIs can actually cause manic episodes. We headed out of town on Saturday with the girl trying out the new medication. I don't know about Oz, but I was holding my breath and hoping against hope that she'd be a new child and settle. She was overly excited on Saturday at the Science Museum and pool, but it was the first day on the med and she had been manic all week, so this wasn't anything out of the ordinary. She wasn't bad on Sunday - a little silly, but nothing horrid. My grandmother thought she was normal. (Yet another reason I like that woman.) Monday was a day off, and we did yard work. Then she dismantled her room and bounced and bounced and bounced. Tuesday she went back to school, had a violin lesson where she did tolerably well, came home and bounced and bounced and bounced. But no tantrums. I thought I was raising Tigger! Yesterday, she thought about having a tantrum, but it didn't happen. Still bouncy.
Today... *sigh* and we're back to square one. Still bouncy, but throw sassy and kicky and shrieky and tantrum-y back into the mix.
Now, I know the meds - IF they are going to work - wouldn't have had time to really kick in yet. If there is an anxiety component to all of this - and I won't deny that there is probably some separation anxiety in there somewhere - the Lexapro won't really kick in for at least another week or two. We do go back on the 22nd, assuming The Scheduling Queen doesn't get a bee in her bonnet again like I strongly suspect she might.
However, the doctor had said the side effects were likely to show up way before the effects of the medications.
The question now is, do I e-mail the doctor and tell him that the manic episodes are worsening? Do I wait it out another week and see if it gets better? Do I dare mention the new symptoms that are arising with this new week? Do I dare continue trying to implement any sort of therapy?
Right now I'm trying to implement a feelings chart where she circles the faces of all the feelings she has to see how *she* interprets her feelings on a daily basis. I've also got a sheet with a stoplight on it that would be a forerunner to therapy (stop, think about it, talk about it, calm down, then act). But she used them for all of 45 minutes today. She circled three different feelings in that time frame, used the stoplight as a manipulating tool to talk about random stuff (disjointed thought processes may be part of her mania), and then completely refused to use them as soon as she was truly good and mad. I'm going to try to keep at those, I think, but I'm still not sure what else to do.
Any thoughts?
Cute as a button, especially with the gap in her teeth, but yeesh. I'd love some advice on this one!
My baby is growing up, which does contribute somewhat to the mental mess that I am this week. She came home from school yesterday toting this:
I discovered this was loose about a week and a half ago. I thought it had a month to go before it came out. With M1, it would have taken that long because he wouldn't dare touch a loose tooth. Even the dentist, last time we were in, commented on how loose his tooth was and proclaimed that he'd never seen a tooth that loose that didn't fall out on contact with any solid substance. M2, on the other hand, is a different species. I knew this, but I still couldn't have predicted the enthusiasm with which she attacked that tooth. Within a week, I had narrowed it down to "it'll be out in a week or two," and by Tuesday afternoon, I told her violin teacher, "It'll be out by the end of the week." So I wasn't entirely surprised when she came home Wednesday afternoon and told me she'd been bored during naptime and yanked the tooth and it bled a LOT and she got to go see Miss Gayla to get her necklace.
I suspect this boredom during naptime may be related to the purported vomit session during naptime today. Nobody saw it, nobody smelled it, and she's as healthy as a horse, but she got out of naptime and got to go to the office again and people made a fuss over her.
I may be the only one who suspects this particular scheme, and I may be way out in left field with it, but she's not above it.
Which brings me to the real, honest-to-jeepers reason I need help.
We went and visited her psychiatrist last week. After the whole rigamarole with The Scheduling Queen, I don't think they dared to move me again. So we got in and the doctor gave us several options ranging from doing nothing to doping her up with lithium. Since the doctor was still fairly well convinced it was anxiety, I decided to give that diagnosis a fair shot and try an SSRI. I mean, honestly, if the diagnosis really WAS anxiety, that'd be lovely! Much better than bipolar. Easier to manage. Something I have experience with and can work with.
He prescribed her 5 mg of Lexapro to be started last Saturday. The main side effect we had to worry about was mania because in many children and adults with bipolar, SSRIs can actually cause manic episodes. We headed out of town on Saturday with the girl trying out the new medication. I don't know about Oz, but I was holding my breath and hoping against hope that she'd be a new child and settle. She was overly excited on Saturday at the Science Museum and pool, but it was the first day on the med and she had been manic all week, so this wasn't anything out of the ordinary. She wasn't bad on Sunday - a little silly, but nothing horrid. My grandmother thought she was normal. (Yet another reason I like that woman.) Monday was a day off, and we did yard work. Then she dismantled her room and bounced and bounced and bounced. Tuesday she went back to school, had a violin lesson where she did tolerably well, came home and bounced and bounced and bounced. But no tantrums. I thought I was raising Tigger! Yesterday, she thought about having a tantrum, but it didn't happen. Still bouncy.
Today... *sigh* and we're back to square one. Still bouncy, but throw sassy and kicky and shrieky and tantrum-y back into the mix.
Now, I know the meds - IF they are going to work - wouldn't have had time to really kick in yet. If there is an anxiety component to all of this - and I won't deny that there is probably some separation anxiety in there somewhere - the Lexapro won't really kick in for at least another week or two. We do go back on the 22nd, assuming The Scheduling Queen doesn't get a bee in her bonnet again like I strongly suspect she might.
However, the doctor had said the side effects were likely to show up way before the effects of the medications.
The question now is, do I e-mail the doctor and tell him that the manic episodes are worsening? Do I wait it out another week and see if it gets better? Do I dare mention the new symptoms that are arising with this new week? Do I dare continue trying to implement any sort of therapy?
Right now I'm trying to implement a feelings chart where she circles the faces of all the feelings she has to see how *she* interprets her feelings on a daily basis. I've also got a sheet with a stoplight on it that would be a forerunner to therapy (stop, think about it, talk about it, calm down, then act). But she used them for all of 45 minutes today. She circled three different feelings in that time frame, used the stoplight as a manipulating tool to talk about random stuff (disjointed thought processes may be part of her mania), and then completely refused to use them as soon as she was truly good and mad. I'm going to try to keep at those, I think, but I'm still not sure what else to do.
Any thoughts?
Cute as a button, especially with the gap in her teeth, but yeesh. I'd love some advice on this one!
Saturday, August 28, 2010
The Weekend - A Confession
1. I drank wine straight from the bottle tonight. That's a first for me, mostly because I'm not really a wine person. Now, there was less than a single glass left in the bottle and I didn't feel like getting one out of the cabinet, but I realized as I was sitting on the floor petting the dog with a giant wine bottle in my hand that I was, in fact, pretty pathetic-looking.
2. The reason I drank wine straight from the bottle was because M2 ate sugar straight out of the sugar bowl, got caught red-handed, and STILL lied about it to my face, and M1 'fessed up to some shenanigans he had been up to for the last, oh, 2-3 YEARS that we just found out about. He was a man about it and accepted the responsibility and the subsequent punishment (his behavior lessened the punishment, and he knows that), but all that combined did make for a looooooong afternoon. Oh, and M2 has stuffed her bottom nightstand drawer so full of books that it no longer opens. I'm going to have to try to go through the bottom or take off the back to get them out. I suspect her hairbrush is in there, too, because it's vanished.
3. I wanted to go to the Indian Festival that was going on today, but we didn't make it. My sister was coming up to see the kids, and it sounded like the perfect activity, but when we woke up this morning and started getting ready, M2 decided she wasn't going. And while I can put my foot down about things like school or doctor's appointments, dragging a 5-year-old around a public arena while she shrieks bloody murder is probably a good way to get myself on a DHS visitation list. So I didn't fight it, and we went to the park instead. I am grateful that my sister was just up for the kids and not the festival and enjoyed herself anyway. She's cool like that.
4. I taught my kids to play dominos the RIGHT way this morning. Until I explained the rules (and I didn't get into adding the pips yet because M2 isn't there, but oooohhhh good math game for M1 later, eh??), they honestly thought dominos were only to be used to make rallies a la the movie "Robots." M2 won the first two games and M1 won the third. Nobody cried or threw a fit about losing, and nobody rubbed their winnings in. I almost cried from happiness. It was a huge triumph. Hugs were given.
5. I had people over last night. People! It was the first real, live, adult interaction for longer than five minutes that I'd had since Oz left on Tuesday. It was fantabulous, and I gorged myself on the food that was brought to share. I'm always up for food.
6. I learned today that my core muscle strength, arm strength, and balance is better than I think it is. My sister takes aerial silk lessons when she can, and she was actually impressed by the fact that I could handle some yoga positions that even she has difficulty with and was at least as flexible as she was. She said I was graceful - HA! I have all the grace of a duck out of water, but I'll take what compliments I can get.
7. I am making cinnamon rolls.
8. I had to crawl under Oz's desk yesterday to fix the home network because the firewall wasn't working after the back-up power system officially fried itself. I fixed everything. Oz was suitably impressed.
9. Tomorrow we have a birthday party to attend. I can't believe this little guy is going to be 4. I remember when his big sister was just learning to crawl!
10. Also tomorrow M2's favorite uncle, Uncle D, is probably going to swing by. M2 persuaded him she hadn't seen him in far too long, and he's a good guy like that... or a sucker. Depends how you look at it.
Hope everyone is having a great weekend! I'm out to finish the cinnamon rolls, but I'm sure I'll be back again soon!
2. The reason I drank wine straight from the bottle was because M2 ate sugar straight out of the sugar bowl, got caught red-handed, and STILL lied about it to my face, and M1 'fessed up to some shenanigans he had been up to for the last, oh, 2-3 YEARS that we just found out about. He was a man about it and accepted the responsibility and the subsequent punishment (his behavior lessened the punishment, and he knows that), but all that combined did make for a looooooong afternoon. Oh, and M2 has stuffed her bottom nightstand drawer so full of books that it no longer opens. I'm going to have to try to go through the bottom or take off the back to get them out. I suspect her hairbrush is in there, too, because it's vanished.
3. I wanted to go to the Indian Festival that was going on today, but we didn't make it. My sister was coming up to see the kids, and it sounded like the perfect activity, but when we woke up this morning and started getting ready, M2 decided she wasn't going. And while I can put my foot down about things like school or doctor's appointments, dragging a 5-year-old around a public arena while she shrieks bloody murder is probably a good way to get myself on a DHS visitation list. So I didn't fight it, and we went to the park instead. I am grateful that my sister was just up for the kids and not the festival and enjoyed herself anyway. She's cool like that.
4. I taught my kids to play dominos the RIGHT way this morning. Until I explained the rules (and I didn't get into adding the pips yet because M2 isn't there, but oooohhhh good math game for M1 later, eh??), they honestly thought dominos were only to be used to make rallies a la the movie "Robots." M2 won the first two games and M1 won the third. Nobody cried or threw a fit about losing, and nobody rubbed their winnings in. I almost cried from happiness. It was a huge triumph. Hugs were given.
5. I had people over last night. People! It was the first real, live, adult interaction for longer than five minutes that I'd had since Oz left on Tuesday. It was fantabulous, and I gorged myself on the food that was brought to share. I'm always up for food.
6. I learned today that my core muscle strength, arm strength, and balance is better than I think it is. My sister takes aerial silk lessons when she can, and she was actually impressed by the fact that I could handle some yoga positions that even she has difficulty with and was at least as flexible as she was. She said I was graceful - HA! I have all the grace of a duck out of water, but I'll take what compliments I can get.
7. I am making cinnamon rolls.
8. I had to crawl under Oz's desk yesterday to fix the home network because the firewall wasn't working after the back-up power system officially fried itself. I fixed everything. Oz was suitably impressed.
9. Tomorrow we have a birthday party to attend. I can't believe this little guy is going to be 4. I remember when his big sister was just learning to crawl!
10. Also tomorrow M2's favorite uncle, Uncle D, is probably going to swing by. M2 persuaded him she hadn't seen him in far too long, and he's a good guy like that... or a sucker. Depends how you look at it.
Hope everyone is having a great weekend! I'm out to finish the cinnamon rolls, but I'm sure I'll be back again soon!
Friday, August 20, 2010
Girl update!
So sweet, isn't she?Looks can be deceiving.
It had been a while since I'd said anything about how she's doing, so I thought I'd update, especially now that she's started...
KINDERGARTEN.
When did my baby get so big?? I do not remember authorizing this.
Anyway, that picture was from her first day of school, when she was so excited and ready to see her friends and find out who else new was going to be in her class. She sits right next to one best friend and was initially seated across from another (who now sits across the room... I suspect this had something to do with putting three girls next to each other, all of whom have Chatty Cathy tendencies). She likes her teacher, and she enjoys the activities and learning that she gets to do in class. She came home this afternoon and was SO proud to tell me what she had learned today.
In other words, she likes school. A lot.
Does this mean that getting her to school every day and home again every afternoon is easy?
No.
Haaayyyeelll no.
She did well for the first four days. Then on Wednesday, August 11, 2010, she got up, put her uniform on, and wandered into the kitchen so I could help her tuck her shirt in.
Then she promptly informed me she was NOT going to school.
*blink*
This was at 7:15 a.m. We leave the house around 7:40 to get to school and have time for her to get in and settled before the day officially begins at 8. You do the math. After a lot of finagling and coercion, I got some breakfast into her and even managed to get her to (sort of) brush her teeth. When she realized, though, that I truly intended to haul her crabby rear end to school, she declared WAR. She kicked. She screamed. She called me names. She hit. Mostly she tried to run back to her room to escape. I hauled her - all 56 protesting pounds of her - across the house to the back door. She got a few good kicks in while I put her shoes on her feet and double-knotted them to prevent her from removing them, and then I threatened with every weapon in my arsenal to get her into the car. She still tried to make a break for it across the back yard. She kicked the back of the passenger seat until she realized I wasn't going to stop and then just screamed for all she was worth. Poor M1 just covered his ears and tried to pretend he was elsewhere. We got to the school and I carried her in, fearing that she'd try to streak across the parking lot where other parents were dropping their kids off. I got into the classroom, and she refused to get down. I tried to calm her and had almost succeeded until she realized that - once again - I truly meant to leave her there, and then it all started up again. The teacher came and held her (remarking, "My, she does have quite a grip, doesn't she?" when we were trying to detach my daughter's fist from where it was embedded in my shirt), and I left. Apparently it took her a good 45 minutes to settle, though she didn't act out towards anyone there. She was allowed to calm down by herself. I am grateful for all of that. I kept waiting on the phone call.
Yeesh.
Since then, the fits have been back, off and on, sometimes in the morning and sometimes after school and often with little to no known provocation. Last night during one of these, she went to her room and audibly plotted my ultimate demise. She's quite creative.
I'm irritated at her psychiatrist because we were supposed to go back and see him on the 23rd, but he's going to be out of town that day so we had to push the appointment back a week. If her behavior continues, I'm going to e-mail him and see about getting in sooner. This is getting ridiculous, and I'm starting to feel like I'm walking on eggshells again. I don't know if we need to up the meds or change them, but something needs to be altered.
-----
Of course, even if she does have a two-hour-long fit, this means there are still another 12 or so waking hours in the day where she's happy and cheerful, and last weekend she reminded me, "Mom, when can I get my ears pierced again?"
I couldn't come up with any good reason not to do it, so off we went.
She'd had her ears pierced before, when she was about 3 and insisted that she wanted it done then. We had gone to Claire's, and they became horribly infected. We wound up having to remove the earrings altogether and let the holes heal.
This time, I vowed to do things right. We went to a tattoo parlor, where they were more than happy to welcome a 5-year-old customer who was adamant that she was ready to have her ears pierced - again. She chose hoops instead of studs, which made me glad because posts with backs can make it harder to clean, and she sat perfectly still through the whole procedure, which didn't take long at all. She's had them for less than a week, and already they're healing much better than they did last time.
Now she's giggling and zipping back and forth across the living room, playing with the animals and watching the dogs rumble with each other. She loves that Speed Bump has learned to play.
Boy update sometime this weekend! I can't forget about him! :)
Monday, July 12, 2010
Winner Winner Chicken Dinner
Ok, so I can't eat chicken. It's a headache/body itch/intolerance thing. And this post has nothing to do with chicken, really. It's all about the culmination of M2's psych appointment with the pediatrician today so I could get reassurance and hear from the lips of someone who sees A LOT of kids that I'm not making crap up and trying to make my girl into a crazy loon when she isn't.
Turns out...
*I'M* not crazy.
She is.
While diagnosis is a dirty word when it comes to bipolar, that's more than likely what the diagnosis will be, especially as she gets older. The doctor said that with our family history/genetics and the total combination of M2's symptoms, that is what the whole picture looks like. We're going to try the ADHD drug Intuniv with her, because the pediatrician said that she's had good luck with it in aggressive ADHD children who don't necessarily have huge attention issues and it may help regulate her moods, which would be a good thing because I don't want her going to kindergarten and beating up her teacher (who happens to be a nun... beating up nuns is generally frowned upon, methinks). Plus, who wants to put their 5-year-old girl on an SSRI or an atypical antipsychotic and deal with the side effects that go with that? Oh, and we're going to be calling the developmental pediatric place in town and making an official appointment with the psychiatrist there to get more of a real handle on medications if the Intuniv doesn't work; if it does, we'll just go in for therapy with the psychologist we've already used for M1.
So that's the plan and the whole shebang in a nutshell.
I'm going to go drink some wine, do some work, and crash. It's been a heckuva ride. Thanks for sticking it out with me.
Turns out...
*I'M* not crazy.
She is.
While diagnosis is a dirty word when it comes to bipolar, that's more than likely what the diagnosis will be, especially as she gets older. The doctor said that with our family history/genetics and the total combination of M2's symptoms, that is what the whole picture looks like. We're going to try the ADHD drug Intuniv with her, because the pediatrician said that she's had good luck with it in aggressive ADHD children who don't necessarily have huge attention issues and it may help regulate her moods, which would be a good thing because I don't want her going to kindergarten and beating up her teacher (who happens to be a nun... beating up nuns is generally frowned upon, methinks). Plus, who wants to put their 5-year-old girl on an SSRI or an atypical antipsychotic and deal with the side effects that go with that? Oh, and we're going to be calling the developmental pediatric place in town and making an official appointment with the psychiatrist there to get more of a real handle on medications if the Intuniv doesn't work; if it does, we'll just go in for therapy with the psychologist we've already used for M1.
So that's the plan and the whole shebang in a nutshell.
I'm going to go drink some wine, do some work, and crash. It's been a heckuva ride. Thanks for sticking it out with me.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Torture
Because I like to torture everyone with the sordid details of my life, I'm writing a blog post today. I hear the excitement now!
*cricket*
*cricket*
OK, OK, so maybe nobody's excited. Even me. My life isn't very exciting. Interesting, but not exciting. Busy, but not exciting. Stupifyingly exhausting... but not exciting.
Time to cut to the chase.
M2 is having a psychological evaluation on Monday afternoon. We go in at 3:30 p.m. Is it wrong that I'm HAPPY about this? Not excited, and still maybe a little bit nervous, but happy that I finally scheduled the appointment and might come out with a few more answers than I have now.
It's hard for me to believe that I ever thought she was the easy child, comparatively speaking. Now that M1 has settled down and is starting to listen to Oz and I when we talk about appropriate vs. inappropriate responses and is gaining maturity by the day (except that I suspect he's having another growth spurt and so he's about to outgrow the size SIX flip-flops that I got him at the beginning of summer... and his bladder grows faster than the rest of him so we have potty messes now and then... and his mouth and attitude need adjusting now and then these days...), it makes it easier for me to see how difficult M2 is to deal with.
She's never been easy to deal with when compared to most kids. Neither of my kids are easy. I'm realizing how true that is now. Many parents are amazed at how high-maintenance my munchkins are. They have both always required a lot of attention, and I'm used to that. I can handle getting down on their level to deal with issues and talking to them one on one, breaking up fights every so often, and being the mom who just CANNOT let her guard down at a playdate because if I don't know where my kids are, things can go downhill faster than an avalanche. M2 had always just seemed easier. Her tantrums were fierce - always have been - but had always been over within 45 minutes or so. I am learning now that most 3-year-olds don't have 45-minute tantrums. Whoops. Both mine did, so that was no big deal. The age of four was high-maintenance for M2, but again, it was the same way for M1, so it seemed fairly normal. He actually had more school problems at the age of 4, so I thought she would be my "normal" kid since school hadn't been a massive problem.
Wrong-O.
About the end of the school year, the mood swings stopped happening exclusively at home and started extending into school... and the library... and other public places. It had been a while since I'd seen that, and I wasn't particularly happy about the Return of the Public Tantrum. I figured that it was some sort of end-of-school-year thing and would settle down during the summer.
Wrong again.
The past two weeks have been the worst. I can't take her anywhere without a random mood shift kicking a tantrum into full swing. Today we went to a group meetup with my mom's group. This is a monthly event. M2 knows the kids there. We've been to the venue before. She knows most of the parents, even, and it was at 10 a.m. so there was no way that she was tired. Oh, and she got lunch at approximately 10:30, so she wasn't hungry, either. Didn't matter. She was running around and M1 "put his hands on" her. I did what I always do and told her to use her words and if that didn't work to refer him to me. Most days that'd be fine, and she'd run off and be happy and I wouldn't see her again till something else happened because kids this age DO tattle. I get that. But not today. Today she crawled into my lap and started her routine of fuss/cry/clamber into my lap/paw at mom/pull mom's clothes/shriek/cry some more/etc. It was baaaaad. Other moms were looking and wondering what on earth was happening. Luckily most of them had been informed enough that I think word got around, and I think most of them could see that there is a serious issue that really does need SOME sort of looking into.
Yesterday morning was equally bad. You want to know what set her off then? She got it into her head that I had told her I would play with her, which I hadn't, and I told her I'd play with her as soon as I got done with the project I was working on (making a grocery list, for heaven's sake). Not good enough. Scream/cry/fuss/beat Mama up. Well, THAT makes me want to play with her. She was pounding on my legs, so I told her - again - that it was not okay to hurt Mama and that she could go to her room till I got done and was able to play. Usually that works, even if she does try to beat down her door and destroy things while she "waits." Not yesterday! Yesterday she took her hobby horse (her usual beat-the-crap-out-of-things tool - thank God it's stuffed) and went into MY room and started beating on the furniture in there. Being in my room without permission is a no-no to begin with, and she knew that. She was deliberately being defiant, and she was nonverbal for over an hour... probably closer to an hour and a half by the time I was able to get her truly calmed down and behaving again.
Then she drew me a picture of what goes on in her head when she's being naughty. That was fascinating. She says that there's so much going on in her head that she can't talk and listen to it all at the same time, which is why she grunts at me. Scary much?? And then she started talking about more of the 'dreams' she has at night. That was just terrifying. She doesn't know the word strangle, but apparently people in her dreams die that way. She doesn't know the word impale, but that happens, too. If M1 had a dream like that, I guarantee he'd classify it as a nightmare and be in my room telling me about it pronto. For M2, this is apparently par for the course because I very rarely hear about them. She says she doesn't have "good dreams... only bad ones." I want to say surely there are some good dreams, but when I ask her about her good dreams, she says there aren't any. Yikes.
Now you see why I'm happy about scheduling a psych eval?? Even if the fits are just a phase, the dreams aren't normal. And even if the fits become her new normal, I need to be able to curb them and keep them under control. It'd help if she had some sort of currency, something I could take away or use as a tool to help her behave, but there's nothing I've been able to work out yet. If I threaten to take away her toys, she offers to bag them up and put them in the trash can. If I threaten to make her go to bed early, she says she's tired and wants to do that, anyway. If I try spanking her, she just freaks out which it makes the fit worse, so that's out. The only 'currency' she has is me, and I'm her MOTHER. I can't take ME away. I am consistent and DO follow through with what I threaten or say I will do, but it doesn't faze her. She's a stubborn little goat.
Any thoughts for her, me, M1, and Oz would be greatly appreciated over the next week. If I wind up with one kid who has an ASD issue and one kid with a conduct issue, I don't know what I'm going to do, but surely there's some study somewhere they can be part of, right????
*cricket*
*cricket*
OK, OK, so maybe nobody's excited. Even me. My life isn't very exciting. Interesting, but not exciting. Busy, but not exciting. Stupifyingly exhausting... but not exciting.
Time to cut to the chase.
M2 is having a psychological evaluation on Monday afternoon. We go in at 3:30 p.m. Is it wrong that I'm HAPPY about this? Not excited, and still maybe a little bit nervous, but happy that I finally scheduled the appointment and might come out with a few more answers than I have now.
It's hard for me to believe that I ever thought she was the easy child, comparatively speaking. Now that M1 has settled down and is starting to listen to Oz and I when we talk about appropriate vs. inappropriate responses and is gaining maturity by the day (except that I suspect he's having another growth spurt and so he's about to outgrow the size SIX flip-flops that I got him at the beginning of summer... and his bladder grows faster than the rest of him so we have potty messes now and then... and his mouth and attitude need adjusting now and then these days...), it makes it easier for me to see how difficult M2 is to deal with.
She's never been easy to deal with when compared to most kids. Neither of my kids are easy. I'm realizing how true that is now. Many parents are amazed at how high-maintenance my munchkins are. They have both always required a lot of attention, and I'm used to that. I can handle getting down on their level to deal with issues and talking to them one on one, breaking up fights every so often, and being the mom who just CANNOT let her guard down at a playdate because if I don't know where my kids are, things can go downhill faster than an avalanche. M2 had always just seemed easier. Her tantrums were fierce - always have been - but had always been over within 45 minutes or so. I am learning now that most 3-year-olds don't have 45-minute tantrums. Whoops. Both mine did, so that was no big deal. The age of four was high-maintenance for M2, but again, it was the same way for M1, so it seemed fairly normal. He actually had more school problems at the age of 4, so I thought she would be my "normal" kid since school hadn't been a massive problem.
Wrong-O.
About the end of the school year, the mood swings stopped happening exclusively at home and started extending into school... and the library... and other public places. It had been a while since I'd seen that, and I wasn't particularly happy about the Return of the Public Tantrum. I figured that it was some sort of end-of-school-year thing and would settle down during the summer.
Wrong again.
The past two weeks have been the worst. I can't take her anywhere without a random mood shift kicking a tantrum into full swing. Today we went to a group meetup with my mom's group. This is a monthly event. M2 knows the kids there. We've been to the venue before. She knows most of the parents, even, and it was at 10 a.m. so there was no way that she was tired. Oh, and she got lunch at approximately 10:30, so she wasn't hungry, either. Didn't matter. She was running around and M1 "put his hands on" her. I did what I always do and told her to use her words and if that didn't work to refer him to me. Most days that'd be fine, and she'd run off and be happy and I wouldn't see her again till something else happened because kids this age DO tattle. I get that. But not today. Today she crawled into my lap and started her routine of fuss/cry/clamber into my lap/paw at mom/pull mom's clothes/shriek/cry some more/etc. It was baaaaad. Other moms were looking and wondering what on earth was happening. Luckily most of them had been informed enough that I think word got around, and I think most of them could see that there is a serious issue that really does need SOME sort of looking into.
Yesterday morning was equally bad. You want to know what set her off then? She got it into her head that I had told her I would play with her, which I hadn't, and I told her I'd play with her as soon as I got done with the project I was working on (making a grocery list, for heaven's sake). Not good enough. Scream/cry/fuss/beat Mama up. Well, THAT makes me want to play with her. She was pounding on my legs, so I told her - again - that it was not okay to hurt Mama and that she could go to her room till I got done and was able to play. Usually that works, even if she does try to beat down her door and destroy things while she "waits." Not yesterday! Yesterday she took her hobby horse (her usual beat-the-crap-out-of-things tool - thank God it's stuffed) and went into MY room and started beating on the furniture in there. Being in my room without permission is a no-no to begin with, and she knew that. She was deliberately being defiant, and she was nonverbal for over an hour... probably closer to an hour and a half by the time I was able to get her truly calmed down and behaving again.
Then she drew me a picture of what goes on in her head when she's being naughty. That was fascinating. She says that there's so much going on in her head that she can't talk and listen to it all at the same time, which is why she grunts at me. Scary much?? And then she started talking about more of the 'dreams' she has at night. That was just terrifying. She doesn't know the word strangle, but apparently people in her dreams die that way. She doesn't know the word impale, but that happens, too. If M1 had a dream like that, I guarantee he'd classify it as a nightmare and be in my room telling me about it pronto. For M2, this is apparently par for the course because I very rarely hear about them. She says she doesn't have "good dreams... only bad ones." I want to say surely there are some good dreams, but when I ask her about her good dreams, she says there aren't any. Yikes.
Now you see why I'm happy about scheduling a psych eval?? Even if the fits are just a phase, the dreams aren't normal. And even if the fits become her new normal, I need to be able to curb them and keep them under control. It'd help if she had some sort of currency, something I could take away or use as a tool to help her behave, but there's nothing I've been able to work out yet. If I threaten to take away her toys, she offers to bag them up and put them in the trash can. If I threaten to make her go to bed early, she says she's tired and wants to do that, anyway. If I try spanking her, she just freaks out which it makes the fit worse, so that's out. The only 'currency' she has is me, and I'm her MOTHER. I can't take ME away. I am consistent and DO follow through with what I threaten or say I will do, but it doesn't faze her. She's a stubborn little goat.
Any thoughts for her, me, M1, and Oz would be greatly appreciated over the next week. If I wind up with one kid who has an ASD issue and one kid with a conduct issue, I don't know what I'm going to do, but surely there's some study somewhere they can be part of, right????
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Raising Crazy Children... Part 3
So here in this impromptu series of mine, we've so far established that A) my kids are nuts and B) M1's insanity is entirely different than M2's insanity.
So what does one DO when one is confronted with raising crazy children?
Well, if you're me, you'll go through every stage of grief before you even manage to come to grips with the fact that your kid is different than most. For illustrative purposes and because I've actually done all of this with him, I'm using M1 as my example. I'm currently somewhere between denial and pissed off with M2. If I didn't find the entire situation just FUNNY, that for whatever reason *I*, the most impatient person I know, have been deemed worthy of raising two very special and very different children, I'd probably be well into anger by now. Or maybe with the second kid, you just kind of skip that stage. We'll see.
Anyway, stages of realizing that you have a crazy kid:
Denial: "What do you mean, he's different? He is not. He's busy, but that's just the way some boys are made. Well, yeah, that and he'd rather talk to adults and learn about science than play with other kids. That's just who he is. It's normal."
And then, because you've decided he's normal, you pack him up and send him to preschool or kindergarten because while you had considered homeschooling, you'd much rather have some alone time, and he *does* need the practice interacting with other kids. In the back of your mind, though, you consider the off chance that there might be an issue and ask the administrator about special-needs programs. Just in case. Even though your kid won't ever have problems. (I realize that for several of you folks reading this, sending a kid to a school isn't an option, but for me it is... was... is... whatever.) :)
Anger: This comes after you've had the umpteenth chat with the preschool teacher about your kid and his temper tantrums. Or gotten the 47th e-mail that month from the kindergarten teacher asking you how on earth to control your son so he will wait his turn instead of blurting out every answer he knows.
"Good grief, so he's a little different. FINE. But he's not a BAD kid. He just has a few issues to work out. Why can't YOU work with him? I'm doing everything I can at home already! It's not HIS fault that he's different. It's not like he has a diagnosable problem or anything. He CERTAINLY doesn't need medication. He's just busy! Keep him busy! Send him to the hidey-hole if he blurts out answers. YOU'RE the teacher. YOU come up with a few ideas."
Bargaining: "OK, so I'll take him in to see the pediatrician for a psychological evaluation. But I'm not putting him on meds. Just because he might have an actual problem doesn't mean he needs them. Well, or if he DOES need meds, I'll only use non-stimulants. And we'll definitely get some counseling/therapy because that way we can get him off the meds more quickly. And it doesn't mean he's a bad kid, does it??"
Depression: "Oh... he *does* have a problem. A significant one. And I'm the idiot who buried my head in the sand for two years trying to just say that he didn't. My poor baby... if I had just paid more attention, maybe he'd be in a better place already and wouldn't be having all these problems."
I cried a lot during this stage. And the anger stage, too, because I just couldn't work out why everyone kept harping on my boy when he was doing his best. Which he WAS, except his best and accepted norms are in somewhat different ranges, and teachers don't often get Aspies in their classes. ADHD, sure; autistic, maybe. Asperger's, not so much. Or if they do, not Asperger's with ADHD and anxiety. And he was being difficult at home, too, and I spent a lot of time crying about what a crappy parent I must be because I couldn't make him settle down or mind me or even follow a simple command. Like "tie your shoe, please."
Acceptance: I'm the proud mother of a very smart, socially inept boy with Asperger's, ADHD, and anxiety! And, to coin a phrase, I can help him be the best he can be.
-----
It's quite the process. And that's just the emotional side of things. From a logistical side, things are much, much simpler. Here's how the diagnosing process broke down for me:
1. Give in to the fact that your child might be a tad different when he's the kid throwing Legos at another child's head or crying in the middle of class because someone touched his art box or hitting another kid because they accidentally brushed against him... and that's just in school.
Home is even worse.
Ask the assistant teacher whose son is ADHD if you think *your* son might be a little ADHD (Asperger's wasn't even on my radar then). Watch in horror as she nods so hard you think her head might fall off and then be secretly relieved that you're not the only one who thinks your kid is crazy.
2. Call the pediatrician because you don't know who else to call. Set up a 2-hour psychological evaluation. Find a sitter for your other child and make the spouse take that afternoon off of work to go with you because this is his kid, too. Fill out the stacks and stacks of paperwork and go to the evaluation. Listen as your pediatrician (whom you have known since this kid was 1 and whose hobby is studying about mental illnesses) goes through everything, listens to the family history, and tells you straight up that she can't diagnose your kid exactly because he falls right in the middle of ADHD and the Asperger's side of things and that, really, we'll be able to tell in a few more years when he's a bit older. Oh, and he definitely has anxiety. Would you like to try some medication? Sure, we can do non-stimulant. Strattera it is (Intuniv wasn't out yet). And go schedule that appointment with the psychologist.
3. Visit the psychologist. Fill out loads and loads of paperwork again to get a diagnosis from the office pediatric psychiatrist who is quite good at what he does. Get the "official" diagnosis of ADHD, anxiety, and pervasive developmental disorder. Surprise! Your kid is officially nuts! Attend many sessions and learn the basic tenets of cognitive behavioral therapy to try to get the boy to *think* about what he's doing instead of just doing.
4. Read book after book to figure out what else is going on and how else you can work with him to treat it. Use your highlighter prodigiously.
5. Find a happy medium and realize you actually *can* raise this kid after all.
-----
Next step for me is to do the same thing with M2. For now, I'm keeping a "mood log" for a week. She doesn't know I'm doing it; she doesn't know that I suspect her moods are even a bit off. Though when she came in last night at 5:42 and told me she'd had a nightmare where "a paw came down and squished the people and cooked them," it was kind of hard not to shudder.
In addition to the mood log, I'm reading everything (well, everything USEFUL) I can get my hands on. Come fall, we'll see how she does in kindergarten. Many of her friends will be there, and I know that two of the boys in her class have issues of their own - one is moderately autistic and the other hasn't been diagnosed yet but I suspect Tourette's and sensory issues - so we'll see how she does. If she has no issues at school, then I suspect I won't have a leg to stand on, so to speak, if I haul her into the doctor and say the word "bipolar" out loud. So right now it's a wait-and-see sort of thing.
I hate waiting. If I'm gonna have crazy kids, I just want to know what's going on so I can help them!
Though having one with an autism spectrum problem and one with a mood/conduct problem could make life very, very interesting.
As if it wasn't already fun enough :)
So what does one DO when one is confronted with raising crazy children?
Well, if you're me, you'll go through every stage of grief before you even manage to come to grips with the fact that your kid is different than most. For illustrative purposes and because I've actually done all of this with him, I'm using M1 as my example. I'm currently somewhere between denial and pissed off with M2. If I didn't find the entire situation just FUNNY, that for whatever reason *I*, the most impatient person I know, have been deemed worthy of raising two very special and very different children, I'd probably be well into anger by now. Or maybe with the second kid, you just kind of skip that stage. We'll see.
Anyway, stages of realizing that you have a crazy kid:
Denial: "What do you mean, he's different? He is not. He's busy, but that's just the way some boys are made. Well, yeah, that and he'd rather talk to adults and learn about science than play with other kids. That's just who he is. It's normal."
And then, because you've decided he's normal, you pack him up and send him to preschool or kindergarten because while you had considered homeschooling, you'd much rather have some alone time, and he *does* need the practice interacting with other kids. In the back of your mind, though, you consider the off chance that there might be an issue and ask the administrator about special-needs programs. Just in case. Even though your kid won't ever have problems. (I realize that for several of you folks reading this, sending a kid to a school isn't an option, but for me it is... was... is... whatever.) :)
Anger: This comes after you've had the umpteenth chat with the preschool teacher about your kid and his temper tantrums. Or gotten the 47th e-mail that month from the kindergarten teacher asking you how on earth to control your son so he will wait his turn instead of blurting out every answer he knows.
"Good grief, so he's a little different. FINE. But he's not a BAD kid. He just has a few issues to work out. Why can't YOU work with him? I'm doing everything I can at home already! It's not HIS fault that he's different. It's not like he has a diagnosable problem or anything. He CERTAINLY doesn't need medication. He's just busy! Keep him busy! Send him to the hidey-hole if he blurts out answers. YOU'RE the teacher. YOU come up with a few ideas."
Bargaining: "OK, so I'll take him in to see the pediatrician for a psychological evaluation. But I'm not putting him on meds. Just because he might have an actual problem doesn't mean he needs them. Well, or if he DOES need meds, I'll only use non-stimulants. And we'll definitely get some counseling/therapy because that way we can get him off the meds more quickly. And it doesn't mean he's a bad kid, does it??"
Depression: "Oh... he *does* have a problem. A significant one. And I'm the idiot who buried my head in the sand for two years trying to just say that he didn't. My poor baby... if I had just paid more attention, maybe he'd be in a better place already and wouldn't be having all these problems."
I cried a lot during this stage. And the anger stage, too, because I just couldn't work out why everyone kept harping on my boy when he was doing his best. Which he WAS, except his best and accepted norms are in somewhat different ranges, and teachers don't often get Aspies in their classes. ADHD, sure; autistic, maybe. Asperger's, not so much. Or if they do, not Asperger's with ADHD and anxiety. And he was being difficult at home, too, and I spent a lot of time crying about what a crappy parent I must be because I couldn't make him settle down or mind me or even follow a simple command. Like "tie your shoe, please."
Acceptance: I'm the proud mother of a very smart, socially inept boy with Asperger's, ADHD, and anxiety! And, to coin a phrase, I can help him be the best he can be.
-----
It's quite the process. And that's just the emotional side of things. From a logistical side, things are much, much simpler. Here's how the diagnosing process broke down for me:
1. Give in to the fact that your child might be a tad different when he's the kid throwing Legos at another child's head or crying in the middle of class because someone touched his art box or hitting another kid because they accidentally brushed against him... and that's just in school.
Home is even worse.
Ask the assistant teacher whose son is ADHD if you think *your* son might be a little ADHD (Asperger's wasn't even on my radar then). Watch in horror as she nods so hard you think her head might fall off and then be secretly relieved that you're not the only one who thinks your kid is crazy.
2. Call the pediatrician because you don't know who else to call. Set up a 2-hour psychological evaluation. Find a sitter for your other child and make the spouse take that afternoon off of work to go with you because this is his kid, too. Fill out the stacks and stacks of paperwork and go to the evaluation. Listen as your pediatrician (whom you have known since this kid was 1 and whose hobby is studying about mental illnesses) goes through everything, listens to the family history, and tells you straight up that she can't diagnose your kid exactly because he falls right in the middle of ADHD and the Asperger's side of things and that, really, we'll be able to tell in a few more years when he's a bit older. Oh, and he definitely has anxiety. Would you like to try some medication? Sure, we can do non-stimulant. Strattera it is (Intuniv wasn't out yet). And go schedule that appointment with the psychologist.
3. Visit the psychologist. Fill out loads and loads of paperwork again to get a diagnosis from the office pediatric psychiatrist who is quite good at what he does. Get the "official" diagnosis of ADHD, anxiety, and pervasive developmental disorder. Surprise! Your kid is officially nuts! Attend many sessions and learn the basic tenets of cognitive behavioral therapy to try to get the boy to *think* about what he's doing instead of just doing.
4. Read book after book to figure out what else is going on and how else you can work with him to treat it. Use your highlighter prodigiously.
5. Find a happy medium and realize you actually *can* raise this kid after all.
-----
Next step for me is to do the same thing with M2. For now, I'm keeping a "mood log" for a week. She doesn't know I'm doing it; she doesn't know that I suspect her moods are even a bit off. Though when she came in last night at 5:42 and told me she'd had a nightmare where "a paw came down and squished the people and cooked them," it was kind of hard not to shudder.
In addition to the mood log, I'm reading everything (well, everything USEFUL) I can get my hands on. Come fall, we'll see how she does in kindergarten. Many of her friends will be there, and I know that two of the boys in her class have issues of their own - one is moderately autistic and the other hasn't been diagnosed yet but I suspect Tourette's and sensory issues - so we'll see how she does. If she has no issues at school, then I suspect I won't have a leg to stand on, so to speak, if I haul her into the doctor and say the word "bipolar" out loud. So right now it's a wait-and-see sort of thing.
I hate waiting. If I'm gonna have crazy kids, I just want to know what's going on so I can help them!
Though having one with an autism spectrum problem and one with a mood/conduct problem could make life very, very interesting.
As if it wasn't already fun enough :)
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Raising Crazy Children... Part 2
As promised, I'm here again, this time with my lap-sitting cat Dorian Gray, to write a post about personality differences in children and why I can handle M1 but not M2. This might be another long one, but do I really write any other kind??
Sorry about that. Feel free to not read all the way to the end.
Off to the races...
M1 has not always been "easy" to handle. Fine, if I'm honest, he still isn't sometimes, but we've come to understand one another better. From the perspective of many folks, he's odd, which I suppose comes with the territory when you have a disorder from the autistic spectrum. We went to a birthday party a few weeks ago at a friend's house where the kids and I frequently go to play. M1 and Oz were playing baseball in the back yard - just toss, hit, toss, hit, etc. Oz noticed that M1's shoe had come untied and asked him to tie it.
Cue tantrum.
I didn't see it, but apparently he did his thing where his arms fly up in the air and he thrashes and flops about like a fish for a little while before becoming coherent enough to listen to the fact that ALL YOU DID was ask him to tie hie shoe, which is something he's perfectly capable of doing. And then he'll do it. And then all is well. He is a logical little Spock. On half of him is a human stuffed full of emotions with an especially large, red-headed temper; the other half is a logical scientist who can listen and debate with the best. Emotions run strong in this one, but I have no doubt he'll eventually conquer them.
A couple of people who had never seen one of his fits (a next-door neighbor and the husband of another friend of mine) were just in shock. Oz didn't even blink, took care of the problem, and had totally forgotten about it till I asked him if M1 had thrown a fit at the party over shoe-tying, because my friend whose husband saw it mentioned it to her and she was just making sure M1 was okay.
Well, sure he is. As okay as it gets!
Clearly, we're used to these sorts of tantrums. They happen. We're all just happy that his anxiety has settled down to the point where he's no longer bouncing off of the furniture or walls and doesn't make life miserable for everyone (including himself) because he can't handle the smallest request or scenario change.
The trouble is that M2's fits are entirely different. There is screaming and wailing and gnashing of teeth, just like an M1 tantrum, but her screams are like nothing I've ever heard come out of a child. They're primal. Gutteral. They remind me of a bobcat, to be honest. Plus... They. Just. Don't. Quit. Once she gets started, we're in for the long haul because she's more than likely checked out and won't be back to her regularly scheduled self for some time. Buckle your seatbelt and hang on for dear life, folks; we've hit some turbulence.
And just like airplane turbulence, you never know when her fits will strike. M1 has predictable tantrums. If you ask him to switch gears in the middle of something or get him when he's hungry or tired or put him in a loud place for too long, he will eventually lose it. Guaranteed. Finding his triggers has done wonders for our family and for him, because now I know there are just times when I canNOT ask him to do things. On the other hand, I *never* know when an M2 fit will show up. They can show up when asked to do things (sometimes but not others), when someone irritates her (but the same person could do the same thing another day and she'd be fine), or she could just have a fit out of the blue with no obvious provocation.
That's what happened yesterday. We were in the lobby of the Bartlesville Community Center at OK Mozart and I suggested that we go into the room where the stage was and look through the gift shop area before going to sit down to watch Miss Megan.
"I don't want to go in there."
"Why not? Look, they have jewelry!" (She loves, adores, and begs for jewelry. She's a girly-girl.)
"I don't know, but I'm not going in there. I don't *LIKE* jewelry."
Oh, Lordy.
Well, because I'm a genius, I coerced her into going in there, thinking that surely if we sat in one spot and she had some snuggle time, she'd settle. WRONG!!!! I won't get into everything that ensued, but it sure wasn't pretty. The umbrella chewing was one of the quieter, nicer moments of the whole shebang.
I tried talking to her to figure out why she didn't want to be there, but honestly, I don't think there was any logic or reasoning behind it. She just didn't want anything to do with that room and was willing to do anything in her power to get me to take her out of it.
Which brings me to the third major difference in the kids' fits. M1, for all his screaming and wailing and gnashing of teeth, has never deliberately tried to hurt anyone. He'll try to get away if you touch him when he's upset and may lash out then, but that has more to do with sensory input than trying to injure the person who touched him. M2 will hurt you. She will wrap her arms around you and squeeze you so hard it actually does hurt. She'll pinch. She'll hit. She'll kick and bite and headbutt and scream in your ear (on purpose) so that you'll give in and give her whatever it is that she wants at that precise moment in time.
Whatever that is.
Oh, and if you dare to send her to her room during a tantrum, she'll stomp all the way there, slam it shut as hard as she can (sometimes repeatedly for better effect), and beat the ever-living tar out of it with whatever is handy - toys, fists, feet, etc., all while uttering the bobcat scream.
So all of this is why I thought that surely a book called "The Explosive Child" might help... and surely reading "The New Strong-Willed Child" might help. Because while well-proven methods of working issues out with logic and thought and plans have worked wonders for M1 (with the added bonus of figuring out his triggers so I can catch him in the good moments to think about the bad ones), I don't think they're going to do much for M2. When you can't see the tantrums coming and you can't get your child to think (or speak human, let alone English) in the middle of a fit, and when she's all sunshine and rainbows when it's over and hardly remembers what she has done... traditional methods don't work.
Part 3 will be all about how we went about originally diagnosing M1's issues and what I'm doing to see about helping M2. Raising crazy kids is hard work, isn't it?? ;)
Sorry about that. Feel free to not read all the way to the end.
Off to the races...
M1 has not always been "easy" to handle. Fine, if I'm honest, he still isn't sometimes, but we've come to understand one another better. From the perspective of many folks, he's odd, which I suppose comes with the territory when you have a disorder from the autistic spectrum. We went to a birthday party a few weeks ago at a friend's house where the kids and I frequently go to play. M1 and Oz were playing baseball in the back yard - just toss, hit, toss, hit, etc. Oz noticed that M1's shoe had come untied and asked him to tie it.
Cue tantrum.
I didn't see it, but apparently he did his thing where his arms fly up in the air and he thrashes and flops about like a fish for a little while before becoming coherent enough to listen to the fact that ALL YOU DID was ask him to tie hie shoe, which is something he's perfectly capable of doing. And then he'll do it. And then all is well. He is a logical little Spock. On half of him is a human stuffed full of emotions with an especially large, red-headed temper; the other half is a logical scientist who can listen and debate with the best. Emotions run strong in this one, but I have no doubt he'll eventually conquer them.
A couple of people who had never seen one of his fits (a next-door neighbor and the husband of another friend of mine) were just in shock. Oz didn't even blink, took care of the problem, and had totally forgotten about it till I asked him if M1 had thrown a fit at the party over shoe-tying, because my friend whose husband saw it mentioned it to her and she was just making sure M1 was okay.
Well, sure he is. As okay as it gets!
Clearly, we're used to these sorts of tantrums. They happen. We're all just happy that his anxiety has settled down to the point where he's no longer bouncing off of the furniture or walls and doesn't make life miserable for everyone (including himself) because he can't handle the smallest request or scenario change.
The trouble is that M2's fits are entirely different. There is screaming and wailing and gnashing of teeth, just like an M1 tantrum, but her screams are like nothing I've ever heard come out of a child. They're primal. Gutteral. They remind me of a bobcat, to be honest. Plus... They. Just. Don't. Quit. Once she gets started, we're in for the long haul because she's more than likely checked out and won't be back to her regularly scheduled self for some time. Buckle your seatbelt and hang on for dear life, folks; we've hit some turbulence.
And just like airplane turbulence, you never know when her fits will strike. M1 has predictable tantrums. If you ask him to switch gears in the middle of something or get him when he's hungry or tired or put him in a loud place for too long, he will eventually lose it. Guaranteed. Finding his triggers has done wonders for our family and for him, because now I know there are just times when I canNOT ask him to do things. On the other hand, I *never* know when an M2 fit will show up. They can show up when asked to do things (sometimes but not others), when someone irritates her (but the same person could do the same thing another day and she'd be fine), or she could just have a fit out of the blue with no obvious provocation.
That's what happened yesterday. We were in the lobby of the Bartlesville Community Center at OK Mozart and I suggested that we go into the room where the stage was and look through the gift shop area before going to sit down to watch Miss Megan.
"I don't want to go in there."
"Why not? Look, they have jewelry!" (She loves, adores, and begs for jewelry. She's a girly-girl.)
"I don't know, but I'm not going in there. I don't *LIKE* jewelry."
Oh, Lordy.
Well, because I'm a genius, I coerced her into going in there, thinking that surely if we sat in one spot and she had some snuggle time, she'd settle. WRONG!!!! I won't get into everything that ensued, but it sure wasn't pretty. The umbrella chewing was one of the quieter, nicer moments of the whole shebang.
I tried talking to her to figure out why she didn't want to be there, but honestly, I don't think there was any logic or reasoning behind it. She just didn't want anything to do with that room and was willing to do anything in her power to get me to take her out of it.
Which brings me to the third major difference in the kids' fits. M1, for all his screaming and wailing and gnashing of teeth, has never deliberately tried to hurt anyone. He'll try to get away if you touch him when he's upset and may lash out then, but that has more to do with sensory input than trying to injure the person who touched him. M2 will hurt you. She will wrap her arms around you and squeeze you so hard it actually does hurt. She'll pinch. She'll hit. She'll kick and bite and headbutt and scream in your ear (on purpose) so that you'll give in and give her whatever it is that she wants at that precise moment in time.
Whatever that is.
Oh, and if you dare to send her to her room during a tantrum, she'll stomp all the way there, slam it shut as hard as she can (sometimes repeatedly for better effect), and beat the ever-living tar out of it with whatever is handy - toys, fists, feet, etc., all while uttering the bobcat scream.
So all of this is why I thought that surely a book called "The Explosive Child" might help... and surely reading "The New Strong-Willed Child" might help. Because while well-proven methods of working issues out with logic and thought and plans have worked wonders for M1 (with the added bonus of figuring out his triggers so I can catch him in the good moments to think about the bad ones), I don't think they're going to do much for M2. When you can't see the tantrums coming and you can't get your child to think (or speak human, let alone English) in the middle of a fit, and when she's all sunshine and rainbows when it's over and hardly remembers what she has done... traditional methods don't work.
Part 3 will be all about how we went about originally diagnosing M1's issues and what I'm doing to see about helping M2. Raising crazy kids is hard work, isn't it?? ;)
Monday, June 14, 2010
Raising Crazy Children... Part 1
I hadn't originally intended to write anything like this today, and I certainly hadn't intended to start a whole series of posts. In fact, I had hoped to be able to share some beautiful photos from OK Mozart with you, as I took the children up there today to listen to Native American stories (for M1) and (for M2) learn a few Irish step dancing steps from my friend Megan.
Sorry we couldn't stick around, girl. I wanted to get some photos of you to share, 'cause you were rocking those shoes and your hair was too cute for words!
But anyway. I have no photos of cute Irish step dancing shoes or equally cute hair. M2 didn't learn any Irish step dancing techniques. In fact, while the plan had been to hang out through the workshop that was to end about 2:45 and then get to chat with Megan for a while, none of that happened. We left the festival by 2.
Because my child is crazy.
DISCLAIMER!!!: For the purpose of this series of posts, I may use the term 'crazy' as an affectionate and endearing term for potential mental illness. I might also say 'nuts' or 'insane' or heaven knows what else. Please don't take offense. I'm not talking about anyone else's kids here. Just mine. Though if you think yours are a little bit bonkers, feel free to say so. I won't tell.
I really do use the term crazy with affection and endearment. Promise. I adore my munchkins and missed them something fierce last week. And I'm sure that there are times when all parents believe their kids are nuts. Certifiably insane. Off their rockers. Out of their gourd. Etc.
Told you I'd use all sorts of terms.
My kids, though, are special. OK, OK, all parents think that, too. And all kids *are* special. I love watching them and learning from them. But let's go through a few things that may indicate that your kid's sort of special isn't what most people consider normal:
1. If your kid goes to school for nine months with the same teachers and classmates in the same place and then comes up one day with severe separation anxiety and clings to you like a Tenacious Howler Monkey and screams like a Tenacious Howler Monkey once or twice a week for the remainder of the school year, she might be a tad off.
2. If you've ever taken your child to the pediatrician for a well-child visit - the same pediatrician in the same office where you've been going since before this child was born - and watched her throw a fit so massive that even the doctor voices concern, you may have a little bit of Crazy on your hands.
3. If you've ever videotaped the tail end of one of the above-mentioned fits and had your friends show it to THEIR friends because holy crap, that's one massive tantrum... and, again, that's just the TAIL END of the fit... you may have cause to worry.
4. If you've ever had to physically defend yourself from one of these fits and/or given your child her umbrella because she "has to bite something right NOW" and then watched her chew on it for 15 minutes straight and leave teeth marks all over it... and she's FIVE... and you're just glad she used her words and isn't biting or pinching or hitting YOU for once... well... you get the idea.
6. If you've ever watched your child go so sub-human/glassy-eyed during one of the fits that she is no longer capable of talking and only elicits grunts and primal screams and inflicts physical pain and breaks stuff...
6. If you've ever read both "The New Strong-Willed Child" and "The Explosive Child" in less than a week and thought, "Well, those were interesting books and might help me with my semi-predictable Asperger's/ADHD/anxiety kid, who now seems incredibly normal, but what about the OTHER one??"...
7. If the next book on your list to read is "The Bipolar Child" because *something* has to fit this kid so you can figure out how to handle her...
You might be me.
I know that, with only one or two exceptions, none of you have seen M2 behave this way. Those of you on the exception list probably saw the video. ;) I know that some of you are probably looking at this list and wondering what kind of discipline I employ. Others may be thinking that I should re-read those books. Some may be completely shocked that any kid can act that way. And yet others might be reading this list and thinking, "What do you mean, that's not normal??"
My problem is that I am not a child psychiatrist. Or psychologist. Or developmental pediatrician. In other words, I Am Not An Expert.
Realizing you might be the parent of a child with a case of Crazy is kind of like taking a kid out of Little League, sticking him in a World Series game, and whispering in his ear just before the pitch, "You better hit a home run, kid. Everyone's watching."
Makes you want to pee yourself.
Makes you realize that you might know how to play baseball, but you don't really know HOW to PLAY BASEBALL. This is the big leagues, and in parenting, EVERYONE watches. Everyone is sitting there wondering how come you can't get your kid under control, wondering what on earth you did to make him or her scream like that, watching while you struggle to cope the best you can, and - worst case scenario - pulling the number for the Department of Human Services (the Oklahoma name for Child Protective Services) out of their pockets to turn you in for slacking off on your job.
And it's a daunting task.
Up next: The difference between M1's brand of crazy and M2's and why I can handle him but not her. For now.
Sorry we couldn't stick around, girl. I wanted to get some photos of you to share, 'cause you were rocking those shoes and your hair was too cute for words!
But anyway. I have no photos of cute Irish step dancing shoes or equally cute hair. M2 didn't learn any Irish step dancing techniques. In fact, while the plan had been to hang out through the workshop that was to end about 2:45 and then get to chat with Megan for a while, none of that happened. We left the festival by 2.
Because my child is crazy.
DISCLAIMER!!!: For the purpose of this series of posts, I may use the term 'crazy' as an affectionate and endearing term for potential mental illness. I might also say 'nuts' or 'insane' or heaven knows what else. Please don't take offense. I'm not talking about anyone else's kids here. Just mine. Though if you think yours are a little bit bonkers, feel free to say so. I won't tell.
I really do use the term crazy with affection and endearment. Promise. I adore my munchkins and missed them something fierce last week. And I'm sure that there are times when all parents believe their kids are nuts. Certifiably insane. Off their rockers. Out of their gourd. Etc.
Told you I'd use all sorts of terms.
My kids, though, are special. OK, OK, all parents think that, too. And all kids *are* special. I love watching them and learning from them. But let's go through a few things that may indicate that your kid's sort of special isn't what most people consider normal:
1. If your kid goes to school for nine months with the same teachers and classmates in the same place and then comes up one day with severe separation anxiety and clings to you like a Tenacious Howler Monkey and screams like a Tenacious Howler Monkey once or twice a week for the remainder of the school year, she might be a tad off.
2. If you've ever taken your child to the pediatrician for a well-child visit - the same pediatrician in the same office where you've been going since before this child was born - and watched her throw a fit so massive that even the doctor voices concern, you may have a little bit of Crazy on your hands.
3. If you've ever videotaped the tail end of one of the above-mentioned fits and had your friends show it to THEIR friends because holy crap, that's one massive tantrum... and, again, that's just the TAIL END of the fit... you may have cause to worry.
4. If you've ever had to physically defend yourself from one of these fits and/or given your child her umbrella because she "has to bite something right NOW" and then watched her chew on it for 15 minutes straight and leave teeth marks all over it... and she's FIVE... and you're just glad she used her words and isn't biting or pinching or hitting YOU for once... well... you get the idea.
6. If you've ever watched your child go so sub-human/glassy-eyed during one of the fits that she is no longer capable of talking and only elicits grunts and primal screams and inflicts physical pain and breaks stuff...
6. If you've ever read both "The New Strong-Willed Child" and "The Explosive Child" in less than a week and thought, "Well, those were interesting books and might help me with my semi-predictable Asperger's/ADHD/anxiety kid, who now seems incredibly normal, but what about the OTHER one??"...
7. If the next book on your list to read is "The Bipolar Child" because *something* has to fit this kid so you can figure out how to handle her...
You might be me.
I know that, with only one or two exceptions, none of you have seen M2 behave this way. Those of you on the exception list probably saw the video. ;) I know that some of you are probably looking at this list and wondering what kind of discipline I employ. Others may be thinking that I should re-read those books. Some may be completely shocked that any kid can act that way. And yet others might be reading this list and thinking, "What do you mean, that's not normal??"
My problem is that I am not a child psychiatrist. Or psychologist. Or developmental pediatrician. In other words, I Am Not An Expert.
Realizing you might be the parent of a child with a case of Crazy is kind of like taking a kid out of Little League, sticking him in a World Series game, and whispering in his ear just before the pitch, "You better hit a home run, kid. Everyone's watching."
Makes you want to pee yourself.
Makes you realize that you might know how to play baseball, but you don't really know HOW to PLAY BASEBALL. This is the big leagues, and in parenting, EVERYONE watches. Everyone is sitting there wondering how come you can't get your kid under control, wondering what on earth you did to make him or her scream like that, watching while you struggle to cope the best you can, and - worst case scenario - pulling the number for the Department of Human Services (the Oklahoma name for Child Protective Services) out of their pockets to turn you in for slacking off on your job.
And it's a daunting task.
Up next: The difference between M1's brand of crazy and M2's and why I can handle him but not her. For now.
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