Pretty day, annoyed mom

Yesterday the weather was gorgeous. A front came through during the night and scrubbed everything up, leaving behind blue skies, temperatures in the 70s, and a nice cool breeze.

The kids had swim lessons in the late morning (which continue to go swimmingly)(hee!) and afterwards we decided to stop by the local farmers market. We forgot how early in the season it is, given that it's already been pretty summer-like here, but fortunately there was one lone veggie vendor and we were able to pick up some vine-ripe tomatoes, sweet onions and a watermelon.

Of course, the minute we got to the market, the boy started freaking out about the bugs. There's a plant nursery at the entrance to the market and bees were buzzing around a few of the flowers. They weren't anywhere near us, but that didn't matter. The boy started crying that he wanted to go back to the car. Argh. We convinced him to press on, but he continued to freak every few seconds and started ticcing like crazy -- frantically brushing at his legs, arms and ears -- like he does during every bug freakout. There are a couple of restaurants in the market and we had decided to eat lunch there, thinking that it would be nice to sit outside and eat on such a lovely day, but the boy was having none of it. We ended up sitting inside to eat, which was fine, but not nearly as much fun. On the way back out of the market I really wanted to buy some herbs at the nursery, but the boy was DONE and there was no way that was going to happen.

Sigh.

Anyway, after all that we came home and lounged around a bit, (indoors, in the boy's case, though DH and I sat out on the porch and walked around the yard a bit) and then we watched The Empire Strikes Back which the girl child did not understand AT ALL and she was very unhappy and whiney about it, had dinner, and put the kids to bed.

The boy hasn't wanted to talk about the whole bug thing this year, either with us or with Dr. H. The problem isn't (yet) as severe as it was last year, but I REALLY think this is something he and Dr. H need to work on. I think I'm going to request more frequent appointments for the boy until they can work through this. Because I am so NOT spending the whole spring/summer indoors like we did last year.

The life aquatic and other weekend adventures

DH took the boy child to swim lessons on Saturday and reported that by the end of the lesson, the boy was ACTUALLY SWIMMING. As in, propelling himself through the water without sinking like a stone. And oh yeah, he was doing it with his face right down in the water. He even swam UNDER the water, apparently. I am beyond amazed by this kid. When I took him to his lesson last week, even though he had made tremendous progress I didn't think he was even CLOSE to actually swimming. Shows how much I know. We went ahead and paid for lessons through the month of May, but it's looking like that's all he'll need. Yay! Go Boy Child, go!

While the boys were swimming, the girl and I did birthday party prep at home. As of 9 p.m. on Friday, the day before the party, we had six RSVPs (out of eight invitations that were sent). Three yesses and three nos. However, just to complicate things, the boy decided at school on Friday to verbally invite another little girl from his class, telling her that she could come because so many other people couldn't. Oy. That was kind of awkward. You are my ninth-best friend! Hello, social disability! Anyway, this girl didn't take offense at all and apparently cleared it with her parents so that she could come. (If the situation had been reversed, I don't think I would have let the boy child go. After all, we've been burned in the past with verbal invitations.)

ANYWAY, on the morning of the actual party I got a call from the dad of one of the "yes" kids who said there was some sort of miscommunication between himself and his wife and that his kid couldn't come after all. But with the extra invitee, we still had three kids, so that was okay.

The party went relatively well, given how small it was. The extra invitee showed up half an hour early and then didn't get picked up until almost an hour after the party had ended, which was even MORE awkward. And the boy wanted to play with all his gifts right away, by himself, and had a bit of an episode when we told him that was not going to happen. But all in all, it was ... okay. I guess. I kind of hate these kid parties so I'm not really one to judge, I don't think.

Okay, so moving along to the girl child. She had her second round of testing/eval with Dr. H yesterday, and DH and I go in next week to find out what he thinks is going on with her. I'm really curious to hear what his professional opinion is. While the first round of testing involved lots of picture drawing, according to the girl, this round involved "sitting and answering". She said he read sentences and she had to finish them, and then he showed her pictures and she had to make up stories about them. One story involved a worm who eats cow blood, or something. Thus my curiosity about her diagnosis. I mean, we know she has a vivid imagination, but ... a worm? Who eats cow blood? Do they have meds for that?

In other news, with only a month of school left I'm once again fretting over next year, and the year after that, and wondering when I should start pushing for the school to re-evaluate the boy with an eye toward getting him on the 504 plan. We have teacher conferences next week and I definitely have some questions for the boy's teacher. Like, why has she not been making sure he brings home the required school papers/materials every day like she said she would? He never brings ANYTHING home. This morning I got a phone call because the boy didn't have a permission slip to view the "maturation movie" and take part in an HIV/AIDS discussion today. I didn't even know they were DOING this, because he never brought anything home about it like he was supposed to. That would have been nice to know, you know? I mean, I gave permission because I don't have a problem with him taking part in either, but it would have been nice to know about it beforehand so I could prep him a little. Also, I want to ask his teacher if she would fill out the teacher survey for the boy's FIE any differently if she were doing it TODAY, after having taught him for a year, than she did at the beginning of the school year when she didn't really know him.

In short, I'm not altogether happy with how this school year went. His grades are still good, and seeing the school counselor every week has been a TREMENDOUS help, but I don't feel like we got all the services through general ed that we were told we would. It was the promise of those services that kept us from appealing the ARD committee's decision when they found he didn't qualify for services outside of general ed. I knew that not having anything in writing would end up screwing us, and while it could have been much worse, I'm not happy about how things went in general.

Sigh.

Today the boy has occupational therapy. More bike-riding practice, if the weather holds.

Weekend update on Thursday

Wow, what a week! Friday the kids were off from school and guess what? The boy child had another playdate! There's only one other boy his age on our street and they've played together in the past, but his mom and I have trouble coordinating their schedules so that they can spend time together. But on Friday things worked out, and this other boy showed up at the front door to see if the boy child could come to his house and play. He was there about three hours and said he had fun, though the other boy's mom reported that the boy child complained of being bored much of the time. Oy.

Saturday was VERY busy, with a combined swim lesson for both kids followed by a trip to Dr. H for the girl child followed by cooking and whatnot for Easter. Both kids did GREAT at the swim lesson. I was so impressed with how the instructor was able to cater to their very different ability levels. Oh, and the boy child actually wore his goggles, which is a HUGE thing for him because he hates anything restrictive on his face/head, AND he dunked his whole head under the water! Multiple times! He has NEVER done that before, ever. I was beyond amazed. This Saturday will be a private lesson for just the boy, and then next week we'll do a combined lesson again. We've gone ahead and booked them through May as well, but unfortunately it will be with another instructor. I hope that works out okay. The girl child is swimming already; she just needs to build up some endurance and technique for deep water. The boy is really not even close to actually propelling himself through the water, but the fact that he's already sticking his whole head under is HUGE.

After swim lessons, they boy child went off for an afternoon with Grandma and Grandpa while I took the girl to see Dr. H. We were there for maybe two hours altogether and he did a lot of testing and whatnot with her. He said they did a "depression inventory" and she said that he had her draw a lot of pictures. It went pretty well and she warmed up to him after about 10 minutes. She has more testing/eval next week, and then DH and I will talk results/diagnosis with Dr. H in early May.

Sunday was Easter and also the combined family birthday party for DH and the boy. They both really liked their gifts and the boy was especially excited that as his "big" gift I enrolled him in the Lego Brickmaster club. He's been wanting to do that for a really long time, but it's fairly expensive and takes a big chunk out of the birthday gift budget. He's really excited about it and can't wait to start receiving his Lego sets in the mail!

Monday was the boy's actual birthday -- the big 1-0 -- so after school and taekwondo we took him out to a local entertainment megaplex. We ate overpriced pizza, played lots of arcade games, and played a round of indoor blacklight mini golf. The boy was kind of a spazz on the golf course, I think because he was just so excited, and we quickly turned into one of those families I used to hate when I was single and childless -- you know, the ones where all you hear is the parents saying the one kid's name over and over? "Johnny, don't touch that. Johnny, come over here please. Johnny, put that back! JOHNNY! What did I just say?!" Kind of like that. Oy. Again. But he had fun.

Yesterday was occupational therapy day and the boy's therapist worked with him pretty extensively on the bike riding thing. He did great, too -- he was actually able to ride it along the sidewalk for several long stretches! He has trouble getting started, but if you give him a push he does pretty well keeping things going. He also has a lot of trouble balancing, steering and stopping all at once, though, and ended up running into a prickly bush in the neighbor's yard, at which point he declared the bike lesson over. Sigh. He did say he would try again next week, so that's something.

This Saturday, in addition to swim lessons, we have the boy's "kid" party. He invited 8 kids and so far we've only heard from three -- one who is coming, and two who aren't. So the party could end up as a bit of a bust, and I'm trying to prepare him for that. We've decided that if no one shows up, we'll go out and do something fun and "special" like a movie or something instead. And hey, more cake for us! But still, keep your fingers crossed that at least three kids show up. That would make five with the boy and the girl child, and five is a PARTY!

Moving right along

Yesterday DH and I met with Dr. H to talk about the girl child. We asked him if there was some sort of sibling discount for therapy and he thought that was HILARIOUS, which I'm guessing is a "no".

We gave him her history, told him about her sometimes bizarre behavior, the depression stuff, the rages, etc. He wants to see her on Saturday, right after swim lessons, to do some personality testing and then talk with her for about an hour. Up to now she's been saying she doesn't want to talk to anyone outside the family, but we've explained that Dr. H can really HELP her, whereas all we (DH and I) can do is offer sympathy, and she kind of knows him from tagging along on the boy child's appointments, so I think it's going to go okay. Fingers crossed! Right now the doc thinks we might be looking at straight depression or bipolar or maybe something else entirely, but he won't really know until he's done some testing and spent some time with her.

Also yesterday, the boy child had his weekly occupational therapy appointment and that went well. His OT is going to work with him on the balance/coordination he needs to be able to ride a bike. He's had bicycles since he was 3 or so, but they've always had training wheels on them. His most recent bike is so big, because HE'S so big, that DH had to go out and buy the training wheels separately. Some of the kids in the neighborhood have made a few comments about the boy still riding with training wheels, so DH took them off several months ago and has tried to work with the boy on riding without them, but it's just not happening. So the OT is going to tackle it, which is swell.

This is one of those things where, if you don't have a kid who's impaired in some way, it might sound weird. Have a professional teach him to ride a bike?! Well, yes. Because he doesn't learn those things the way other kids do. His brain just isn't wired that way. The OT also taught him how to use the swings and the monkey bars on the playground. And eventually, we hope she'll teach him how to ride an escalator. That will be a banner day around here.

Anyway, between the bike riding lessons and the swimming lessons, I'm hoping for a very good summer for the boy child!

So this will be a very busy weekend around here. Saturday both the boy and girl have swim lessons (with the same instructor), then we're off to Dr. H's for pretty much the rest of the afternoon. Sunday is Easter, of course. My folks are coming over here for Easter dinner and we're going to have DH's and the boy child's combined family birthday parties then as well. DH turned 41 yesterday, and the boy will be 10 on Monday! Holy cow! That seems kind of impossible, but you can't argue with math. His "kid party" is next weekend, and he has invited four boys and four girls. I hope some of them show up.

Boom boom diddum daddum waddum choo

So the boy child had his first swimming lesson yesterday, and it was a huge success! The instructor is a very nice young woman who has had some experience working with Asperger kids. She took things very slowly with him and was quick to change tactics if something wasn't working.

DH was in the pool room (the pool is indoors, and heated) and the girl child and I watched from an observation room, so I didn't really hear what was going on, but I saw her sit on the side of the pool with him with their legs dangling in the water, offer to help him slide into the pool, and then point out the ladder when it was obvious that wasn't going to happen. They had some sort of scaffolding in the shallow (4 foot) end of the pool so that he was able to stand in water only up to his knees if he wanted. She really eased him into things, and by the end of the 30 minute lesson he was leaning over so that each ear was completely covered by water, dunking down up to his eyeballs, and moving through the water (with the instructor holding on to him) submerged up to his nose, blowing bubbles through his mouth! Wow!

This is a HUGE thing, y'all. The boy HATES getting any water on his face or in his ears whatsoever. I'm frankly amazed that she made as much progress with him as she did in only one lesson. More importantly, the boy LOVED it and he can't wait to go back next week!

Yay!

The girl

Okay, the short version of the story is that we're still trying to figure out whether the girl child is bipolar and, if not, what IS going on with her.

I spoke with Dr. H about the girl child's history of behavior several weeks ago, and he recommended I read The Explosive Child and The Bipolar Child and see if either description sounded like her. I read The Explosive Child first and really didn't see the girl in it at all. Apparently explosive children are chronically inflexible, and that's just not her.

So then I picked up The Bipolar Child and Oh. My. Goodness. This is my kid. She has fourteen of the sixteen factors listed in the first chapter. I got the same feeling reading this book that I got when we started reading up on AS after the boy child was diagnosed. It's like all these weird little puzzle pieces that never seemed to relate to one another before suddenly fell together into something that made complete sense. I'm not saying she IS bipolar or that we're locking our sights on that at the exclusion of everything else, but it has certainly confirmed that SOMETHING is going on with this kid.

See, I think the problem is that we (meaning DH and I) don't know how "normal" children behave. I mean, all we have is the boy and the girl, and they are absolute opposites. The boy lives in his own head much of the time, is very left-brained and logical and sequential, and doesn't seem to need a lot of interaction because of the whole autism thing. The girl, on the other hand, is very extroverted, not comfortable in her own skin, highly creative and right-brained and visual, and can't entertain herself to save her life. He closes down; she rages. He seems to feel very little in the way of emotion; she has an absolute hair trigger where sadness, anger and excitement are concerned. There is no "medium" in our house. We always knew something was up with the boy, so we kind of focused on that and I think we just assumed that the girl was so different because she was more "normal". It has only really been since she's been in school that we've been able to observe how different she really is from other kids.

Anyway, after the boy's appointment with Dr. H this afternoon, when I was scheduling his next appointment, I also scheduled an appointment for us to do some intake/assessment for the girl. I have no idea where it will lead, but we've got to start somewhere. Last night she sobbed uncontrollably for nearly two hours, talking about how she's a "nothing" and a "nobody" and how she hates her life and everyone's mean to her, and we have NO IDEA WHY. We have GOT to get this kid some help before puberty hits.

The very long update

I have GOT to start updating this thing more often. Lots of stuff going on with the boy child lately!

First of all, last Thursday he and every other student in his grade went on a field trip to San Antonio. My dad and I went along to assist the boy, and also for the group rate admission. No no, it was just to help the boy. Honest!

The kids rode the bus and parents had to arrange for their own transportation, so Dad and I rode down in the van. Our first stop was the Institute of Texan Cultures, which I didn't even know existed up to that point. We got there about 20 minutes before the busses did, and wouldn't you know it, the boy child emerged while I was in the bathroom. We quickly caught up with him, though, and then our group headed out to the "Back 40" where there are several historical buildings (or replicas thereof).

The boy child did very well at the one-room schoolhouse and the adobe house, but when we got to the "Army outpost" there was an overly enthusiastic docent who kind of yelled a lot and scared him. He held it together for the two-room dog-trot cabin, but by the time we got to the barn the boy had had quite enough, and I spent the entire presentation with my hands pressed firmly over his ears (at his insistence).

Luckily that was our last stop in the outdoor portion of the tour, and he did just fine indoors. We ate lunch outside and he was a little bit anxious about the bugs, but he felt confident enough to leave Dad and me and sit with some friends of his for a bit. So that was good.

After lunch the kids got back on the busses and the parents got back in their cars to drive to Rivercenter mall, which was only about a mile away. The problem was that we had to pay to get out of the ITC parking lot. Since we were all leaving at the same time, and apparently some people were trying to pay with pennies or stock certificates or something, it took FOREVER to get out of there. And then the directions the parents were given from the ITC to the mall were incorrect, so we had to kind of wing it (fortunately Dad and I were familiar enough with the area to make our way pretty quickly, but we managed to hit every red light in the one-mile stretch of road we were on).

All of this meant that the busses got to the mall long before the parents did, which was not a problem except for the part where the bussed dropped the kids off one level below where they needed to be to get to the IMAX theater, which meant that they had to ride an escalator. Which the boy child DOES NOT do, at all. Any attempt to get him on an escalator results in a full-blown panic attack. Fortunately his teacher already knew this and was able to get another parent to take the boy up on the elevator. So that was okay, but by the time Dad and I got there the boy was kind of upset that we were late. He was holding his teacher's hand and had that stressed-out look about him. Oy.

So he sat between Dad and me for the movie, which was about the Alamo, and that was good because I think it gave him a little bit of time to pull himself together. After the movie we all walked across the street to the actual Alamo, and he did fine there even though we were outside for much of the time.

From there we walked back over to the busses. I had arranged for the boy to ride home with Dad and me rather than on the bus, which I think turned out for the best. I put on some music, the boy chilled out in his familiar car seat, and he didn't have to be "on" anymore. All in all I think he did VERY well on this trip, considering how long it was (we left the school at 7 a.m. and got back home at 6:30 p.m.) and how much sensory stimulation he had to deal with. He really didn't have any meltdowns at all. My boy is growing up!

Okay, so then Saturday was the school carnival, which was also outdoors, and the boy did great! He and the girl child had a taekwondo demonstration indoors during the carnival, and they both did great with that too.

One component of the carnival was a raffle for "teacher treasures". These are special events that the kids can do with the teachers and staff of the school during non-school hours. The boy ended up winning one, and I was so thrilled for him! He never gets to do anything special like that -- he's never invited to birthday parties or anything, and not a lot of opportunities to do fun things like that with people other than his immediate family seem to come his way. The one he won was a kickball game with the teachers from his grade. There are 8 classes, and only one kid from each class won. Those 8 kids got to play kickball with the 8 teachers on the playground after school this past Tuesday.

On the day of the game, the boy child was a little nervous because of the bug issue. I was a little nervous because the boy is not the most coordinated kid at school and isn't really into team sports. I was hoping the other kids would be kind if he messed up. Well, I needn't have worried because the boy did great! He actually got a home run! Of course, he got it because he either didn't realize he had to stop at the bases or just didn't want to, and kept on going after he kicked the ball. He was up to "bat" three times; the first time was the home run, the second time he popped out, and the third time he went for the homer but was tagged out at home plate. He did okay fielding, too. He was doing his "bug dance" quite a bit, where he flicks at his ears and fidgets quite a bit to make sure there aren't any bugs landing on him, but he was able to pay attention to what was going on in the game. I didn't hear a single mean comment hurled his way, and in fact the next day before school, one of the other boys who had played in the game told him, "Great job yesterday!"

In between the carnival and the game, we had a bit of an incident. The kids have taekwondo on Mondays and that's when they practice working with weapons. The weapon they're using now is a long wooden stick, and it's not safe to have a bunch of kids swinging them around in the little room where they practice, so they usually go outside. Well, this week the boy child was in no mood for outdoor practice and I guess he had a bit of a freakout over the bug issue and had to be taken indoors. Sigh. His instructor has asked me what she should do when something like that happens, but I haven't answered her yet because I honestly don't know! We're seeing Dr. H this afternoon, so I'm going to ask him for suggestions. He has advised us to encourage the boy to stay outside for a specified length of time, even if he's upset (there's more to it than that, but I'm simplifying) so that's what we do at home, but his instructor has 20 kids to deal with and can't really hold his hand through an episode, so I don't know what to tell her.

But wait, there's more!

Okay, so yesterday after school we were waiting around for the boy's occupational therapist to show up (he sees her once a week now) when the doorbell rang, much too early for it to be the OT. Usually this means that one of the girl child's friends is at the door asking for a playdate. So I opened the door expecting to find one of the little neighbor girls, and instead it was one of the girls in the boy child's grade. And with her was the kid who has been bothering the boy child all year -- the one he hit last month. And they wanted to know if the boy could play!

Well, I was kind of flabbergasted! I said, "Um. I don't know. I'll ask him." And then I hollered for the boy and DH, who was working from home yesterday. I told the boy who was at the door and asked if he was okay playing with them, and he said "sure!" He told me that he and this other boy were getting along okay now, which was news to me. Anyway, since his therapist was due in about 30 minutes, we told him they had to play at our house. They hung around in the front yard for a bit (with DH keeping watch from the window), then came inside to play in his room. DH and I hovered around and from what we could tell, everyone was getting along fine.

So the boy had a playdate! The first real playdate he's had since I can't even remember when! Seriously, I can't ever remember anyone coming to the house to ask the boy child to play. It just doesn't happen. And this time, it was with the last kid I ever expected the boy child to play with.

Oh look! Out the window! Was that a flying pig? I think it was!

So yeah, it's been a weird and eventful week around here. Today we see Dr. H, and Saturday the boy has his first swimming lesson. So that should be fun.

I really need to post about the girl child, too, but I'm just too tired to do it now. Stay tuned!