Donkey Burger

Music

2007-04-01T11:15:00.000-07:00

The middle school that the boy child will attend next year had tryouts for sixth grade band yesterday. It was kind of a neat setup, and much different from my experience in joining the band (way back in the Jurassic, you know). There were several tables set up in the gym, with an instructor and several related instruments at each table. The kids were encouraged to try everything and they were rated on a scale of 1 to 10 for each instrument. Then, when they had tried and been rated on everything, they sat down with the band director to determine which instrument they would play in the band.

The first thing the boy tried was flute, and he did okay. He got a 5. He had a hard time holding his mouth the right way to make the sound come out (the instructors did provide a lot of tips on mouth position and whatnot, so the kids weren't flying completely blind).

The next things he tried were the oboe and the bassoon. He actually did really well and got 8s for both. I was very impressed! I had always assumed they were hard to play because the reed looks so funky, but he got a really nice sound out of both of them. (As an aside, I had no idea a bassoon was so HUGE! I think it would have come up to at least his chin if he were standing.)

Next we went to the brass table, where he was able to try a trumpet, a French horn, a trombone, and a baritone/euphonium. He did okay on the trumpet (a 5), which was the instrument he had been leaning toward up to that point, but he got 7s on the rest of them, I think, and kind of fell in love with the baritone. He really liked the deep, low sound it made.

After that we went to the percussion table. Percussion is VERY competitive -- a lot of kids want to do it, and there are only 12 slots for incoming sixth graders. I could tell the boy wasn't super happy with his performance, but he really did great and got a 9 out of 10! Very exciting!

At that point there were only three instruments he hadn't tried -- clarinet, saxophone and tuba. The clarinet and saxophone were at the same table, so we got in line and waited. And waited. And waited. Holy crap, that was a long/slow line. The instructor there turned out to be one of the other band directors, and he was really great when it came to showing the kids how to position their mouths and blow and whatnot. They started on just the mouthpiece, which he then attached to the instrument and played scales or a little tune while the kids blew, so it actually sounded like they were playing something.

Unfortunately, the boy had had just about enough by this point. The gym was really noisy, as you can imagine, and as people finished and left the air conditioning got really cold and was blowing kind of forcefully through the vents. So he was in sensory overload pretty much, making the vocalizations he makes when he's feeling really auditory defensive and dealing with the cold wind from the air conditioners. I tried to talk him through it and spent a lot of time applying deep pressure to his neck, shoulders and back, which tends to calm him. He had his hands over his ears the whole time we were in that line. Oy.

Anyway, he finally got up there and tried the clarinet. And he sounded great! I think he got an 8. He tried the sax but wasn't getting quite enough air, I don't think. I can't remember but I think maybe he got a 7 on that one. He asked to try the flute again since it was the first one he had tried, and he got a much better sound out of it this time.

So finally, we were down to the last instrument -- tuba. At this point the boy was leaning heavily toward the baritone as his instrument of choice. He sat down, tried the tuba, and fell in love. I think he liked the baritone up to that point because it was the deepest one he had tried, tone-wise, but of course the tuba is even deeper and he really loved it. Once he figured out how to blow, he got a really nice sound out of it.

So, the next step was to visit with the band director, but the line was long and we decided to step out of the gym and walk the halls for a bit to give the boy a break. We found the drinking fountain, admired some murals, etc. and then went back and got in line. When it was our turn to meet with the band director, she looked at his ratings sheet and then used her laptop to pull up the scores from a music aptitude test the boy had taken a couple of weeks ago. She excitedly declared him "musically gifted" and told him his score was 95 out of 100! He scored 100 in lots of the sub-categories, apparently (pitch and melody are the two I remember, but there were more) and his lowest score was an 87 in I think syncopation? Or something? She explained that it involved following a beat. The boy can KEEP a beat really well, but following a beat that changes takes a whole heck of a lot of auditory processing skill. Still, 87 doesn't suck, so yay boy child!

(This is where I insert a huge mom brag, because hey! My boy is musically gifted! We always thought so, but neither DH nor I possess a whole lot of natural talent in that area. In fact, I myself possess NONE. I am tone deaf. That band-joining I mentioned up there in the first paragraph? Yeah, I got kicked out a couple of weeks later for lack of talent. I always thought it was amazing that the boy could sit at the piano and just make something up and have it sound like a real song by an actual composer, but for all I knew everyone who wasn't me could do that. So it was really neat to have an objective measure of his aptitude and skill in this area, and to have confirmation that he really is talented. Preen, preen.)

ANYWAY. The boy said he was in love with the tuba and the band director was thrilled. I guess they don't hear that a lot about the tuba. So while a lot of kids have to wait a couple of weeks to hear what they get to play, since they only have a certain number of slots for each instrument, the boy was told he could play tuba for sure. The school will issue him one for home and one to keep at school, so he won't have to carry it back and forth. He is so excited!

I am excited for him, but holy crap, he is going to have to practice that thing IN MY HOUSE. Time to buy some earplugs!

Square one

2007-03-08T11:41:00.000-08:00

As in, we're back to it, apparently.

Our beloved Dr. H, the boy's psychologist who is also Doctor #1 in the scenario below, dropped our insurance in December, thus leaving the boy without a therapist. Fortunately he has MOSTLY been okay, apart from some weirdness at the end of December/beginning of January (in the form of violent ticcing), so there's no huge hurry to find him another. But, you know, it needs to be done.

Doctor #2, the child psychiatrist it took 6+ months to get the girl in to see, has dropped our insurance as of this month. This is fairly devastating because we REALLY liked him, and so did the girl. There are precious few child psychiatrists in this town, and fewer of those are taking new patients, and fewer of those have waiting lists less than a year long, it seems. And now, EVEN FEWER of them are on our insurance plan, which apparently all doctors everywhere HATE, but we have no choice because it's the only one offered by DH's employer. I think perhaps a letter to his human resources department is in order.

Anyway, the upshot is that now we have no one other than the pediatrician who can prescribe meds for the girl if/when she needs them.

DH and I had a long talk about Doctor #3, another child psychologist who was set to test the girl, and realized that neither of us really liked him much at all. Or rather, he did not inspire confidence in us. Many of the comments he made during our initial visit led us to believe that he does not really keep himself up to date on the current literature, and there's no way that can NOT affect his testing of the girl. So we canceled it.

So.

The goal is to find a therapist sometime in the next couple of months (i.e., before school is out for this year) for BOTH kids and get started on some behavioral therapy. The boy still has the occasional perseveration issue, and the girl needs to get mastery over her wildly swinging emotions if at all possible. A secondary goal is to find someone to test the girl before school starts up again in August. We still don't know what it is that she even HAS. It would be nice to pin that down so we can start targeting it instead of taking this scattershot approach to helping her that we've been taking so far. We are looking for the full battery of tests, including learning disorders, so we need that info before she starts school.

SO FAR, she has been on a mostly even keel since winter break. She's having a good school year and I hear less and less every day about kids being mean to her. And the boy has been doing really well, also. His weekly meetings with the school counselor help with that a lot, and we are having a meeting after spring break with both his current counselor AND the new one he will have when he switches schools next year. Of course, over the summer he won't be seeing either of them, which is why we want to find a therapist before then.

In essence, we are taking a little bit of a breather before we launch into the therapist search YET AGAIN.

It's hard to look beyond that right now.

Car trouble

2007-03-01T11:04:00.000-08:00

Imagine you have a car that you absolutely love. It's completely unique -- no one else has one exactly like it and you can't believe it's really yours. You feel so lucky to have it.

Imagine, however, that the car is making a weird noise that you know it's not supposed to be making. It sounds absolutely horrible, like it's going to fall apart, and the longer you have the car, the worse the noise gets.

So suppose you take the car to a mechanic. But when he tries to take a look at the car, he can't get it to make the noise. You try to describe the noise to him, but he can't really tell what's wrong with it from your description and nothing is showing up on the diagnostics.

But the car is still making the noise, and you're getting more and more worried about it, so you try to take it to another mechanic. However, you're having a hard time finding a mechanic that actually works on that type of car. The ones who do have a waiting list several months long. Meanwhile the noise is getting worse, and you're hoping the car doesn't just up and die before you can get someone to take a look at it. You try reading books about cars and all the different things that can go wrong with them, but you're not a mechanic so you really have no idea what to do to fix it.

When you FINALLY get the car to another mechanic, he can't get it to make the noise either. So you go through the long process of getting the car in to yet ANOTHER mechanic, and this one ALSO can't get the car to make the noise. Every person to whom you try to describe the noise has a different idea of what might be wrong with the car, but nobody knows how to fix it. Meanwhile, the noise is just getting worse and you're worried sick about your car.

That car is the girl child. Yeah, that's right -- I just compared my daughter to a car. It's the best analogy I can think of for what we're going through over here.

We have been to three doctors so far. Doctor #1, a child psychologist, told us she met the diagnostic criteria for pediatric bipolar disorder and that we might want to consider medication. Doctor #2, a child psychiatrist with a 6+ month waiting list, isn't convinced she really is bipolar and doesn't recommend medication at this time. He thinks she might have an anxiety disorder along with something called cognitive distortion. Dr. #2 referred us to Doctor #3, another child psychologist who is going to test her but who thinks she might just be depressed because he says he has never seen a child her age who was actually bipolar. This concerns Doctor #2, who by the way might be dropping our insurance plan like IMMEDIATELY, which would mean we would have to find ANOTHER Doctor #2 and possibly another Doctor #3 to do the testing. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Meanwhile, the girl child is still WHATEVER she is. She's actually been on a fairly even keel lately, but she goes through definite cycles so the chances of her being in crisis again at some point are pretty damn good. The puberty clock is ticking, and I worry that if we don't get her diagnosed and get some sort of therapy or treatment plan going before those hormones hit, she is going to end up in the hospital with a social worker and God knows what else.

So that's what's been going on over here, pretty much. In case you were wondering.

Speed bumps

2006-10-27T19:03:00.000-07:00

Wow, it has been kind of a crazy week here in the Anthrope household.

Monday the boy child got in trouble for hitting another student and disobeying his teacher. Here's what happened: the boy has been playing this game at recess wherein another boy who we'll call Sylvester has claimed one of the playground structures as his "castle" and has hired the boy child and a few other boys to act as "guards". The guards are supposed to collect a fee of two quartz stones (which are all over the playground) from any child who wants to play on this structure. In return, Sylvester pays the guards in more quartz stones. The boy told me about this game several weeks ago but I didn't think too much of it. I was just happy to hear he was playing with other kids instead of moping around the playground by himself.

So, on Monday a little girl wanted to play on Sylvester's castle but refused to pay the fee, so the boy child slapped her. When his teacher tried to talk to him about it, he became very upset and uncommunicative and started throwing rocks. She told him that wasn't safe, and he immediately threw another rock. The teacher became very frustrated and called us to talk about it. I wasn't home at the time, so DH said we'd discuss it and one of us would email her.

We talked with the boy child extensively about what had happened. He said that Sylvester did not tell him to hit anyone who refused to pay and he wasn't able to tell us why he had done that. My impression was that he got a little too caught up in the game and took his role way too seriously, which tends to happen with him when he's role-playing (which is why we don't own an Xbox or anything similar -- we need him in the real world!). As far as the rocks were concerned, he said he threw one rock into the air out of frustration. When the teacher said that wasn't safe, he thought she meant it wasn't safe to throw them into the air. So he immediately threw another one and aimed it at the ground so it couldn't hit anyone. It was only after he threw the second rock that he realized the teacher was telling him not to throw rocks at all (because she hadn't said that!).

So. We talked about good choices vs. bad choices, how the hitting thing was wrong, yadda yadda. I emailed the teacher and explained the boy's version of events (including the background about Sylvester's game, which I don't think she knew). Then I gave her some additional info on his disability, like the thing where he needs VERY SPECIFIC instructions. If you want him to stop throwing rocks altogether, you have to come right out and say that or he will misunderstand. I also told her that the boy doesn't handle pronouns well so you do have to be extremely specific (i.e., if you just say "stop it" he has no idea what "it" is -- he will just get very confused and stressed which will likely cause him to act out MORE as a self-stimming kind of thing).

She had asked for our suggestions on how to handle the situation, and I told her that we would leave any school-related consequences up to her but that we would prefer they be instructive rather than strictly punitive. I suggested that if he needed to sit out of recess, he do it in the counselor's office and use that time to talk to her about what happened and what other choices he could/should have made instead of hitting. Usually kids who have to miss recess for punishment just sit in the principal's office, and that will do no damn good whatsoever as far as teaching him anything about what went wrong. I also suggested that he apologize to the girl he hit, either in person or in writing. That would be an exercise in empathy, of which he has very little because of his disability. It turns out that the teacher followed my suggestions so that's all well and good.

I always feel a little weird when stuff like this happens, though. So much of the boy's behavior is tied directly to his disability, and I will absolutely take every opportunity to point that out and explain in detail exactly what is happening when he behaves a certain way. They seem to know very little about Asperger Syndrome up there and I feel it's important for them to realize that while he is extremely high-functioning academically, he really does have severe deficits that affect EVERY AREA of his life. Grades and test scores do not give a true or complete picture of how he functions at school, and I will hammer that home as forcefully and frequently as I need to.

On the other hand, I don't want to sound like one of those parents who insists their child is a little angel who never deliberately misbehaves. He does! It's just that USUALLY, whatever is happening has something to do with his disability -- the perseverations, lack of social skills, executive function deficits, etc. Particularly at school where he is in approval-seeking mode.

ANYWAY. We are only up to Monday, and there's more!

Tuesday was just the boy facing consequences at school, which went fine.

Wednesday is the day the girl child has an art class after school, but this week she forgot about it and went outside for car pickup after school instead. I don't think she realized what day it was until I showed up with only the boy's name on my little window card. She was VERY upset. It was raining hard that day at dismissal time so it took a long time for me to work my way through the car line to get them. By the time I got there, she had missed 15 minutes of the art class. I told her she could go back in and do it, but she didn't want to. She was a little too freaked out to handle it, I think. So all the way home in the car she was screaming and melting down and freaking out in a major way, which of course set the boy off, and this ended up going on for FIVE HOURS. Five hours of a full-on bipolar meltdown. And she wanted me with her, like RIGHT with her, practically physically attached, the whole time. I am trying to learn how to handle things when this happens, but I'm still not very good at it. It is so unbelievably draining. I have to stuff all of my own issues down deep so hers can fill me up and I can respond the way she needs me to. But we are talking five hours without any sort of break at all, not even for a minute. Not even to PEE. Oy.

Thursday after school she did it again, but this time it was over her homework and it only lasted maybe two hours, with a break for taekwondo (which I think was good for her as it gave her a physical outlet and kind of derailed her emotions) in-between. Today was okay although after school, a brief playdate, and a Halloween party she was starting to lose it by bedtime.

She is not in a good place right now and I don't know what to do. She worries me to death, this kid. I HATE seeing this disease just eat and eat at her the way it does. We still have an appointment with a child psychiatrist in January but we have not been able to get her in to see anyone sooner than that. She's not bad enough to take her to the hospital or anything -- she has never threatened to harm herself or anyone else -- but she is just completely out of control sometimes and I know it scares her probably even more than it scares me. I just want her to be happy! Argh!

Wednesday was by far the worst -- her meltdown set the boy's sensory defensiveness into overdrive and and one point I had them both screaming at the tops of their lungs and completely unresponsive to anything I said or did. They both had their disorders firing on all cylinders and I was caught in the middle of it, trying to give them both what they needed but unable to reach either of them. That was a BAD DAY.

Whoever said "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" did not have a bipolar kid, I'll bet.

Anyway, the weekend is here so maybe we can keep things on an even keel for a couple of days at least. And then Monday it's back to school. Oy.

504

2006-10-06T13:52:00.000-07:00

Okay, so we had the 504 meeting on Monday and it went pretty well, I think. DH and I both went, along with the vice principal, the boy child's teacher, his counselor and a special aide who acted as secretary for the meeting.

First we explained the boy's problems with executive functioning. This is his major deficit and it governs his ability to organize and to generalize. This is why it is nearly impossible for him to remember what he needs to do at the end of each day in terms of getting all of his homework papers and stuff into his backpack. It also affects his ability to get started on assignments and to ask for help when he needs it.

We stressed that the most important thing for the boy, particularly when it comes to teaching him these skills for which his brain is simply not wired, is consistency. He needs a routine, and it has to be done the same way EVERY DAY so it will become a body memory. That's the only way he's ever going to be able to do this stuff independently.

Anyway, everyone seemed to be in agreement and so the meeting went very well. We were able to get the following:

Extra copies of all the boy's school textbooks that we can keep at home. I read this suggestion in one of the AS books (can't remember which one, sorry) and it made a ton of sense. Half the time when he does remember to bring home his homework, it will turn out he needs a textbook to complete it and he will have forgotten the book. Or vice-versa. This makes one less thing he has to remember to bring home, which alleviates a lot of stress for him.
A checklist that the teacher will use with him at school. This spells out explicitly what he needs to do at the end of each day (write his assignment in the planner, put his homework in his homework folder, put the planner and folder in his backpack, etc.). The teacher will go through this with him step-by-step at first to get him started, and she will sign off on the checklist when it has been completed. Then we'll also sign it at home. Eventually we hope he will be able to complete the checklist independently.
An aide who can be available to accompany the boy on field trips when I can't go. I decided to ask for this just for the hell of it. It's something he really does need, but I wasn't sure we'd be able to get it. Turns out it was no problem at all! Yay! This relieves a ton of stress for ME because I have worried myself sick on every field trip that I've had to miss. There are so many things that can (and have) set him off when he's outside the routine of school, so this is really pretty huge.
Continued weekly meetings between the boy and the counselor to work on social skills training (they have been doing this since last year and it has been working out GREAT).
A meeting between DH, myself, the boy's current counselor and the counselor he will have in sixth grade, to be held this spring. This isn't actually part of the 504 plan; there was some mumbo-jumbo about them not being able to officially set that up for some reason. However, the counselor, who has been WONDERFUL and in every case has absolutely followed through on what she said she would do since the beginning of last year, has promised that she will set this up for us. This will let DH and me have face time with the new counselor and kind of open the door for the boy to be transitioned from his current counselor to the new one. It's really important that when he moves to middle school he has at least one adult that he knows on campus who can be a "safe" person for him, especially during those first few weeks.

In addition, his teacher has rearranged the desks so that he sits closer to her and she can keep better tabs on him for in-class assignments. He literally does not know where to begin sometimes and has trouble figuring out what steps go in what order. We all agree that he is EXTREMELY bright and can absolutely do the work (and get an A, usually) once he gets going; he just needs a bit of prompting to keep him on track sequentially.

I've forwarded some general info to his teacher about AS and highlighted the bits that particularly apply to the boy. We've also asked that in-class partners/groups be chosen by some arbitrary system rather than letting the kids choose. Like many kids with AS, the boy is often left out in the latter case -- not necessarily because the other kids don't like him, but because by the time he figures out what "choose a partner" means and what he needs to do to make that happen for himself (both from a proactive and receptive standpoint), the other kids are already paired off. It's part of the whole social skills deficit thing. So hopefully the teacher will make a few changes there.

Anyway, so far, so good. We're in the trial phase of all this now, so we'll see how it goes.

Here we go

2006-09-29T06:25:00.000-07:00

We finally have a date for the boy's 504 meeting -- Monday! I'm freaking out just a little because I feel like there is so much stuff I have to cram into my head before then. I really need to take some time this weekend to write out some goals and strategies and whatnot.

Most of the books I've read have been SUPREMELY unhelpful when it comes to advice on how to write a Section 504 plan. Typically the advice consists of: don't do it. Get an IEP instead. Uh, thanks? We may end up having to push for one eventually, but in the meantime, it would be nice to have some ACTUAL strategies for the 504 meeting. Since the boy is fortunately so high functioning in so many areas (except for the ones where he's really SEVERELY impaired, like organization and reading nonverbal cues), we have the luxury of being able to try out a few things and establish a paper trail on what works and what doesn't. So yeah, it would be nice to have some acknowledgement in the literature that sometimes it's okay to TRY the 504 route before you get all up in the school's grill with hearings and consultants and whatnot, particularly when MOST of your kid's needs are already being met.

But what do I know? I'm just THE PARENT.

The boy also has an appointment with Dr. H today, the first one in about six weeks (we had one scheduled for a couple of weeks ago, but the doc had to reschedule). I honestly think the boy is doing great and wonder if maybe we should just put Dr. H on call if any problems come up rather than keeping a regularly scheduled appointment with him. I guess I'll talk to him about it at today's appointment.

Other than that, things are moving right along. The only issue the boy is having lately is remembering to bring home his homework. He finally gets caught up, then he forgets it for a couple of days in a row and we start all over again. His teacher is supposed to be helping with this but that's the main reason for the 504 meeting/plan -- to get an ACTUAL plan for dealing with this on paper so that everyone on the boy's "team" can reinforce it using the same procedures and the same language. Because that's what he needs -- rote routine and consistency.

The girl is doing very well in school this year but her spelling is still a major issue. At the end of first grade, she was on the low end of the "normal" range for spelling for her age group. The assumption was that she would catch up in second grade, but that never happened because frankly she had a horrible teacher. Now her third grade teacher, who is wonderful and as I mentioned before was the boy's teacher for this grade, is concerned and THANK GOODNESS someone up there finally is. We've come up with a temporary plan to help her catch up, and I really hope it works. Today is her first spelling test since putting the plan into place so I'm really curious to see how she does.

I've been trying to spend a lot of extra time with the girl lately and it seems to have done wonders for her mood. DH and the kids got me the first three seasons of Bewitched on DVD for my birthday last week, and so the girl and I have been watching them together. This has led to a lot of discussions about what things were like when I was a kid, which the girl loves for some reason. She is so funny!

The long-awaited back-to-school update

2006-09-16T19:53:00.000-07:00

Now that we're a month in...

The boy child is doing great. He loves fifth grade so far, especially since they do math and science every single day. So far he's doing a pretty good job of remembering to bring home his homework and folder and all that, and this year I'm actually keeping track of the days he forgets it so I'll have that info when we meet with the admin folks about his 504 plan (more on that later).

My cautious optimism about his teacher seems to be paying off. It turns out she's good friends with his teacher from last year and the two of them have been trading information back and forth, which is really good. There have been a few minor incidents but his teacher and I have communicated and we seem to be on the same page as far as getting the boy what he needs to succeed. I've been told by the vice principal that the 504 meeting will be sometime in early October, which I guess is okay, but I'm going to become a squeaky wheel if I don't get an actual date pretty soon.

In other news, the boy is doing a robotics class after school once a week and he LOVES it! We tried to get him into this class last year but the signup procedures were wacky so we missed out. Another boy from his class is in it, too, and they've been partnered up so we're hoping he'll make a new friend. Speaking of friends, the boy child was invited to a birthday party this week! A boy in his class whom he's known for a couple of years invited him to a small party at his house with just a few other boys. The boy child was thrilled and he had a great time at the party. I was so happy for him. If you read this blog regularly or know us in real life, you know that the boy hardly EVER gets invited to parties or playdates, so this was a BIG deal. Yay!

Also, the really big news is that he has graduated from occupational therapy! Once it was obvious he had the bike riding thing down, there just wasn't much else for the therapist to work on with him. He has mastered so many things in the past few years that he's beyond where he would really need to be to receive therapy. Of course, we can always start it up again if new issues arise, but for now he's going it alone. We still see Dr. H every 4-6 weeks just to check in, but honestly, I'm not sure how much longer we'll need to continue that either. The boy has just matured so much and is doing so well! (Gosh, I hope I didn't just jinx it!)

The girl child is also having a good year in school. It took her all of one day to get over her fear of the car-rider line -- when she came home on the first day of school, she told me that she loved it and wanted to keep doing it. I guess most of her friends go home that way, too, so she always has someone to sit with while she's waiting for me. Academically she's bringing home really good grades -- even her spelling has improved! Third grade is the first year they get actual number grades at our school, so I'll be very interested to see her first report card.

She was having a conflict with another student at the beginning of the year, but that seems to have been taken care of. I guess this other little girl is a bit of a bad seed and was really targeting her. Unfortunately the girl child's teacher from last year was worse than useless when it came to stuff like this -- she considered any reports of bullying to be tattling and would not get involved at all. So the girl wasn't telling her teacher about it, figuring nothing would come of it. Fortunately, as I said, this year the girl child has the same teacher that the boy had for third grade and we KNOW she does not stand for anything like that. So I sent her an email and that seemed to take care of things. Whew! This is otherwise a good year for the girl socially because her best friend is in her class, along with several kids she's had in class previously (all really nice kids, too -- none of the ones who have picked on her in the past).

The girl is also doing some extra-curricular stuff this year. She's taking an art class after school once a week. She's only had one class so far but she LOVES it. Yay! She is so creative that it just blows me away. I did not get that gene at all; I think it skipped from my mom over me to land on the girl.

Unfortunately with school starting up again she is back to rapid-cycling with her moods. I don't think it's quite as bad as it was last year, for the most part, but that could be because we know what it is now and have learned to handle it a little better. DH is so much more patient with her than I am, though. I may end up in therapy myself before this is all over! She just pushes every single button I have and it makes me crazy, and then I feel bad that it makes me crazy. Ugh.

Both kids are still doing taekwondo. The boy child should have his first-degree black belt in November, and the girl will have hers a few months after that if all goes well (she started later than the boy did). The class schedule has changed such that they only have it twice a week now, and together with the boy stopping OT that means we have a little bit more free time after school now, which is REALLY nice. We're still busy, but since their robot and art classes take place at the school, immediately after school lets out (no coming home, then going back), it has really cut down the amount of time we have to spend in the car. Woo!

Well, that's about all I have the energy for now. We have teacher conferences next week so I'll know more then about how things are really going for them academically. Overall, though, they're doing great!

Breaking news!

2006-08-31T06:38:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know, I owe you all a back-to-school update, but first I have to give you this exciting news:

THE BOY CHILD CAN RIDE A BIKE!

A two-wheeler! Without training wheels!

He and his occupational therapist have been working on this all summer. In addition to spending time on the actual bike, she has been doing lots of work with him on an exercise ball to help with his balance and bilateral coordination. Up to now he has only been able to do four pedals in a row without putting his foot down. So the goal yesterday was 8 pedals in a row, but something just clicked with the boy and he took off! He rode up and down the street, and then we went to the park and he rode there, and last night DH took the kids for a bike ride around the block and he rode for that too!

He's riding! Woo!!

He has made such huge strides in the past year, I can't even tell you. I don't know if it's just a maturity issue or what, but suddenly he can do all these things he never could do, like swim (under water, even!) and ride escalators and now ride a two-wheeler. Last night after the bike ride he said, "Now I can do all the things normal 10-year-olds can do!" Which made me happy and sad at the same time. But yes, he can!

Go boy go!

Summer's end

2006-08-10T10:15:00.000-07:00

Okay, yes, I know I have done a horrible job of updating this thing over the summer. Here are the bullet points.

Boy Child

He is no longer afraid of escalators! He and DH spent a day at the mall several weeks ago and just very calmly practiced the whole escalator thing. He now goes up and down them with no problem at all.
Still not riding the bike, but he is SO close.
He has grown so much this summer, both physically and in terms of maturity. I am so amazed by him. My baby!
He is REALLY looking forward to school starting. He says he has missed his friends and he's really looking forward to all the fun stuff fifth graders get to do at our school (like the campus TV station, the science fair, helping the kids in the car rider line get in and out of their cars, etc.).
We met his teacher yesterday and while I know nothing about her, she seems very nice. We were assured by both the vice principal and his fourth grade teacher that a lot of thought would go into his placement this year, so we are cautiously optimistic.

Girl Child

Does not need glasses!
Does need braces, but that's all kind of up in the air right now because the orthodontist appointment this week went HORRIBLY. I'll write more details later.
Says she's excited about school starting, but I think she's a wee bit anxious too because she's been requiring quite a bit of extra attention lately.
She will have the same teacher this year that the boy child had in third grade, which is WONDERFUL. Seriously, about 50% of my anxiety over school starting up again evaporated when I found out. She's an excellent match for the girl, will definitely be on top of the emotional issues and whatnot, and I am THRILLED.
Is REALLY pissed that I've switched her and the boy to the car rider line for dismissal this year. I didn't have a choice, really -- the school decided that beginning this year, only the kindergarten and first grade parents can pick their kids up in the main hallway (which is what I've always done). I told her we'd give it a month and if she still hated the car rider line at the end of September, I'd try to get "special permission" to go back to the old way of doing things. I don't think it will be an issue once she gets the hang of it and sees how many of her friends are in the car rider line, but I'll follow through on that if I have to.

Okay! So hopefully I'll be able to flesh this out a little more in the near future. Tonight we go up to the school to pick up our pre-ordered school supplies and tour the classrooms, and then school starts on Monday! Yikes!

Books and bacon, all in the same day!

2006-07-11T14:05:00.000-07:00

Well, the kids and I had a very nice outing today. I had been promising them we'd get cards for the library closest to our house, but we hadn't gotten around to it yet (and also, it's $40 for a family card because we're outside the city limits, which is kind of a lot of money -- I could buy, like, almost FOUR books with that!) so we went today. The process was much less arduous than what I remember from the last time I got a card there, which was several years ago when the boy was just a baby. They've also remodeled the library since then and it's now VERY nice and really well-organized, but still small enough that the kids and I can wander around a bit and not get lost from one another.

Nearly the entire ground floor is given over to kid stuff, which is nice. I thought the kids would take a long time looking at EVERY SINGLE SHELF, but they really didn't at all. I know the boy likes science, so I kind of led him back to that section and he looked at a few books, then begged off to check out the kids' computers. The girl child quickly selected a book about ice cream and another about prehistoric ocean predators and then she, too, headed for the computers. When I finally pried them away from the technology, we went upstairs to where the non-kid books were. The girl settled into a study carrel to look at her books while the boy checked out the math/logic books and I browsed the cooking/food books for a bit. Finally the boy selected a logic book and I decided not to get anything this time around. We checked out and headed to Cracker Barrel for lunch.

The girl had a scrambled egg, a biscuit and some bacon for her lunch and she made yummy noises the whole way through. She's a BIG bacon and eggs fan, that girl, which is how I know she's MINE. The boy has reached the size/age where I no longer limit him to the kid menu at any given restaurant, so he got the adult "veggie" plate with mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, steak fries and corn. VERY nutritious. Ugh. We only eat out about once a month so I don't really care what they get, but come on, boy child! Work with me here! At least get something that's not beige! He didn't like the mashed potatoes because they had skins, didn't like the macaroni because it had some "brown stuff" in it (scorched cheese, I'm thinking), didn't love the fries because they were thick, and ate all the corn. Sigh.

ANYWAY, after lunch we of course had to shop around a bit in the store. The girl bought one of those stupid weasel ball things with her own money. The boy hadn't brought any money, so I sprung for a $5 gyroscope for him (and a Hello Kitty Pez for the girl, and a Sky Bar for me).

Then it was off to the grocery store, then home where the boy became very very frustrated with his gyroscope because it was hard to wind and he wasn't pulling the string fast enough for it to stay upright. I told him it takes practice. He retreated to the computer, where he designed a perpetual motion vehicle thingie based on gyroscopes. So he's happy now, I guess.

We've been super busy around here lately. Last week the girl child had her last color belt test for taekwondo. Now both she and the boy are "recommended" black belts, which is a VERY big deal. I am really proud of them for sticking with it so long (~2 years so far) and for working so hard. And, most importantly, they're in the same classes again! Our schedule was pretty insane for a while there, with the girl in blue/brown/red classes and the boy in black belt classes (different days, different times). We still only have one day free per week now, and that's when there's no Dr. H, but at least the schedule is a little less hectic.

Also last week, the kids had dentist appointments. I've written in the past about how fun (NOT) it is taking the boy child to the dentist. Well, I'm happy to say that he did great this time! He did his bitewing x-rays and everything! No tears! We even had a new technician who wasn't familiar with his "quirks", and he did just great with her. Yay! He's really growing up!

The dentist was a bit concerned about the girl child's alignment, so we're headed to the orthodontist in a couple of weeks to see if it's time for braces. The kids and I are also going in for eye exams this week. The boy and I are a couple of months overdue for our yearly exams, but this will be the first exam for the girl child. She's been complaining that the words "jump around" when she tries to read, so we want to rule out any physical problems before we start looking at a possible learning disability. Plus, with our family history of eye/vision problems it certainly wouldn't hurt for her to get checked out.

So there's a slight possibility that the girl may be starting third grade with glasses AND braces. Fun! I think she'll look DAMN cute.

Nothing new to report on the bipolar front. She's been pretty stable lately. We still have our January appointment at Dr. #1, and we're still trying to get her in somewhere else but that's been a HUGE exercise in frustration so far. Gah! She went through this anxiety peeing thing recently and when I took her in to the pediatrician to get checked out, she (the ped) recommended psychotherapy. So there's yet another avenue to look into.

But for now, we're swimming. And going to the library. And eating lots of grilled food. School starts in five weeks! Ack!

Say what?

2006-06-20T22:02:00.000-07:00

The boy child had his monthly visit with Dr. H yesterday (the OTHER Dr. H) and we agreed that he's in a really good place right now. So far he's having a great, low-key summer. We try to go swimming at least once a week and taekwondo is three times per week (and occupational therapy is once a week) but the rest of the time is mostly free time for him to build with Legos or invent stuff or experiment with stuff or teach himself Java programming, which is his latest thing. He seems very relaxed and un-stressed, which is very nice to see.

Dr. H noticed something that DH and I have also noticed lately however: the boy child's speech has become really unclear. He's always had a bit of a problem with sliding his "s" sound but it's never been really severe. Lately he's really slurring a lot, though, and we're not sure why that is. We had him evaluated by a private speech pathologist a couple of years ago, and she said he had a lot of muscle laxity around his jaw and could probably benefit from oral-motor therapy, but our insurance nixed the idea and we couldn't afford to pay out of pocket. And then when the school's speech pathologist evaluated him as part of his FIE last fall, she said his speech was within the normal range. It seems to have gotten worse since then, though, so we're going to ask for a speech re-eval when he gets his overall re-evaluation this fall.

I showed Dr. H our provider list for a child psychiatrist for the girl child and he was able to give me another name of someone who might possibly be good, so I've turned that over to DH for followup. Maybe we can finally get her an appointment THIS YEAR sometime. Sheesh. She's doing well right now too, though, which is good. It's interesting to see, now that we know what we're dealing with, how her manic and depressive states are so different from her simple "happy" and "sad" moods. There really is a big difference in behavior between simply being happy and being manic. I feel like I need to do a lot more reading/research on this whole bipolar thing, but just simply observing her has been so enlightening.

Today we had our followup with the allergist about the girl child's skin tests, and it turns out she's allergic to pretty much everything too. VERY allergic to dogs, grass and certain trees, and she did have a reaction to soy. We've decided to stick with oral medication for the time being rather than doing shots, for pretty much the same reasons we've decided to skip shots for the boy child.

So the bad news is, we can't get a dog. But the good news is: no tofu, ever!

Ouch!

2006-06-15T20:07:00.000-07:00

Well, the girl child had her allergy skin tests today. The boy had such an easy time of it that I had been telling her there was nothing to worry about, it wouldn't hurt, it would be really easy, etc. Unfortunately, we got a different nurse this time and she was not nearly as gentle with the needles. It DID hurt, and most of the girl child's 30 scratches bled at least a little. Grrr! I felt so bad for her. We asked the woman to lighten up a bit, and she kind of did, but that was after she'd done more than half of the scratches.

The girl child did NOT take this well, and I can't blame her. She cried quite a bit when the nurse was out of the room. I was really proud of her for speaking up and letting the nurse know it was hurting, though. Poor kid. Like with the boy child, it took about two hours altogether. They had a TV/VCR in the room with an Ice Age video, so we watched that (the whole thing! with time left over!) and I think it helped distract her just a little bit. But it still hurt. I bought her a little toy and some potato chips afterwards as a reward.

Judging by the reactions I saw, I'm guessing she's allergic to planet earth just like her brother. But we'll find out for sure on Tuesday.

He's allergic to life, apparently

2006-06-13T20:13:00.000-07:00

Last month DH and I decided to let the allergy/asthma specialist that both of us have been seeing for a while manage the kids' allergy/asthma issues as well, instead of the pediatrician. We just weren't sure she was 100% on top of things, and we really didn't like the idea of having to take them into a waiting room full of sick kids if they were just having really bad seasonal allergy symptoms.

So we took them in to see him (he's another Dr. H, not to be confused with the OTHER Dr. H) and it was determined that the kids needed allergy skin tests so we would know exactly what we were dealing with. The boy child was VERY upset at the thought of having the tests done, but when it came time to do it he did great! It was almost weird how calm he was during the whole process. They do the thing where they put a drop of solution on the skin and then nick it with a sewing needle (as opposed to those weird panels whatever it is that some doctors use). He got pricked 31 times, all over the insides and outsides of both forearms, and only said "ouch" three times. The rest of the time, he didn't even flinch! I think the fact that they marked him up with a Sharpie distracted him a little bit from what was going on. I told him it was the one time he could have marker all over his arms without getting yelled at, which he thought was pretty cool.

Anyway, we got the results yesterday and it turns out he's allergic to EVERYTHING. Seriously, he reacted to every single thing they tested. They didn't test food, because we haven't noticed any issues there, but dogs, cats, molds, pollens, grasses, trees, dust mites -- you name it. If it exists on planet earth, he's allergic to it, pretty much. Poor kid!

We've decided against allergy shots for now. He may WANT to take them someday, when he's a bit older, but right now it would be super traumatic for him, and also there's just no way we could get down there every week for him to get the shots, especially during the school year. So for now we're sticking with Singulair, which seems to be working well for him (recently switched from Zyrtec, which had stopped working).

The girl child gets her skin tests on Thursday. She's REALLY nervous about it. I know she'll be fine once we get in there; she's just getting herself all worked up. I've pointed out to her several times, NOT within the boy child's hearing, that she is WAY tougher than he is so if he could handle it, it can't be that bad. But she's not buying it. Sigh. We'll see what happens. She does have a lot of food issues, so I'm going to have them test her for that, which means she'll probably get even more arm-pricks than the boy did. I'm sure she'll react to dogs and grass and probably some trees, because we've noticed symptoms with all those things, but it'll be interesting to see if there's anything else she's allergic to.

On the diagnosis front for the girl, we finally got in touch with the one child psychiatrist that was on both our provider list and the list of recommendations we got from Dr. H (the OTHER Dr. H). So she has an appointment -- in JANUARY. That was the earliest he could see her. We're on the cancellation list, and in the meantime we'll be running our provider list by Dr. H again, just to see if he's heard anything good or bad about any of the other doctors on it. But geez! Here's hoping she doesn't become suicidal or anything in the next seven months, eh?

Stupid US healthcare system.

Summertime

2006-06-07T05:24:00.000-07:00

Wow, I am doing a horrible job of keeping this thing up to date. Sorry about that! We got busy with end-of-school stuff, and then beginning-of-summer stuff, and since then I've been more or less asleep or doped up on allergy meds the whole time.

Anyway, the boy child is doing really well so far this summer. We haven't had any bug problems since school ended (knock wood) so that has made things MUCH less stressful around here. We're finished with swimming lessons and the boy is now swimming like a fish with no hesitation whatsoever! He still doesn't want to go in the deep end or go down the slide (which is IN the deep end) at our neighborhood pool, but he's swimming underwater and generally having a fine old time WITHOUT floaties, which is huge progress for him.

Several weeks ago he became a recommended black belt in taekwondo, and he is so proud of himself, as he rightly should be. I have to admit, I got a little teary at the ceremony when I thought of how far he had come and how this represented so much more to him than just getting a cool belt to wear with his uniform. I couldn't believe how well he did with his sparring considering he has had so many problems with that due to his sensory defensiveness. You never would have known to see him sparring at his belt graduation! He was aggressive as all get-out, which I have NEVER seen with him before. Yay, boy child! He's going to have to work pretty hard to turn his recommended black belt into a "decided" black belt, but he can do it. When the instructor put his new belt on him, she asked him what his next goal was and he said, "Grandmaster!" That's my boy!

The girl child is also having a good summer so far. She had a lot of social problems at school this year so that particular anxiety has been eliminated, at least temporarily. We are seeing definite manic and depressive stages with her, along with mixed-state rages and plenty of rapid cycling, but she has been on a MOSTLY even keel for the past several days. I've noticed she does much better when she gets lots of extra attention, so I've been trying to give that to her as best I can. She has become really helpful around the house and has taken to calling herself "mini-mom" as she helps me fold laundry or unload the dishwasher or whatever. Hey, if being my free child labor makes her happy, I am all for it! (Kidding!)(But only a little!)

We're still in the process of trying to get a second opinion/confirmation on her diagnosis in order to come up with some sort of treatment plan, but it hasn't been easy. DH has done quite a bit of legwork trying to get it all pre-approved by our insurance and comparing our provider list with recommendations we received from Dr. H. There was only ONE name on both lists, and we called to get on the waiting list to see him but it's a complicated process (we had to call on the 1st of the month to get on a call-back list, and we're still waiting for the call back, which is supposed to come this week). Apparently there's a shortage of child psychiatrists here in town. Thank God she's not actually in crisis right now, huh? It's beginning to look like the only way to actually get her on medication, if/when that's what we decide to do, is to get her admitted through the ER or something. Yeah, don't get me started.

Well, I'm going to stop at that brief/incomplete update for now. I will TRY TRY TRY to update more often. Like I always say.

Week in review and a diagnosis for the girl child

2006-05-06T11:32:00.000-07:00

It has been an eventful week here in the Donkey Burger household.

Tuesday we had our parent-teacher conferences for both kids. The girl child has made huge strides this year in her reading and math and is doing very well academically except that her spelling/writing continue to be a concern. Her teacher offered nothing whatsoever in the way of solutions to this problem, which is typical of her, unfortunately. So we'll be looking into that a little more closely over the summer and seeing what we can do to help the girl get up to speed.

The boy is also excelling academically, which is no surprise because this school happens to teach the way he learns. Most of his lower grades have been due to problems with organization, which relates back to his disability, which they were supposed to be helping him with through general education since he doesn't qualify for services, but that hasn't happened. We expressed frustration; his teacher apologized. We asked if she would fill out her teacher survey for the FIE any differently now than she did back at the beginning of the school year when she'd only known the boy for two weeks and she said YES, ABSOLUTELY. So that was encouraging.

Wednesday the boy had occupational therapy but didn't want to work on bike riding, which was NOT encouraging. He said he would do it next time and we are going to hold him to it.

Thursday when I dropped the kids off at school, I mentioned to the vice principal that I would be emailing her (so it would be in writing, because if it's not in writing it DOESN'T EXIST) to let her know that we are asking for the boy to be re-evaluated at the beginning of the next school year. She told me she thought that was likely to be an exercise in futility, so I had to go all medieval on her ass and start listing off the MULTIPLE discipline issues the boy has had this past school year, ALL of which relate back to his disability (particularly his inability to read social cues and process sensory input), along with the fact that we had spoken with his teacher and she thought the re-eval was a good idea. I haven't written the email yet because it's obvious to me now that I will have to draft it in legalese and I want to make sure I do it right. I'll definitely send it off sometime this coming week.

Friday was our school's version of Field Day, wherein the kids do all sorts of outdoor activities (about half of them involving water in some way). This has traditionally been a very difficult day for the boy child because of the multiple transitions he has to make (they also attend seminars both indoors and outdoors and so they end up changing locations/activities every 30 minutes all day long) and also because of the sensory overload. And so every year, I have to stay at school to act as the boy's aide/chaperone on this day.

He actually did very well this year in terms of the number of freakouts he had. The first thing the did was attend "opening ceremonies" which consists of sitting in a parking lot hearing a pep talk from the principal. It had rained the night before and the blacktop was wet, so the boy didn't want to sit down on it. His teacher finally talked him into just squatting down, but he wasn't altogether happy about it. Next his class had their first round of outdoor activities involving water and he did REALLY well with that. He has worked very hard to overcome his sensory defensiveness where water is concerned (particularly water on his face) so he was able to participate just fine. Next we headed indoors for an assembly and he did fine sitting on the floor of the cafeteria for that and dealing with the noise issues. Next we headed to the gym for some aerobics and he LOVED that. Then we went back to the classroom for a snack and the boy sat right next to me on the "story chair" and seemed really happy that I was there with him. Aw!

After that the kids played on the outdoor playscape for a while and that's where things started to go downhill, because there was a rock-throwing incident in which he was involved. Another boy (the one he's had problems with off and on all year) threw some pea gravel at the boy and I guess one little stone went in the boy's mouth and he choked on it (not CHOKED choked, because it was small) and then spit it out. The boy was VERY upset and spent a lot of time writhing on the ground making gagging noises and he was pretty teary afterwards. Fortunately it was time to go inside and watch a Kung Fu demonstration. The boy did okay with that but I could tell he was VERY scattered. The instructor had the kids do some moves and the boy was showing off a bit and not paying attention to where his body was and what it was doing, which lead to some bumps with other kids, which sort of got the boy all wound up and he was on the verge of spazzing out completely. When that was over, the kids headed next door for a craft project and that's when I took my leave because I had promised the girl I would eat lunch with her.

So I found my mom, who was also joining us for lunch, and the girl and we all ate hamburgers. The girl visited more with her friends than with us, which was fine. She is so easy at school! Why can't she be like that at home?!

The boy's lunch period overlaps with the girl's by 10 minutes, so I had to cut my visit with the girl short in order to find the boy (actually Mom found him, then we switched off while she said goodbye to the girl). The boy child's teacher told me there had been a minor incident during the craft class in which the boy had gotten upset, which didn't surprise me. Oy. They eat lunch outside on field day and the boy was really not happy about that because he'd had enough of the outdoors by then. The ground was wet so I ran off to my car to fetch a blanket for him to sit on. Then he saw a bug and started freaking out and crying and saying he wanted to go inside. Mom and I had to form a human shield around him, with her on one side and me on the other, standing practically on top of him and waving our arms to keep the bugs away while he finished his lunch.

After lunch we had another outdoor activity session and surprisingly, the boy was just fine! He did some more water games and played on the playscape without incident. Then it was back inside for two more seminars and then we were DONE! Hurray!

But our day wasn't over! After we got home from school, my parents came back over to stay with the kids (and take them to taekwondo) so that DH and I could meet with Dr. H about the girl child. We had been very much looking forward to this appointment because he was going to give us the results of all the testing he had done with her and tell us his official opinion on what her diagnosis was.

And the verdict is: bipolar disorder. Dr. H said she definitely fits the diagnostic criteria. Which, while not a surprise, is not exactly good news. In fact, it really kind of sucks. The next step, according to Dr. H, is to decide whether we want to do medication (that's actually more of a "when" than an "if", because there's not much else you can do for bipolar apart from medication) and if so, then we have to try to get in with a child psychiatrist. (Dr. H is a psychologist and can't prescribe meds.) There are things we can do to deal with the rages she has, and he gave suggestions for that. And once she's stabilized on some sort of medication, we can look at any behavioral "leftovers" and see if she might benefit from some behavioral therapy in addition to the medication.

What we will likely do FIRST is get a second opinion. Not because we disagree with the diagnosis, but because it's a pretty major thing and we want to be absolutely sure. I'm not really able to look beyond that first step right now, because it's all a little overwhelming. I have a LOT of reading/research to do and we don't want to go off half-cocked, but we WILL be getting her some help.

I am exhausted.

Pretty day, annoyed mom

2006-04-30T15:38:00.000-07:00

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

2006-04-26T06:09:00.000-07:00

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

2006-04-20T06:01:00.000-07:00

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

2006-04-13T06:15:00.000-07:00

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

2006-04-09T19:08:00.000-07:00

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

2006-04-06T18:00:00.000-07:00

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

2006-04-06T06:16:00.000-07:00

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!

Busy as a ... one of those things we don't talk about

2006-03-14T19:49:00.000-08:00

Just a quick update on the boy....

The bug fear is coming back just a little bit. We are on spring break now, and it was spring break a year ago when the boy had his borderline psychotic break where flying insects were concerned, the event that led to his diagnosis with Asperger Syndrome. He's been flinching a bit while outdoors, but he does seem to be handling things better this time around. I'm quick to remind him of what he has learned, that bugs are more afraid of him than he is of them, and that even though he was TERRIFIED of them last year, he did not get stung or bitten by anything. We saw Dr. H on Thursday and he's on top of the bug thing, thank goodness.

Also, we have re-started occupational therapy. Dr. H thinks a big part of the boy's bug issue is sensory; he sees things moving quickly in his peripheral vision and he doesn't know whether they're bees or butterflies, so his body reacts with adrenaline. The OT is working heavily on visual processing and reaction time. Right now we're on a once a week schedule, but hopefully within a month or two we'll be able to go to every two weeks.

Finally, we are going to get the boy some swimming lessons! A local dive/swim shop here offers private as well as small-group lessons, and apparently one of the instructors has experience with Asperger Syndrome and sensory issues. It's an indoor heated pool, too, which is a plus for the boy with all his sensory/bug stuff. Ideally it will allow him to really focus on getting comfortable in the water without a lot of distractions. And the cost is reasonable.

So yay! More later.

Fisticuffs

2006-03-03T14:44:00.000-08:00

So the boy child hit someone today. I think I've mentioned a bully problem we've been having this school year, which I thought had been resolved but apparently hasn't quite. The kid who has been bugging the boy child now has a sidekick, apparently, and they like to team up and tease the boy. NICE.

So today there was a bee in the classroom, and these two boys were teasing the boy child about it, because they know he's afraid of bees. And so he told them that if they didn't quit teasing him, he was going to hit them. And so one boy said, "I wish you would!" And the boy child, who is autistic to some degree, as I might have mentioned, took the kid at his word and hauled off and hit him.

The school administrator who called to tell me about it was quite nice, explaining that she knows of the boy's history with these two kids and that she also knows about his disability, but that unfortunately hitting is Not Done at school, and so the boy had to face some consequences. From what I can figure, he had to sit in her office for a while and then he was sent back to class. So, no huge deal, I don't think.

He's not in trouble here at home, because try as I might, I can't quite figure out what he did wrong in this situation. I mean, he WARNED them, right? And they told him to hit them. And he did, because his disability prevents him from being able to recognize sarcasm. The school administrator would like me to talk with the boy about how people don't always mean what they say, and I was all, "Well, okay, but don't look for any results to come from that."

I mean, think about it. We have been trying to teach the boy social skills. We tell him that if someone says "hi" to him in the hallway, he should say "hi" back. We tell him that if someone is talking to him, he should pay attention to what they're saying and respond. But then when someone starts messing with him, teasing and name-calling and whatnot, we tell him to ignore it. Mixed signals, much? How is he supposed to know the difference? He can't, because his brain isn't wired to be able to TELL the difference. All he can do is try to memorize the rules we give him and then learn how and when to apply them, which is a HUGE struggle for him.

I suppose an autism specialist could teach him little tricks for how to do this stuff but oh, that's right, the TEA doesn't think he actually HAS a disability so we don't have access to the school district's autism specialists. No, because it's easier to punish him for his disability than to treat him for it.

I am a little pissed off, can you tell?

Anyway, the boy doesn't seem at all traumatized by the incident and no one has thrown a brick through my window with a note that says, "Your kid hit my kid! Prepare to die!" (yet) so I guess we don't have to move or change schools or anything. This week, anyway.

All that noise, and all that sound

2006-02-15T14:37:00.000-08:00

The boy child told me today that his favorite song is Coldplay's "Speed of Sound". Which makes the boy an official hipster, I guess. Not being one myself, I wouldn't really know. Anyway, I downloaded it and we'll burn it on CD with a bunch of his other favorite songs (Blind Melon's "No Rain" and the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Soul to Squeeze" among them) as soon as DH reminds me how to do that.

Yesterday was Valentine's Day. Did you know? The kids' school parties overlapped by 10 minutes, with the boy's party preceding the girl's. I had planned to run errands and eat lunch out (rare for me, the lunch out thing) before heading up to the school for two solid hours of Valentine fun, but while I was out I got a call from the school nurse. She had the boy child in her office, she said, because he had spilled chocolate milk all over himself. I'm not exactly sure why that was seen as a medical emergency, but there you go.

I should say that I'm not overly fond of this particular nurse. She's new this year, I think, and she has zero communication skills. Typically she'll call and say the kid is in the office and why but that's all she says. And so when it's a minor thing, I have to interrogate her to find out why she's even calling me about it. What do you want me to do? Was anyone hurt when he spilled the milk? Did he actually DROWN IN IT? Is he unconscious right this second? Why are you calling me to tell me my kid is a klutz, which I already knew?! Then I figured out that what she wanted (she didn't tell me, but I finally guessed correctly) was for me to bring him some clean clothes. This was 40 minutes before I had to be at the school for his party anyway, and it would take me a good 30 minutes to wrap up what I was doing and get up there, so I told her I'd be there in half an hour or so, and she was all, "Well, what do you want me to do with him?" Gosh, I don't know, lady. Why don't you smack him around a little bit? That's always good for a laugh. (Kidding! Just kidding!) She finally sent him back to class.

So I rushed through my errand and sped home, picturing the poor boy child at school, soaking wet, reeking of dairy products and all upset about it. I skipped lunch entirely, threw together a complete change of clothes for him (she did say, "all over himself", after all, so I brought underwear and socks and everything) and dashed up to the school, making it just as the party was starting. And the boy child was there, perfectly calm though excited about the party, and not at all soaked to the skin in gallons of chocolate milk like I was expecting. No, he only had a little spot of it about 3 inches across on the right thigh of his jeans. I pulled out the pants I had brought and asked him if he wanted to change, and he said no, the milk had already dried so he was good to go.

Again, the school nurse? NOT A FAN.

Okay, so the party went swell. Unfortunately the boy child's best (and only, according to him) friend was absent so they didn't get to pal around, but he seemed to be interacting just fine with the other kids. I left him a few minutes early so I could go to the girl's party, which was in full swing, and she seemed not to care at all that I was even there except that it meant she had someone to hold her ginormous bag o' loot. When the kids got home I gave them each a little stuffed animal, a giant heart-shaped chocolate sucker, a heart-shaped cherry Ring Pop, and a valentine card. They're still on a sugar high from it all, I think.

The only other thing going on is that I've talked to the school counselor twice in the past two days. The first was just to touch base on how the boy was doing (fine), and the second was so she could let me know what the plan was for the TAKS test next week. The boy child is exceedingly bright (if I do say so myself) but he's a very slow starter, so last year it took him extra time to finish the English/grammar/whatever section of the test. His teacher took him to another room and stayed with him while he finished, so it all worked out okay. This year he has to take the writing portion of the test, and while he's an excellent writer (for real!), he is VERY VERY slow to get started on that sort of task in particular, so I was a little concerned about what would happen if he didn't finish. So long story short, Plan A is that he finishes just fine with the other kids. Plan B is that when the other kids are finished, the boy moves to another classroom where he will be watched over by the school's reading teacher until he finishes. Plan C is that his own teacher will move to another classroom with him, and SHE'LL stay with him until he finishes while someone else takes charge of her class. I was concerned that he might not be able to focus if he's with a teacher he doesn't know, but the counselor talked to him about it and he thinks he'll do fine with the reading teacher. So we'll see what happens.

Mean mom takes a time out

2006-02-13T18:31:00.000-08:00

Hello, I am writing this from time out, which is where I put myself a short while ago when I realized that if I didn't lock myself in a room somewhere I was going to start yelling at my kids. More than usual, I mean. It's okay, DH is home and is watching a movie with them in the other room. He is the Good Cop today.

I have just ordered the following books from Amazon.com:

The Bipolar Child: The Definitive and Reassuring Guide to Childhood's Most Misunderstood Disorder (Revised and Expanded Edition) by Demitri Papolos
The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children by Ross W. Greene
Asperger Syndrome And Difficult Moments: Practical Solutions For Tantrums, Rage And Meltdowns by Brenda Smith Myles

That last one is for the boy child, as you might have surmised. He isn't having a huge problem with meltdowns right now, but when I saw there was a book about that sort of thing, well, I had to have it. It will have to do until someone writes a book called Asperger Syndrome and Difficult Moments: What to Do When Your Aspie Kid Is Driving You Insane and Won't Stop Tormenting His Sister and Oh Yeah, Here's How to Get Him to Stop Making That Noise.

The first two are for the girl child and were recommended to us by Dr. H. "Read these two books and see if either one sounds like her," he said, and so we will. Or more accurately, I will, and then I'll write DH a brief memo on the subject and we'll go from there.

I don't know if she's bipolar. I really don't. I'm really hoping not, because that sounds like it would suck. But she has very high highs and very low lows and it's not like her family history of mental health is all that spotless, poor kid. So it's worth looking into, I think.

On the second book, she IS very easily frustrated, but I don't think she's at all inflexible. If anything, she's overly flexible. She gets extremely bored with routine and is like the most spontaneous person you've ever met in your life. So I don't know about that one, but the good news is I bought it used for cheap.

So things have been fun around here lately! The boy child has been ticcing like crazy and we don't know why. His echolalia is out of control, and I can't tell how much of it is involuntary and how much of it is for the purpose of teasing his sister. I can believe that he would repeat what she has just said a couple of times without being able to control it, but when it goes on and on and takes on a teasing intonation after I've drawn his attention to it and told him to try to stop because it bothers her, I kind of feel like he ought to be able to step it down a bit. He's also been very huggy and affectionate lately, which together with the ticcing makes me think he's stressed about something, but he's either unable or unwilling to tell me what it is. It could just be the upcoming TAKS test at school, for all I know. Or it could be the full moon. Or the barometric pressure. Or the alignment of the outer planets. There's no telling with him, really.

The girl child is in a constant state of agitation because her brother won't leave her alone, because other kids at school speak to her in strident tones, because someone a couple of days ago looked at her funny, because her leg itches. With the boy it could be anything; with the girl it's EVERYTHING and I don't know how to help her.

And yet.

On good days, and during good moments, they are delightful. The boy child created an amazingly cute and pithy valentine box for his party at school tomorrow. The girl child told us over dinner about an idea she had for a huge collage of the world, with pictures of different geographical features blown up and others rendered very small, all fitted together to form a map of sorts. They played together wonderfully (loudly and boisterously, but wonderfully) all day yesterday after they came home from their sleepover with the grandparents. DH kept sending them outside because they were so incredibly loud, but I didn't mind the noise so much because it's way too quiet without them around.

Okay, so I think I'm going to go take a Midol and/or drink a martini and wait for my new books to arrive. But first, I guess I have to let myself out of time out. I certainly hope I've learned my lesson.

January and the girl

2006-01-31T06:37:00.000-08:00

Obviously it's been a long time since I updated, so I'm going to post a brief catchup.

The holidays went well. VERY well, in fact. We didn't travel this year and I don't know if that's what made the difference, but the boy child was much less discombobulated this past holiday season than in seasons previous. At one point we had seven overnight houseguests (plus a dog and a baby!) for a couple of nights in a row, which I thought would freak him right out, but it didn't! We let him keep his room all to himself, and when he needed to escape for a while, he went up there and played with Legos or whatever until he was ready to rejoin everyone. It worked out great!

January has been business as usual, more or less. The boy is still seeing the school counselor once a week and he seems to really enjoy talking to her. She's helping him with some social skills and also some self-modulation stuff, and she's become one of his "safe" people at school. We (meaning DH, myself and the counselor) have been encouraging him to go to her office rather than the nurses' office or bathroom when he needs to escape from the classroom for a while, and that's working out great so far. In fact, I think he was only in the nurses' office once or twice this whole month -- a record!

He's also still seeing Dr. H once a month and I have no idea if that's making a difference or not because the weekly visits with the counselor seem to be nipping any problems in the bud. However, it was spring of last year that the boy went kind of loopy with the bug/outdoor perseverations, so I think it's wise to keep him on a maintenance schedule with Dr. H just in case that happens again this year.

We've decided to go ahead and start the occupational therapy back up again, too. He has some lingering sensory processing issues that really need addressing, particularly when it comes to visual processing (he panics when he sees fast-moving objects of any size) and some auditory processing stuff (following multi-step directions, etc.). We're still looking ahead to middle school and trying to prepare him for that. The OT hasn't started up again yet; we're waiting for approval from the supplemental care people to see if they're going to pick up the tab (or at least part of it) again, since insurance doesn't cover it (yeah, don't get me started). But as soon as we get approval, we'll get the ball rolling on that.

So, with all of that going on, the boy seems to be in a good place right now. The girl child is another story, however....

She has always been what you would call a high-needs child. VERY colicky as a baby, screamed unless she was being held (and I'm talking about from birth until she learned to walk -- we had every baby carrier known to man), wouldn't sleep unless she was physically latched on to me (she nursed until she was almost 3 years old, slept in our bed for over a year), and up until she was 5 or 6 years old she would cry daily until she puked. Now, at age 8, she still has tantrums like a toddler, complete with throwing herself on the floor kicking and screaming.

The thing is, though, that she ONLY does this stuff at home, around us. I don't think even her grandparents, who spend loads of time with her, have seen her at her worst. Around everyone else, she is an absolute angel -- sweet, helpful, shy and very empathetic toward everyone. It's like she has two personalities or something!

She cries nearly every day, and often for weird reasons. Like just last night, DH said to me, very casually, that it might be nice to add some color to the interior of our house via paint. And I said, "Sure, let's do that sometime." The girl child absolutely burst into tears and started sobbing that she has ALWAYS wanted to paint her room! Um, okay, that's what we just said we were going to do, right? So why are you crying?! This is the type of thing she does all the time. I might say, "Oh, strawberries are on sale. I think I'll buy some today." And she'll absolutely start sobbing that yes, she loves strawberries and will I please buy some! She also gets pissed off really easily and turns into this total Linda Blair creature who rages and yells and turns beet red in the face, often for what seem to be very trivial reasons.

So ... all that can't be right, surely? I mean, that's not normal behavior, is it? I might say it was if she was 13 or thereabouts, but she's ALWAYS been like this and shows no signs of impending puberty. So now we're wondering if there's something going on beyond just personality, and whether there's anything we can do about it. I suppose there are diagnostics and whatnot, but I really worry about what that would involve and what the results would be. She does NOT act like this around anyone but DH, her brother and me. NEVER. I fear the diagnostician would have to really provoke her to get a true picture of what she does, and the idea of that kind of makes me nauseous. But if they don't see her act this way, the diagnostics will turn up NOTHING. And there's definitely SOMETHING going on, I think.

Argh. What to do?

At any rate, the scope of this blog will likely expand to include whatever's happening with the girl child, regardless of what sort of diagnosis we get on her (if any). Kids are never boring, are they?!

And how was YOUR day?

2005-12-12T15:54:00.000-08:00

Looks like I am tardy with yet another update, but things have been going pretty well for the boy child. Since the ARD meeting he's been visiting with the school counselor once a week and he really likes her and says that she's helping him with some "good ideas". So that's good. And the bully problem seems to be under control.

December is traditionally a rough month for the boy, I think because of all the excitement about the holidays and the changes to his routine. However, this month (so far) seems to be going well. It could be that he's just been so discombobulated since school started that I can't really tell a difference. But actually, it's the girl child who seems out of sorts this month -- much more sensitive and weepy and hyper than usual, and also tending to wear herself out and just crash in the evenings. I refuse to believe it's the first stirrings of puberty because she's only 8 and still very much a baby in many ways. And also because ... I just refuse to believe it. Denial ain't just a river in Egypt, you know.

ANYWAY, the big news about the boy child today is that he had a dentist appointment! Well, so did the girl, but taking her to the dentist is an absolute joy because she LOVES it. However, generally speaking I'd rather have my small intestine pulled out of my left nostril by an unskilled orangutan with bad breath and dirty fingernails than take the boy child to the dentist, especially if they're doing something different from the usual, as was the case today. Today, the kids were getting sealants put on their teeth. Whoopee!

The girl did great with it. She just lay there like a little statue and didn't make a peep while the hygienist poked around in her mouth. The cleaning and sealants together were over in 10 minutes, and she was done.

The boy child was a different story altogether. Like, a story from another book entirely. In a different library. In another state. He had gotten himself all worked up about the sealants, even though I explained to him what they were, why he needed them, how they would be applied, etc. and he got to watch the girl get hers. AND she told him it was "fun" and didn't hurt or taste nasty at all. Still, he had a full-blown panic attack and it took AN HOUR for him to get his teeth cleaned and get the sealants put on.

I'm proud of him, though, I have to say. He was scared to death but we convinced him to just do one and see what he thought. I promised him that if he thought it was the worst torture he'd ever been through, we would stop there for today (I did tell him, however, that he'd have to get the rest done the next time we went to the dentist). So he did one (and mind you, it took FOREVER just getting him to this point) and then decided he would go ahead and have another one done. After that one, though he was still VERY anxious and it took forever because he kept asking to take breaks, he consented to have the rest done. And so he left feeling VERY proud of himself and we made a big deal about how brave he was and how courage means doing what you have to do even if you're afraid.

So chalk one up for self-esteem, but my liver gets a demerit because it's going to take a lot of martinis to erase the memory of this particular dentist appointment from my mind. I swear, our hygienist is a saint. She is SO good with the boy and so patient with him, even though an appointment with him takes much longer than an appointment with an "average" kid. I should totally buy her a big honkin' Christmas present. Or maybe give her a kidney or some other redundant organ.

The ARD wasn't too hard

2005-11-12T08:12:00.000-08:00

I've apparently come down with some horrific cold-like malady, which is why it has taken me two days to report back on the ARD meeting, which was Thursday. And also why I'm apparently making corny jokes in the subject line. After coughing my guts out half the night last night, I finally got up and took some codeine cough syrup, so I'm feeling a little incoherent this morning. Which means this may make no sense at all, but one must press on.

Okay, so the ARD was Thursday, as previously mentioned, and it went well. The room was full of people: DH, myself, the boy child's classroom teacher, the speech pathologist, the counselor, the vice principal, the school district psychologist, the diagnostician and the girl child's special reading class teacher who was acting as secretary for the meeting. Whew! And all of these people think the boy child is a neat kid, which is very nice to hear. It helps, when asking for services for your child, if the people providing those services actually like him, you know?

The various people in the room went through the FIE report with us (this is the report the diagnostician went over with me in detail a while back), explaining whatever part of the thing fell under their area of responsibility. No surprises -- the boy is very bright, doing fine academically, does not have a speech impediment or a language problem, etc. The committee concluded that he does have Asperger's tendencies, HOWEVER he is so high-functioning that he does not meet the TEA criteria for a disability at this time, and does not at this time have an educational need for special education services. And again, we're okay with that.

We talked a bit about how some of the committee members' observations (the boy talking with his peers, playing with another kid once at recess) did not mesh with how the boy tells us he is feeling. He feels very lonely and isolated and as though no one at school likes him. He doesn't think he has any friends, even though many of the committee members observed the other kids treating him in a friendly matter. We tried to impress upon them that he may LOOK fine, but he's not.

And I just want to interject here, thank GOODNESS the boy child has finally opened up to us and is telling us these things. Because you really can't tell much by looking at him, unless you know him VERY well. He's the type of kid who doesn't show emotions (hello, autism spectrum!). You have to ASK him how he's doing, and then hope he tells you.

Okay, so here's what's going to happen. The boy child will meet with the school counselor once a week for about half an hour, just to touch base with her and get comfortable talking to her. She is going to teach him some social skills strategies and then coach him through implementing those strategies in the classroom (or lunchroom, or at recess) with the kids he encounters every day. She's also going to help teach him some calming strategies for when he gets frustrated and upset (which is happening a lot lately). Basically she's going to cultivate a relationship with him that will let him know she is one of his "safe" people; someone who gets him and to whom he can turn if he's having a problem. So that's all good.

Before the meeting wrapped up, DH and I asked for an update on the bully situation. That's something I haven't written about here, so forgive me if I skip over details. Essentially, another boy has been making the boy child's life miserable by keying in on both his auditory defensiveness and his lack of social awareness. We only learned about this last week and notified his teacher over the weekend, but the school was very quick to act on the situation and we're satisfied with the way it's being handled. The boy child has reported no serious problems with this boy since the school found out what was going on. Thank goodness.

So that's about it, and in my cold fog I've probably left out a bunch of stuff, but I'll update as needed. For now, things are looking up!

The results are in

2005-10-27T07:38:00.000-07:00

I guess it's been a while since I updated. Sorry about that! There hasn't been much to report up to now. However...

Yesterday I met with the school's diagnostician to go over the results of the boy child's Full Individual Evaluation or FIE (all those tests he's been taking for the past couple of months). The short version of the story is that while they acknowledge it's likely he has Asperger's, they think that most of his difficulties in the school setting can be dealt with via general education. In other words, he does not qualify for special education at this time and will not have an IEP.

However, they absolutely did see certain deficits when it comes to his socialization, organization, emotional responses, etc. and they do want to address those. They just want to do it through general education first rather than plopping him straight into special ed. Both his teacher from last year and his teacher this year said they thought his problems could be handled through general education, so I think that was the major deciding factor. And we're okay with this.

We do still have an ARD meeting scheduled for November 10th, and at that meeting we'll discuss what measures the school will take in trying to help him. The recommendation in the FIE report is for him to attend social skills training with the school counselor, and also to get some "classroom coaching" to help him get organized and deal with situations that tend to cause a meltdown for him. And you know, that's what we really wanted. So if we can get that without going through special ed, so much the better.

It's been very interesting reading the report, because the diagnostics were so thorough. There were very few surprises -- we know he's above average in intelligence and is working above grade level academically, and we know about the social and organization problems. The only surprise, for me, was that the boy scored fairly high for depression. I had honestly never thought of him as depressed because he seems to have a fairly positive outlook on life, and because once he's done with a meltdown, he seems to pick up and go on as though it had never happened. So that's something we will definitely want to mention to Dr. H and keep an eye on from here on out. Depression combined with male adolescent hormones absolutely scares me to death, because I know all too well what the rates of suicide and attempted suicide are for that demographic. The very thought of it is terrifying. So I'm VERY glad we caught this now and will know to look out for it.

I have to say again how much I love the school my kids attend. I have never felt like I've had to fight them on anything when it comes to getting the boy what he needs to succeed. Even before we had any sort of evaluation done, they were willing to do what we asked and make accommodations for him. I honestly did not realize we had access to even MORE services, like social skills training, without an IEP. I'm thrilled that they are willing to take such measures with him just in the course of his regular education. And the diagnostician explained that if these extra measures don't seem to help, we can absolutely get an updated assessment and re-evaluate whether his needs would be better met in special ed. Particularly if he has difficulties when he starts middle school, which is our main concern.

So now we turn our attention to the girl child. She has always struggled with reading and writing, but her teachers in kindergarten and first grade assured us that she was within the expected range for her age/grade. Well, her second grade teacher feels differently. Even though we can tell the girl has made progress since last year, her teacher says she is below grade level and needs help. Which is fine, but the abruptness of that revelation was kind of jarring, particularly since it's something we've specifically asked about at every teacher conference we've had since she started kindergarten. Anyway, this is yet another thing that can be addressed through general education, apparently, and the girl is now in special reading classes, which she loves. One other little girl from her class is in them as well, so they get to go together to the reading room. And the girl child really likes the reading teacher. So that's all good. She does seem to be reading really well now and has only been taking the special classes for a week! Of course, we are happy to have her take them as long as she needs them, but she honestly doesn't seem that far behind to me.

So, that's the latest. I'll try to update more often from now on!

Diagnostics

2005-09-13T15:04:00.000-07:00

Things are rolling along on the journey to the boy child's IEP. The school has been conducting diagnostics on him for the past few weeks now. Yesterday, DH and I met with the diagnostician, two school district psychologists who are part of the autism "team" and the speech pathologist and had what we felt was a very positive, productive two-hour discussion about the boy. They had given us several parent surveys to fill out, so we went over those and then were interviewed for another one. I'm pretty pleased with how things are going so far.

We tried to impress upon them that we realize this is a long and very thorough process and that we WELCOME it, and also that we realize their findings may be very different from what the psychologist found, and that they may in fact find that the boy does not qualify for services. I'll be very surprised if things go that way, but we wanted to impress upon them that we do understand the process and that our expectations are realistic. They actually seemed relieved to hear this!

I flat-out told them that I got the impression from some of the things that were said at the first meeting that a lot of parents go in there with a doctor's note, expecting to start services right away, and balking at the idea of a lengthy diagnostic workup and the possibility that the school may find nothing significant from an educational standpoint. They told me I was absolutely right, that that happens quite a lot, and so I think we came to an understanding that DH and I are not approaching things that way. Anyway, DH and I both felt good about this meeting and I'm happy to report that the diagnostician is now off The List.

The boy seems to be taking all this testing in stride. Most of it is play-based anyway, so he enjoys that sort of thing. He wasn't thrilled about missing recess yesterday because he was in testing, but he got over it. I think they're doing the IQ tests this week along with the academic tests. He's already seen the speech pathologist and had his vision/hearing screenings done. I'll be VERY interested to see the results of all these tests once they're done. We've been assured that whether he ends up qualifying for an IEP or not, we will get copies of the test results.

I'm pretty sure they said that as of right now, the ARD was tentatively scheduled for the beginning of November. It could be sooner if they finish testing before then, though. I'm feeling pretty good about it right now, but we shall see!

Awkward and a little sad

2005-08-30T18:07:00.000-07:00

The boy child has a friend at school. Let's call him Zach, which is not his real name. They were in the same class in third grade, but are in different classes in fourth grade. However, they see each other in the hallway before school every day. The classroom the boy child was in last year (and this year, for that matter) was an inclusion classroom, and while I don't know for sure and never asked, I suspect Zach has a few special needs. He is a very sweet boy and he and the boy child got along like gangbusters last year.

Okay, so ever since school started this year, Zach has been approaching the boy child in the hallway before school and inviting him to a birthday party. Zach has been saying the party will be September 1st, after school, at a laser tag place. The boy child related this to me with great excitement, because he doesn't get invited to very many birthday parties. Like, any, pretty much. However, I have no idea where "the laser tag place" is and "after school" is a little vague for me, so I told the boy child we would need a written invitation if he was going to go. Because it seemed kind of weird that he didn't get one, if he was indeed invited to this party. In truth, I suspected that perhaps there wasn't going to be an actual party, or that it was just for family or something, and that Zach's mom had no idea he was inviting the boy child. But the boy child was very excited, and Zach was very adamant, and it quickly became obvious I would not be able to just blow this off.

Argh. What to do, what to do? I have never met nor spoken with Zach's parents. I have a bit of a phobia about calling people on the phone when I don't know them very well anyway, and the thought of calling people I didn't know and asking whether my kid was, in fact, invited to a party they may or may not be hosting filled me with a cold dread.

Luckily, I married a wonderful man who understands or at least seems willing to cope with my neuroses. So we looked up Zach's phone number in last year's school directory and DH made the call and guess what? There is no party. Zach's family is taking him out to dinner for his birthday. It's a family thing. No mention of laser tag was made, and Zach's mom had no idea he had invited the boy child to anything. Whoopsie!

And so, I told the boy child this afternoon. He seemed only mildly disappointed, but with him it's hard to tell. I desperately hope he gets invited to a real birthday party sometime this year. I literally cannot remember the last one he attended, and the girl child seems to go to two or three per month. At this rate, I'll have to buy the boy a pony or something to compensate.

Sigh.

The science of banana bread

2005-08-27T10:18:00.000-07:00

Hey look, two posts in one day! Beware of airborne livestock!

Just a little while ago I was making banana bread, and the girl child was helping (by mashing bananas in a plastic zippered bag) while the boy child was observing and asking questions. He was looking over the recipe and asked me why there was no yeast, and how the bread could rise without it. I told him this particular recipe (which is my mom's -- thanks, Mom!) uses baking soda instead.

So then he continued to look over the recipe and noticed that vinegar was also present. And I explained that yes, this recipe calls for milk that has been soured by vinegar or lemon juice, but that I had used lemon juice this time. And the boy child hypothesized that had I used vinegar, there was a good chance the banana bread would explode. Because he knows what happens when you mix baking soda and vinegar, you see. We have constructed many volcanoes and launched many rockets around here.

This all led to a lively discussion about the fact that lemon juice is acidic, and about all the different chemical processes involved in making bread rise, and it ended with me reminding him that cooking is all about the science of changing matter from one form to another through the application of heat, cold, certain acids and whatnot. And it was great fun. And also tasty, or it will be when the bread gets out of the oven.

There was a time when I considered homeschooling my kids. I was particularly enamored of the concept of "unschooling" and in fact that's pretty much what I did with them when they were toddler/preschool-aged. I eventually decided, for a multitude of reasons that I won't get into here, to send them to public school. (And seriously, the reasons? They are LEGION. I should write about them sometime. But not now.)(And also, if you homeschool your kids, that's fine and dandy with me. My reasons have nothing to do with thinking anything is inherently wrong with homeschooling. Yay, homeschooling!)(Okay, moving along....)

But, the unschooling didn't stop! No, we still do it all the damn time, even though the kids are in public school. They have a multitude of interests, these kids, and so we do what we can to feed them. Particularly in the case of the boy child, with his perseverations and whatnot, we have gotten fairly deep into some of his areas of interest. We have even planned family vacations around them. It's fun, and in addition to the kids learning a lot, DH and I have learned quite a bit, too.

And so in conclusion: banana bread is yummy! Cooking is fun and also scientific! And unschooling as a supplement to a public school education is a very good thing indeed!

Get this party started

2005-08-27T09:52:00.000-07:00

Well, the ARD coordinator at the school ended up calling me before I had a chance to call her, and so yesterday I met with her, the diagnostician and the school psychologist to sign the papers that will get the boy child's Full Individual Evaluation, or FIE, started. They have 60 calendar days in which to complete it. The boy child has been given the heads-up that he'll be pulled out of class from time to time for testing, and he's had similar tests done before because of occupational therapy, so I'm hoping the process won't be too arduous for him. (Hee! Get it? ARDuous? Oh nevermind.)

I was a little put off by the diagnostician, who barely hid a scoff at the three-page psychologist's report I had brought with me (from Dr. H) and told me that without even reading it, she could tell we hadn't had the right sort of testing done on him and that they would need to do a full battery. I calmly (for me, which is not easy) explained that we had not done any testing ON PURPOSE, because when I had talked to the old ARD coordinator, who is no longer there, at the end of last school year when the boy was diagnosed, she was not able to give me specific information on which tests we would need to have done. And so Dr. H felt it would be best, both financially and for the boy child's comfort (because a full battery of tests can be ARDuous) that we just allow the school to do whatever they wanted as far as testing went. And that way, we would neither waste nor duplicate our efforts.

But she kept harping on about the full battery and finally it occurred to me that she's probably had a lot of parents protest, "But the doctor says he has it, so why can't we just go with that and get services started?" So I assured her that we WANT the full battery of tests, that we realize the school's findings may be different from the psychologist's (though frankly we are convinced the boy has AS -- he is TEXTBOOK, if you know anything about the disorder, but I didn't say that), and that he may not qualify for services (at which point we'll file appeals out the wazoo, but I didn't say that either). And also, I told her we realized it would take quite some time to get all the testing done and that services likely would not start for a few months, even if he qualifies.

But still, the diagnostician is officially on the List Of People Who Might Potentially Annoy Me, and will have to work to get off it.

And so, the testing! It will begin soon, I hope. The boy has been prepped and we are ready to go. I think.

Back to school

2005-08-21T10:30:00.000-07:00

We're about a week into the new school year here and so far, so good. Fourth and fifth grade classes are taught in portable buildings at the kids' school, so that's something new for the boy child, but it doesn't seem to be causing any problems (except that he may possibly be allergic to something in his portable building, but we're monitoring that).

We are quite happy with his teacher so far. She doesn't have any real experience with Asperger's Syndrome (apparently the boy child is her first and only Aspie student), but she is very eager to learn more about it and has actually gone off on her own to research it, in addition to calling us at home just to touch base and pick our brains a bit. She does have quite a bit of experience with Sensory Integration Dysfunction, apparently, which is wonderful because it's the sensory issues that tend to come up most in the classroom setting as far as the boy child is concerned.

She's aware that we're asking for an ARD for the boy child this year (that's the meeting during which we'll draw up his IEP). I haven't gotten in contact yet with the ARD coordinator at the school but I will do that this week. I'm kind of dreading the whole process, frankly. Most of the ARD/IEP tips I've found online and in books set the parent up in an adversarial role, and I'm not altogether comfortable with that. The school has been awesome with the boy child so far, making accommodations for him even without an IEP. It's mostly middle school that I'm worried about -- I definitely want to have a very thorough IEP for the boy by the time he's through with our current school. I'm hoping to be able to advocate for him without taking the attitude of "since you're probably trying to screw us anyway, this is what we demand you do for him and we'll sue your asses if you don't." Ugh!

The girl child is in second grade now and loves it. She has a lot of friends in her class (as does the boy child, thank goodness) and her teacher is really young and enthusiastic but with a couple of years of teaching experience under her belt.

It's early days yet, but I think both kids are going to have a good year. Fingers crossed!

Milestones

2005-08-14T13:39:00.000-07:00

The boy child no longer wears underwear with cartoon characters on them. He went up a size over the summer and when I took him shopping for new ones, he opted for plain old tighty whities. No more Blue's Clues or Spiderman undies for us! Sniffle!

And also, he has perfected the armpit fart. We are so proud.

Rubik's Cube of tears and pain

2005-07-27T20:04:00.000-07:00

The boy child bought a Rubik's Cube the other day. He'd been talking about getting one for a while, and finally saved up enough money. As he was playing with it in the car on the way home, he told me excitedly, "Now I just have to do the reverse of everything I just did and it'll be back the way it was!"

You can see where this is going, can't you?

Shortly after we returned home, I looked over to find the boy child sobbing quietly. I asked him what was wrong, and he explained that the cube was all mixed up and he couldn't fix it. I told him that was what was supposed to happen -- you mix it all up and then it might take you quite a while to solve it, but that's the challenge. And while he was relieved, he was still sad. So I told him that I bet if we Googled "rubik's cube solution" we would find all sorts of web pages telling how to solve it. And he asked me if we could do that, and so we did.

Most of the instructions were pretty complicated to my eye, but the boy child read some of them over, and with a little verbal reinforcement from me he began to realize that (a) the instructions work regardless of the current state of one's Rubik's Cube, (b) no matter how mixed up it gets, it is absolutely solvable, and (c) there are umpteen bajillion different methods for solving it.

Then he started playing with it some more and noticing the patterns and the "rules" for how it worked. He very excitedly pointed out to me that the center cubes don't move, so whatever color the center cube is is the color that side will have to be. And the corner pieces have three colors on them, so you have to line those up so they match with the center cubes.

He hasn't solved it yet, but I'm not entirely sure he's trying to anymore. He's having too much fun figuring out his own patterns and configurations. He told me yesterday that if he ever does solve it, he'll likely mix it all up right away and start trying again.

Boy meets beach

2005-07-15T15:19:00.000-07:00

We are back from our Corpus Christi vacation and had a fabulous time! The boy child absolutely astounded me this week. I had assumed the beach would be an iffy proposition, what with the sand and shells to walk on and the murky, salty seawater to swim in, but the boy took to it like ... well, a fish to water. He refused to wear his swim shoes and went barefoot the whole time, running all over the beach and splashing in the waves and generally behaving like swimming in the ocean was the most natural thing in the world for him! The girl child loved it as well, which was no surprise, and so the entire vacation was just lovely.

We saw the sights in the morning and early afternoon, then spent every late afternoon and evening on the private beach owned by the hotel. They kept it relatively clean with no big seaweed clumps and very little trash, so the sand was very nice for walking and digging and sandcastle-building. It was windy all week and the water was quite choppy, which might have kept the jellyfish away because we never saw any in our part of the beach (there were tons of them further up the coast, though). The beach was shaded by the hotel in the afternoons, so we were able to frolic without overheating or fear of sunburn. The bay itself is quite shallow, so the kids were able to wander far from shore and still only be in water up to their waists. It was altogether a fabulous beach vacation!

On the way home we stopped at Schlitterbahn, and that was probably a mistake. The boy child hated it. He liked the various pools and hot tubs and some of the more timid slides in the children's section, but got really mad at himself for bowing out at the last minute on one of the larger slides (twice). They use a burst of water to propel people down the larger slides, and he didn't like that. I think he would have done okay if the water had been at a constant rate. Anyway, that kind of killed the experience for him. Also, we had a bit of an episode while trying to get him onto an innertube for floating down a very slow, lazy "river" (no rapids or anything). Once he was on it he did fine, but again, I think his freakout over it put a damper on everything for him. The girl child, naturally, LOVED Schlitterbahn and went on some fairly fast/large slides. She scares me to death, that one! She is absolutely fearless.

So in conclusion, boy + beach = awesome! Boy + Schlitterbahn = not so much.

We are glad to be home, where the boy child is re-bonding with his ginormous Lego collection.

"Gnats are cute!"

2005-07-09T12:26:00.000-07:00

So sayeth the boy child. However, the bug phobia is still in full force thanks to all the huge nasty flies buzzing around this summer. They seem much larger, louder and more brazen this year for some reason, but at least they don't bite. We're still seeing Dr. H once a week, and the boy child is still able to be outdoors without screaming and crying the entire time, but there is a lot of flinching and some yelling going on. He has good days and bad, with no discernible pattern whatsoever, so we're just hanging in there with it.

The boy was able to have a graduation of sorts this week, though. Several factors converged at once to bring at least a temporary end to his occupational therapy. He's progressed tremendously since he started with it two years ago, our coverage for it ran out this month, and his therapist is about to take a few months off to have a baby. So we had her do an evaluation to see where he's at, and she feels confident that he can take a fairly long break or perhaps a permanent one! He's really doing wonderfully with the motor stuff and the dyspraxia, thanks in large part to taekwondo, so we feel okay about stopping OT at least for a while. There's a slight chance the boy will qualify for occupational therapy through the school after they've officially evaluated him for AS, so we may be able to go that route if it turns out we've stopped it prematurely. It's a wait-and-see thing, but right now we're looking forward to having one less thing on our schedule this summer.

We're about to go on vacation for a week -- to the beach! So that should be interesting. I've bought water shoes for us all that will allow us to go into the water or walk along the beach without stepping on anything sharp, and I've told the boy child it's perfectly okay if he doesn't want to go into the water (I'm not crazy about ocean swimming, myself). We've bought pails and shovels and other sand toys for fun on the beach, and the kids have been "practicing" in the sandbox at the neighborhood park all week. They are very excited! We're also going to an aquarium (we LOVE aquariums. aquaria? aquariae?) and a science museum and will be touring an aircraft carrier while there, so we won't spend every single day at the beach, but it still promises to be great fun. I'll report back when we return!

Graduation postponed

2005-06-17T20:21:00.000-07:00

It's been unbearably hot and humid here lately, which means that when we walk to the park in the evening, we have to pass through multiple clouds of gnats. This has been a source of anxiety for the boy child, and he told me Tuesday night that he didn't think he was ready to graduate from therapy. I assured him this was fine and that we could continue to see Dr. H as long as we needed to.

So we saw Dr. H the next day, which would have been graduation day, and we explained that the boy was not quite ready yet. And so we're seeing Dr. H again on Monday, which is fine.

What isn't fine is that Dr. H is probably dropping our insurance next month. Apparently he's had a lot of problems with the company that DH's employer uses for mental health coverage and has decided it's not worth the bother. The fact that AS isn't a mental health issue so much as it is a neurological one is a subject I'm too tired to go into right now, but suffice it to say, if the boy child isn't over the bug thing within a month, we're probably going to have to switch therapists. And the supplemental insurance thing that pays for the boy child's occupational therapy dries up next month, too, so the boy will likely be losing two therapists and gaining a new one (we don't think he'll need to continue with OT beyond next month, except for occasional tuneups) all at the same time. Which should be interesting. By which I mean "hellish". We haven't told the boy yet.

Sigh. And how was YOUR day?

Oh, but there is some good news I almost forgot! I was browsing Amazon a while back and came upon an author by the name of Kathy Hoopmann who has written a couple of fiction books for the boy's age group (he's 9 but reads at a much higher level) about a boy with AS. So I bought the first book, Blue Bottle Mystery, and gave it to the boy yesterday. He read it in one sitting and loved it! This is the first fiction book he's ever really liked that much. So I'm going to get him the next one, Of Mice and Aliens. (The girl child got Horton Hatches the Egg, which she loved, so next she'll be getting Horton Hears a Who.)

Shoe shopping and other hazards

2005-06-17T19:59:00.000-07:00

I took the children shoe shopping today, which was a study in contrasts between the girl child and the boy child, and an exercise in frustration for the latter and myself.

The boy child, in addition to having AS and all sorts of sensory issues, also has weirdly shaped feet. They're really wide at the ball/toe area and really narrow at the heel with a high arch. DH's feet are exactly the same way, which I guess is another thing I can blame him for, haha. So not only is the boy bothered by the toe seams in his socks, the way the tongue is stitched into the shoe, the way the laces cross the tongue, etc. but there are essentially no shoes that are shaped the way his feet are shaped. So it was a fun day, as you can imagine.

First we went to Target, where the kids got new pajamas, socks and underwear and we also looked at shoes. The girl child found a pink pair in her size, tried them on, loved them and was done with the whole shoe-shopping thing in like 10 seconds.

The boy child tried on three or four pairs. They were all uncomfortable.

So then we went to the mall, to my old standby for kids' shoes: Payless. Nearly all of my kids' shoes to date have been the Smart Fit shoes at Payless, because the sizing is very consistent and also they're way cheap. Well, they had exactly two pairs of shoes in the boy's size that were actual boy shoes. The rest were all girl shoes. This is a complaint I have about Payless in general, by the way -- the kids' shoe section is invariably 70% girl shoes and 30% boy shoes. And the girl shoes are really overtly girly, too. So that was a bust. I don't think he even tried anything on.

Then we went to Mervyn's where he tried on three or four more pairs and declared them all uncomfortable. Then on to the discount shoe place in the mall, where he tried on two pairs that were also uncomfortable. Then on to the really expensive kids' shoe place in the mall where we learned the sizes only go up to 4, and he's more like a 4.5 or 5 although really we have no idea because THERE ARE NO TRIANGULAR SHOES ANYWHERE.

By this time there was only an hour left before taekwondo, so in a last-ditch effort we stopped by WalMart on the way home. The boy child tried on about half a dozen pairs before settling on one pair that was "almost perfect" except that something about the tongue was bothering him. I reached into an identical shoe and felt the seam where the tongue was stitched in, and asked him if that was where it hurt. But no, it hurt further up. So I loosened the laces of his shoes considerably, and he declared them perfect. And heavenly choruses sang, and I stopped mentally popping virtual Valium. As we were leaving the shoe area with the perfect shoes, we spotted these alternate shoelace things. They're elastic spirally things that you lace through your shoes in place of shoelaces, and you don't have to tie them. This is a plus because while the boy child CAN tie his shoes, it's a struggle and a lengthy one at that. Also, since the spirally things were elastic, we thought they might allow for more "give" over the tongue of the shoe and thus make them more comfortable for him.

So fine, we got the shoes and the laces and rushed home to get ready for taekwondo. While the boy child was changing, I put the new spirally lace things in his shoes. He tried them on. And said that now the seam where the tongue is stitched into the shoe, the seam he didn't even notice until I pointed it out in the store, was bothering him.

I give up. I think we're going to have to fashion him some footwear out of cardboard and duct tape. Maybe it can be a science project, or something.

Long time, no blog!

2005-06-11T19:47:00.000-07:00

I just realized it's been a while since I updated. Oops! Sorry about that!

Things have been going pretty well for the boy child. The only other meltdown he's had recently was yesterday at his taekwondo belt test. For some reason his headgear was bothering him and he got really angry and frustrated and started crying, which made him even more angry and frustrated and caused him to cry MORE, and it kind of became a Thing, but he was able to calm himself down and finish the test and after that he was fine.

He's still a bit flinchy around bugs and has run away from a few, but we've been going to the park several times a week and have been swimming a couple of times in the past couple of weeks and he's able to enjoy himself doing those things. He's not filled with anxiety the entire time. And today, he went off to a sleepover at his grandparents' house wearing shorts! That is a big deal, because the boy child hasn't worn shorts since last summer! He just refuses to wear them, I think because of the bug thing. I guess it finally got too hot outside, even for the boy child!

We see Dr. H again on Wednesday. This was supposed to be "graduation day", but we'll see. The boy child is definitely doing better with bugs than he was when we first started seeing Dr. H, but not as well as he was those last couple of weeks of school when he seemed miraculously cured. I think we'll probably continue to have ups and downs, though. Such is the nature of AS, I'm learning!

Sigh

2005-05-31T20:11:00.000-07:00

I'm trying not to get discouraged about the boy child's behavior at the park this evening. We've been trying to go at least a few evenings per week, and it's been going great up until now. But tonight there were several bugs around (I think because of the weather we've been having -- thunderstorms/rain at night followed by hot/humid days) and he was quite flinchy and anxious.

In fact, he had a bit of an episode but I'm not sure if it was just the bugs that caused it. There is another family that plays in the park in the evenings, and they have a boy who seems to be close to the boy child's age. Like the boy child, this boy wears glasses and seems to be a bit, well, nerdy (not that all kids with glasses are nerdy or anything! it's more of a behavior thing). They talk about Legos and math and science and things like that. Frankly I've been thrilled to see the boy child playing with this other boy, because as those of you familiar with Asperger's know, it's highly unusual for an Aspie kid to just walk up to another kid in the park and start talking/playing.

However, this other boy is a bit more aggressive and outspoken than the boy child, and there has been some name-calling and some instances of this other boy making up rules to various games that the boy child just doesn't understand. At one point this evening the boy child got very angry and said he didn't want to play with the other boy anymore. Also, a third boy who was playing with them managed to accidentally hurt the boy child's wrist by swinging a baby swing hard when the boy child was walking by. And so, the boy child went into one of his angry/manic phases with lots of yelling and running around like a maniac and not being responsive to comfort or questions of any kind. When he gets like that, the best thing to do is just let him work it out on his own, and so that's what I did. It took him about 20 minutes to calm down, but then he was able to play with his sister for a bit and generally have fun again. Except for the bugs.

On the way home from the park, as we were walking along the sidewalk near our house, the boy suddenly broke from the girl child and me and just took of running and crying. I asked him what was wrong and he just kept yelling, "I don't know!" I couldn't get any other info out of him -- whether he'd seen a bug, or he was angry about something, or what.

We don't see Dr. H again until the 15th, but if things continue to slide downhill like this, I may call to see if we can get the boy in sooner than that. The 15th was supposed to be "graduation day" where therapy was concerned, but, um, maybe not.

Sigh.

The livin' is easy

2005-05-29T14:17:00.000-07:00

We are a few days into summer vacation around here and things are going well for the boy child. The last day of school was Wednesday the 25th, and the boy child's class had an end-of-year party at a nearby park to which I went along just in case (I went to the girl child's party at the same park earlier in the day as well). The boy did quite well, with only a few flinches when he saw bugs out of the corner of his eye. Some kids were blowing bubbles and it was quite windy, so there were a few fake-outs there, too, but the boy was able to laugh at himself for having flinched over bubbles. And he was even able to jump right in and blow a few himself!

He played all over the entire park with no signs of anxiety. Thank goodness he's doing well enough that he doesn't need me right there with him when he's outdoors anymore, because I was worn out enough just trying to keep sight of him in a sea of other third-graders all wearing the same shirts! The boy likes to keep me in his line of sight, so I was moving around a lot and it was sooooo hot with not much shade. Whew!

We haven't spent a lot of time outdoors since school ended, mostly because it's just so darn hot here already. However, we try to make it to the park behind our house after dinner at least a few times per week, and starting this week we'll be spending at least one or two afternoons per week at the pool. The pool will be the real test, I think, because while the boy loves to go there, it tends to overwhelm him from a sensory standpoint. All that yelling, splashing (he HATES getting his face wet at all), whistle blowing and of course the bugs. He only had a few freakouts at the pool last year, but they were MAJOR freakouts, so I'll be interested to see how he does this year since he's made so much progress.

Speaking of the pool, this summer we're looking into lessons for both kids. It's past time they learned, and it's really my fault they haven't up to now because I've just dreaded trying to find the right instructor for the boy. With all of his sensory issues, there is no way we can just enroll him in any old swim class. He needs an instructor who can work with him one-on-one or in a VERY small group, and one that understands sensory/developmental issues and can present things in a positive way without turning him off to the experience.

Luckily, though, we received a recommendation from the boy child's occupational therapist. There's a woman in this area who teaches swimming at her home, and though we've never met her, we've actually known about her for years. She and her husband used to attend the largest local church in our denomination (we attend one of the smaller ones, sporadically) and we've seen their names come up on the church mailing list from time to time. Also, they live right down the street from my parents. So it looks like we'll be giving her a call soon to see how much she charges and whether she can take both kids (with the understanding that the boy has special issues she'll have to work with).

We're continuing with taekwondo throughout the summer as well, and that's about to get really complicated because after June 10 the boy and girl will be in separate classes again. They group the classes according to level of ability (belt), and after the 10th the boy will move up to the last grouping before black belt level. Fortunately the girl will move up as well about 8 weeks after the boy does, and then our schedule will be fairly solid and calm until one of them makes black belt, which probably won't be for another couple of years. But in the meantime, argh!

So between taekwondo and the hopefully impending swimming lessons, along with the continuing occupational therapy and hopefully-ending-soon cognitive behavioral therapy, I haven't signed the kids up for any other camps or classes this summer. If the girl child had her way, she'd be in a different class every week for the entire summer. But the boy child needs downtime, and so do I! The kids and I are working on learning Spanish here at home this summer, and other than that and all the above we plan to just sleep, swim, play and relax!

Grief and loss

2005-05-22T13:55:00.000-07:00

I don't know if it's an Asperger's thing or just a quirk of the boy child's personality, but he doesn't seem to form emotional attachments in quite the same way that other kids do, nor does he express strong emotions (other than frustration) very often. As far as I know, he didn't cry when his grandfather died last summer, nor when our old dog, which had become my parents' dog several years ago, died last spring.

Yesterday, the boy child's pet betta fish died. This was the only pet he's ever had that was really 100% his. And while he didn't cry, I could tell that he was sad. At first he put on his objective/scientific "everything dies" face, but the more he talked about it, the more his voice began to waver and crack.

I asked him whether he wanted to bury the fish (as opposed to giving it a "burial at sea", if you know what I mean) and he said he did, so we put it in a ziploc bag and stuffed that into a Blue's Clues bandaid box, and we went out to the backyard to dig a hole. We chose a spot near the back fence, under some trees, and went to work. After we had covered the box with dirt and tamped it down so the neighborhood critters wouldn't disturb it, the boy found a rock to put on the grave for a marker. He didn't want to forget where his fish was buried. I walked back to the garage to put away the hand shovels, but the boy lingered behind, talking to his fish and trying to memorize where the grave was located. I told the boy he could come out there and talk to his old fish whenever he wanted.

Then we came back inside, and I asked the boy child if he wanted to save the little plastic plant from his fish's bowl, to remember him by. He said he did. So I washed it off and we wrote the fish's name and "2004-2005" on the base in black marker.

The boy child was decidedly sad now, though still not weepy. We started talking about buying another fish. I told the boy we could get one "this summer". The boy deduced that, since Wednesday is the last day of school, that meant we would be getting a fish this week, and he was sad about having to wait even that long. So then I told him that Monday is a free day (meaning we don't have any after-school activities) so we could go then. And then he said, with his little voice cracking, "How about tomorrow?" And so I said, "How about today?" And so off we went.

The old fish had been red, and at first the boy said he wanted another red fish, but when we got to the store he changed his mind and decided he wanted something bright and blue with no traces of red whatsoever. After maybe 10 minutes of examining the dozens of fish on the betta shelf at the store, he chose one that's sort of a vibrant turquoise. On the way home, I told the boy it was okay to still be sad about the old fish even though he has a new one now. And he agreed that the old fish would "always be part of our family".

So we brought the new fish home, got him settled in his bowl (we threw out the old one and bought a new one, just in case), gave him a little food, and then the boy child pulled up a chair and sat talking to his new fish for quite some time. At one point I heard him telling the new fish all about the old fish and how he had died and we had buried him in the backyard. Before he went to bed last night, the boy child said goodnight to his new fish several times.

This morning the boy went out back to the old fish's grave and sang him a song he had made up, entitled "Our Fishy Family". Then he came in and fed his new fish.

Almost done?

2005-05-20T08:43:00.000-07:00

We had another appointment with Dr. H yesterday. This was to be the boy child's third session of cognitive behavioral therapy for the outdoors/bugs issue. The plan was going to be to step up the boy's recess plan -- encouraging him to stay out for longer than 10 minutes and teaching him some relaxation techniques to get through it.

However.

When Dr. H heard how well the boy was doing, that plan was pretty much scrapped. The boy has been going out to recess every single day for the entire recess period and hasn't really shown any undue anxiety while out there (according to his teachers). Plus he's been going out on his own at home and having a great time. So obviously the recess plan doesn't need any modification, and the doctor doesn't want to get into the relaxation techniques because (a) the boy doesn't seem to need them right now, and (b) we're a little afraid the boy would perseverate on the relaxation thing and that would become an issue (you know, thinking he had to do his relaxation exercises every time he went outside, instead of just playing like he's doing now -- and I can totally see that happening, knowing the boy as well as I do).

And so, we don't have to go back to Dr. H until two weeks after school lets out (which is Wednesday of next week). Dr. H and the boy have dubbed his next appointment "Graduation Day". Because if, outside of the structure of his school day, the boy is continuing to go outside and enjoy the outdoors, then our work here is done, more or less.

There are some other issues we might need to work on at some point, and if we do, it's good to know Dr. H is around because we've been really happy with him. We are now very glad we followed our instincts and went to a psychologist rather than approaching a psychiatrist with a possible anxiety diagnosis. It amazes me that this absolutely paralyzing fear has more or less disappeared in just over a month with CBT, and it horrifies me to think that if we had approached this differently, we might right now be giving the boy psychoactive drugs for an anxiety disorder he doesn't even have.

The dentist

2005-05-18T15:19:00.000-07:00

The dentist has traditionally been an ordeal for the boy child, even though our dentist and her hygienists are all pain-free, non-scary and really excellent with kids. It's all the sensory stuff, I think -- the chair that goes up, down, forward and back (this is a problem at the haircut place, too), the squirters and suckers that make noise, the holding open of the mouth, the bright light, and worst of all, the bitewing x-rays.

The boy child has never, ever let them take bitewing x-rays of his mouth. Until today.

The girl child took her turn first, as she always does, because she is a model patient who actually enjoys going to the dentist. The boy and I had to leave the room during the x-ray portion of her exam, but we were able to watch through the door. Our dentist does digital x-rays, so I showed the boy how there was a big hunk of plastic and wires covered with a plastic sleeve, and how there was a little tab that he would bite on, and the hygienist would move the x-ray camera thingie right next to his cheek and then it would beep and he'd be done. And he was all psyched up for it, he said.

When it was his turn he did GREAT with the cleaning and whatnot. The hygienist already knows that she has to warn him before she moves the chair or squirts the water in his mouth or whatever, because we do this twice a year and it's always with the same lady (who is absolutely wonderful). We saved the x-rays for last, and she used the smallest, er, x-ray thingie that they use on the little kids, and the boy did okay until she started positioning it in his mouth. Then he got upset and started to gag and cry.

Right about that time, while I was standing in the hall trying to decide whether to go back in and try to calm him, the dentist walked by. She told the boy child that sometimes it helps if kids raise one leg while they get their x-ray. So she suggested that he try that, reminding him to concentrate on keeping that one leg up. And it worked! The hygienist worked quickly and they got two sets of x-rays on the boy, for the first time EVER.

Wow!

In other news, the boy brought home his scores for the math portion of the TAKS test, and he only missed ONE problem on the whole entire test (he got a 100% on the reading portion a couple of months ago). And the girl child won a raffle at the school carnival enabling her to have a princess tea party with her teacher and some other girls after school tomorrow. They're also going to make a fairy doll and a sachet and a pillow. There will be sewing! And snacking! The girl child is over the moon.

Tonight, we celebrate with take-out pizza!

A good week

2005-05-17T14:21:00.000-07:00

Well, the boy child had a pretty good week last week. After his appointment with Dr. H on Monday, during which they came up with the "recess plan", he went outside for recess every day, for the entire time. WITHOUT his jacket! And in the evenings he played outside with his sister and/or went to the park or for walks with DH. It was like his fear of the outdoors had never happened!

Sunday was a bit more hairy, though. We went to the school carnival, which was mostly outdoors, and there were quite a few butterflies and various other flying insects around. The boy child didn't have any major meltdowns, but there was a lot of flinching and a small amount of screaming/running. Nothing even close to the magnitude of what he was doing a month ago, though, and he wasn't so anxious that he couldn't enjoy himself. So that was good.

Monday morning I said, "So you're going outside for recess today, right?" and the boy said, "Actually, I'm thinking about staying in because of my allergies." So I reminded him of the 10-minute rule and he said he'd try to stick to it. And he ended up staying outside for the whole recess again. And he did it today, too! So I think we're on the right track.

Go, Boy Child, go!

2005-05-11T14:11:00.000-07:00

Okay, so not only did the boy child spend the entire recess period outside yesterday, he also played outside yesterday afternoon with his sister. The two of them played basketball in the driveway for maybe 30 minutes before dinner. And after dinner, he went for a walk around the neighborhood with DH. All without his jacket on, I might add.

And then this morning, instead of putting his jacket on as usual, he stuck it in his backpack "just in case". When we got to school, he talked very excitedly about going outside at recess and racing his friend again. And then he asked if he could run around the (outdoor) track before school, which is something he used to love to do nearly every day before this fear of the outdoors took hold of him. And so he did!

And he went out for the entire recess today without his jacket. I am amazed!

The recess experiment

2005-05-10T13:25:00.000-07:00

So the boy child had another visit with Dr. H (the psychologist) yesterday and they came up with a plan for recess. On good-weather days when the class has outdoor recess, the boy is supposed to go out with his class and try to spend at least 10 minutes outside. After that, he can go back inside to the library as usual if he wants to. On wet-weather days when the class stays indoors, Dr. H would like the boy child's teacher or a counselor or some other adult to take him outside at the usual recess time, just for a couple of minutes, under a covered walkway or something. This is supposed to get the boy child used to going outside every day at recess time, to kind of rewire his brain in a new pattern.

We spent last night and this morning psyching the boy child up for today's recess experiment, and he was a bit reluctant but willing. And then we got to school and, wouldn't you know it, there was a substitute teacher. Argh! I had emailed the boy child's teacher yesterday evening, explaining the whole system to her, and there was just no way to communicate the entire thing to the sub in a way that she would know what the heck I was talking about during the two minutes between when we found out she was there and when she would have to start class. Plus it wasn't really something I wanted to explain with the other kids around, which is why I had emailed it in the first place. Argh, again!

Fortunately, I ran into the boy child's regular teacher on my way back down the hall. It turns out she was going to be in training sessions or something all day, which is why they had the sub. And that's when I made a mental note to add something to the boy's IEP next year stating that when the teacher knows ahead of time that she's going to be gone and there will be a sub, I want to be notified so I can prepare the boy. Had we known there would be a sub today, we would have put the experiment off until tomorrow. I briefly ran down the plan for the boy's teacher (she hadn't read the email yet) and indeed, she suggested waiting until tomorrow. I told her that either she or I would have to go back to the classroom to inform the boy, because he was psyched and ready to do it today. So then she said maybe it would be best to leave it up to the boy child as to whether he wanted to go for it, and she said she'd speak with both him and the substitute. I left the school feeling a little irritated and wondering if I would be getting a phone call right about recess time.

There was no phone call, however, and when I picked up the boy child this afternoon he had great news! Not only did he go out for recess, but he stayed out the entire time! And he took off his jacket for most of it! He said he had so much fun playing with his friends -- they raced and played freeze tag, from the sound of things. Yay! Awesome!

And then, on the way home from school, the girl child felt the need to tell the boy child some story about how she and her friend, who lives right next door to us, saw a bumblebee in the friend's back yard the other day. So then I had to kind of yell at her a little bit for that. I mean, geez! I think her father's going to have to have a little talk with her about how we never ever ever mention bugs around the boy child, ever. I would do it myself, but evidence suggests that when I talk the girl child just hears those Charlie Brown cartoon adult "wah-wah" voices.

Wellness Day

2005-05-07T11:45:00.001-07:00

I'm happy to report that Wellness Day was a big success! I spent the entire day with the boy child (sneaking out of a couple of indoor presentations to touch base with the girl child) and he did really well. He even had his jacket off for much of the day! Which is good because the temperatures got into the 80s.

There was only one outdoor activity that he wanted to sit out -- one where the kids had to sit on the ground with giant elastic bands stretched between their feet, slingshot-style, to shoot little balls across a field. The boy child doesn't like to sit in grass, and I can't blame him because that particular grass was full of stickers and burrs. I think that was the activity that Mr. C was telling me about, the one where the boy sat on a milk crate during practice. But there weren't any milk crates at the actual thing yesterday, unfortunately. Next year I'll have to remember to bring a big towel or a tarp or something for stuff like this.

The boy child even participated in the water games, which was HUGE for him. In one game, the kids lined up between two big tubs -- one empty, one full of water -- holding coffee cans that they had to use to transfer the water from one tub to the other. The boy really enjoyed that one and got fairly wet from the chest down. The next game was a race where the kids had to carry plastic cups full of water on their heads, and the boy did that one without complaint (and was pretty good at it, too!). Another game was again a race, but the kids had to carry soaking wet sponges and they couldn't use their hands. The boy even put his wet sponge on top of his head for that one! Wow! For a kid who hates getting his face wet in the bathtub or pool, that was pretty amazing.

All in all he really did remarkably well. He had a few flinches and a few nervous vocalizations of the "uuuuuuhhhh" variety when he thought he saw bugs, and there were a few times when I heard him spontaneously yell out "oh, that's just a butterfly!" or some such, but no major freakouts, no tears, no screaming or running. Awesome!

We had our parent-teacher conferences Thursday afternoon and those went really well, too. The girl child has really taken off with her reading this year and is doing very well. The boy has also done very well academically this year (only two Bs on his report cards this year, both in Spelling, otherwise all As). The boy child's teacher mentioned that academically and intellectually, he very likely qualifies for our district's Talented And Gifted (TAG) program, particularly in the areas of math and science. We spoke about the fact that, at least in the first half of this academic year, he probably wasn't behaviorally ready for the program, though. But she really thinks that he would be ready the next time enrollment opens up (next fall, I think). So that's something we'll have to think about.

I find it kind of funny that if he does qualify for the program, the boy child would be in both Special Ed and the TAG program, because when I was growing up the two were kind of mutually exclusive. But so much more is known these days about learning disabilities and neurological quirks, it has really opened up the field of Special Education. I'm frankly thrilled that we'll have access to so many services beginning next year. I only wish we could have gotten the diagnosis, and thus had access to those services, sooner.

Cured! Or ... not.

2005-05-04T13:44:00.000-07:00

Yesterday when I picked him up from school, the boy child declared that he was completely cured of his "phobia" of the outdoors. Cured! All better! This news was greeted with much enthusiasm, as you can imagine. I asked him what had cured him, and he said that he had read something about phobias in a book and that was all it took to get rid of it. So I asked him if he'd gone outside at recess, and he said no, but only because yesterday was an early-release day and they don't have recess on those days. And we didn't really have a chance to put it to the test after school either, because homework was immediately followed by taekwondo which was immediately followed by occupational therapy which was immediately followed by dinner which was followed, shortly thereafter, by bedtime. But hey, tomorrow is another day!

So when I picked up the boy child this afternoon, before I could ask whether he'd gone outside at recess, he told me he hadn't. "It was cold, Mom. I want to test it out on a hot day." Um. Okay. "I don't really understand your rules for how this works, but I think it's great that you're willing to try going outside someday," I told him. "Yeah," he said, "someday when I'm ready." And then we went home, and a fly somehow got into the house, and when he saw it he ran screaming up to his room and slammed the door and wouldn't come out until I had produced a smushed fly corpse. Sigh.

I've only talked about the boy child so far, but there is also a girl child at our house, age 7. She is what is known in the parlance as "neuro-typical" or NT, meaning she does not have Asperger Syndrome. Although if you know the girl child, you know that "typical" is not quite the right word to describe her. We don't know if she's abnormally sensitive and social and ... sort of attention-demanding, or if she just seems that way in comparison to the boy. But at any rate, she's fairly well-adjusted and doesn't seem in need of a diagnosis for anything.

A couple of weeks ago, the girl child planted wildflower seeds in the newly created beds around the trees out front. Every day after dinner she'd water them and examine them to see how they were growing. They were just at the point where you could sort of tell one plant from another when suddenly they up and died overnight. It looked like someone had sprayed them with weed-killer. We suspect it was the new lawn service (hired specifically because they were willing to weed the flower beds, while the old service wasn't - oh, the irony). The girl child was crushed and I, as her mother, was crushed on her behalf. Well actually, I was ready to rip someone's arm off over it, but that seemed excessive.

And so today I went out in search of one of those mini-flowerbox kits that has the container, dirt and seeds to grow flowers quickly and easily, so the girl child could have her flowers with no chance of anyone messing with them. After searching three different stores to no avail, I finally found them at Linens & Things, of all places. I got the girl child a little bucket-kit for growing sweet peas, and the boy child a bucket o' sunflowers (the manliest of flowers, to make things fair and because he loves sunflower seeds). So that was their little surprise after school today, and they were delighted.

Except when it came time to actually assemble the kits and plant the seeds, which I suggested should be done outdoors. The boy child wanted no part of that. So instead we did it in the garage, with the door closed and the light on, and me filling up the watering can at the kitchen sink. Then the girl child put her bucket out back so it could get lots of sun, and she offered to take the boy's bucket out for him but he said he didn't want his bucket going outside AT ALL. So his bucket is perched on the kitchen windowsill, which is fine.

Friday is Wellness Day at school, which is a bit like the Field Day I remember from the end of the school year in my youth. Meaning the kids will be outside all day long. I debated whether to just keep the boy child home, but have instead opted, with input from the psychologist, to send him and just plan to shadow him all day long like I did at his field trip last week. I hope it goes well. Wish us luck!

Progress

2005-05-02T14:41:00.000-07:00

Quoth the boy child today:

"Mom, I think the psychologist is working because there's one kind of bug I'm not afraid of anymore - ladybugs!"

I spoke with Mr. C, the boy child's PE teacher, today to see how the boy is handling outdoor PE (which they do more often than not on nice-weather days). He said he's only had to send the boy inside once so far. Most of the time, he's able to distract him with whatever activity they're doing. Yesterday they were doing something called "rubber-band legs" (yeah, I have no idea, and I didn't ask) and Mr. C said that as long as the boy child was allowed to sit on a milk crate rather than on the grass, he did fine.

This news is both positive and critical to the boy child's therapy, because it indicates that his fear of the outdoors/bugs is part of the perseverative thoughts and behaviors that go along with Asperger Syndrome and not an actual phobia. As the psychologist explained it, the boy child's fear has become a habit more than anything. The boy has come up with a set of thoughts/behaviors that in his mind go along with "being outside", and so when he goes outside, he switches on that set of thoughts/behaviors. But if he's thinking about or actively engaged in something that distracts him from "being outside", he's able to shut down those thoughts/behaviors, at least in part. This wouldn't happen if he had a true phobia.

This is very, very good because it means that we're likely dealing with just Asperger's and not a co-morbid anxiety disorder. I am excited about this to what is probably an inappropriate degree, because I do not multitask well and wasn't looking forward to having to attack this thing on a hundred different fronts.

You've heard of the KISS principle? This is the KISSMDHAC principle - Keep It Simple So Mom Doesn't Have A Coronary.

And so it begins

2005-04-29T16:06:00.000-07:00

The boy child had his first official session of cognitive behavioral therapy today with the child psychologist, Dr. H, and by all accounts it went pretty well. Dr. H took the boy outside a few times to see how he reacted, but the boy was having a pretty good day with regard to the outdoors so he didn't get to see much.

They did a writing exercise wherein Dr. H asked, "What's the worst thing that could happen to you outside?" The boy child wrote, "I could get stung by a wasp, stung by a bee or bitten by a mosquito." Dr. H wrote underneath, "But I've never been stung by a wasp and I've only been stung by a bee once - in 1st grade." Then Dr. H asked, "What's the worst thing that's ever happened to you outdoors?" The boy wrote, "I was stung by an entire nest of yellow jackets." Which is not exactly what happened, but more about that later. Under that, Dr. H wrote, "But that was when I was three years old and it hasn't happened since." Then Dr. H asked, "What's the best thing that could happen to you outdoors?" The boy wrote, "I could play with my friends and play sports." Below that, Dr. H wrote, "Every day."

What actually happened when the boy child was three was that he was in the backyard scooting around in this plastic truck my parents had gotten him, and he was barefoot. Unbeknownst to us, some ground hornets had taken up residence in one of our sprinkler system reservoir thingies. It had a cap on it with a little hole, and some hornets got down in there and built a nest. When the boy rolled over it, a couple of them flew out (NOT the entire nest) and one stung him on his toe. Later, DH went out to investigate and the hornets swarmed and stung him (he was okay though - just ouchy for a while). The boy was safely in the house, watching out the window as this happened. We think he's melded the two memories in his mind so that he thinks HE was swarmed and stung multiple times. So we're going to have to talk with him about that and try to separate out the reality of what happened.

At any rate, the boy child really likes Dr. H and DH and I like him, too. I personally find that he has a comforting way of putting things into perspective. I told him about the field trip on Wednesday and the subsequent setback with the fire drill, and he pointed out that while the boy child was upset after the drill, he WAS able to walk to the car with me after school without running and screaming and soforth. I didn't have to carry him or pull the car up to the front door of the school. He didn't cower under his desk, refusing to go outside at all in case there might be bugs. So if you created a scale with possible levels of severity, the boy's reaction was really not all that bad. I feel somewhat better thinking about it in those terms.

DH and I have started to put feelers out for networking and support groups in our area. We'll have access to more services like this once the boy child is in the system at school. Apparently, there are a lot of services in our district for Autism/PDD. Good news!

Field trip

2005-04-27T14:26:00.000-07:00

The boy child had a school field trip today, and I went along ostensibly to chaperone but actually to act as his personal aide for the day. The first hour of the field trip was to be spent at a neighborhood park, and the second hour at a nearby grocery store.

The park was the problem. You see, since toddlerhood the boy child has been afraid of flying insects. The severity of this fear has waxed and waned, sometimes approaching and even surpassing the level of a phobia (picture a solid hour spent curled into the fetal position, absolutely inconsolable, screaming himself hoarse because he saw a fly in the house), sometimes forgotten altogether for months at a time. Right now, at this particular time, the fear is so severe that the boy child now refuses to go outside for recess. Refuses to go outside at all, in fact, unless he is wearing long pants and a hooded sweatshirt that covers his arms, neck and head. And even then he cowers against me, jumping and screaming if so much as a leaf skitters past on the sidewalk. It was the extreme nature of this fear that led us to consult a psychologist in the first place, which resulted in the Asperger's diagnosis.

And so, I went along to the park. I met the boy child as he got off the bus and assumed the position we've adopted for walking outdoors, him pressed into my side and my arm wrapped around him, shielding him from any bugs that might be in the area. He was fully zipped and hooded but otherwise didn't seem all that anxious. In fact, as we walked into the park, he drifted from my side and walked with a friend instead. He and his friend chose a spot at a picnic table and, after making sure there were no bugs on the bench, the boy child sat down and ate his lunch with no sign of anxiety whatsoever. Awesome!

Even better, after lunch the kids were given leave to play, and the boy child and his friend darted off to the swings. It was quite windy today and his hood kept blowing off, so he finally decided to leave it off altogether. This was HUGE for the boy child. "I'm feeling brave enough to do this!" he told me excitedly.

My biggest concern when the boy child was on the swings was whether or not to offer to push him. Had we been alone at the park, or around kids he didn't know, I would have stepped in and done it immediately. You see, the boy child doesn't really have the hang of how to work the swings. He knows there's something to do with moving your legs forward and back, and leaning this way and that, but he's never been able to figure out how to put it all together. But I soon found out that he wasn't particularly embarrassed about it. "I don't really know how to swing," he told his friend, who was very kind and tried to instruct him. "That's something Jennifer is going to work on with you," I said, referring to his occupational therapist. "Oh boy!" the boy child exclaimed. "I can't wait until my therapist teaches me how to do this! Hey mom, can you give me just ONE push?" So I did.

And then they were off again, running around the playscape, laughing and playing tag and acting like ordinary boys. The boy child showed no fear whatsoever. It was like all of his anxiety had been magically washed away. At one point he unzipped his sweatshirt. "I'm feeling really brave today!" he exclaimed. And some point after that, when he was all sweaty (it's in the 80s here), he actually...

Took. It. Off!

I'm not sure I can express what a huge, HUGE step this was. He was outside! And having fun! And he TOOK OFF HIS JACKET! The jacket that's been his suit of armor for more than a month now! I could not believe it. "I'm feeling extra, extra brave today, Mom!" he shrieked. "I feel so alive!" (Yes, he really says things like that. HOW CUTE IS HE?!) So I held his jacket for him, and while I saw him fidget with his bare arms and suddenly blousy t-shirt a few times, he wasn't afraid. "I'm so proud of you!" I yelled when he ran past. "I'm even more proud of myself!" he yelled back.

After the grocery store part of the field trip I headed back to the school because it was almost time for dismissal. As I sat in my car in the parking lot, reading a book, I heard the school's fire alarm go off. Oh, great. The boy child spent most of his kindergarten year in a constant state of anxiety because on his very first day of school, the fire alarm went off. He still had a lot of trouble with loud noises back then, and he was sure every day when he went to school that it would happen again. Which, of course, it did from time to time. Fire drills reduced him to tears. Once the alarm went off when he was in the bathroom at school, and he went through all of kindergarten and most of first grade refusing to use the school bathroom because of it. He's gotten somewhat better about fire drills since, but he still doesn't like them. And he was having such a good day today! Drat!

So when dismissal time finally rolled around shortly thereafter and I went inside to pick him up, the boy child was fully zippered and hooded again, hunched into himself. And then he tearfully told me that while he was outside during the fire drill, a bunch of bees were swarming around him. And so now, all the bravery that he felt earlier, all the joy he found in playing outside for the first time in over a month, has vanished as though it never happened. We're right back to square one, and he is terrified to even walk from the car to the front door of the house.

And I? Am pissed. Not at him, of course. And I guess I can't be mad at the school for conducting a safety drill. I mean, that's a GOOD thing, right? I don't know who I'm mad at exactly, but I'm just so frustrated that for one brief and glorious instant my child was without fear and felt so good about himself, and now even that tiny speck of hope has been snatched away again.

The doctor

2005-04-24T17:44:00.000-07:00

I am sick with a chest cold or upper respiratory infection or something, and the boy child is very concerned. Part of his concern is that he doesn't want to get close enough to me to catch my germs. The boy child's perseverative thoughts/behaviors -- the OCD-type characteristics that go along with Asperger's -- don't usually involve germs and handwashing and whatnot, but if someone is ill, he keeps his distance as much as possible.

And yet, because of his extensive knowledge of medicine and biology, he is interested. Yesterday he interviewed me in great detail, asking the specifics of each of my symptoms and writing them down in a notebook. Several minutes later, he handed me his "prescription" written on a baseball-shaped sticky note:

DO

drink lots of water
eat SOFT food like soup or yogurt
rest a lot
relax

DON'T

drink milk
eat chewey or crunchy foods
be active

Today he interviewed me again, asking whether each symptom I'd reported yesterday was more or less severe today, and whether there were any new symptoms. He offered to come up with another Do/Don't list based on the changes I reported, but I told him I thought the one he already gave me was working great.

It's nice having a doctor in the house!

Welcome to Donkey Burger

2005-04-22T13:05:00.000-07:00

What is "donkey burger", you ask? It's the phrase my nine-year-old son uses to refer to his Asperger Syndrome. (Think about it for a minute - you'll get it.) He has decided that if someone is hassling him about his tics or his avoidance of bugs or any of his other myriad quirks, he will just say, "Lay off, dude! I have Donkey Burger!"

It's as good a name as any.

We had a feeling almost from the start that something was not quite right with the boy child, but it was never anything you could put your finger on and say, "Aha! That's an unmistakable characteristic of XYZ Syndrome!" As a newborn, he didn't like to be swaddled or cuddled. He had problems nursing, slept a lot, and would sometimes scream as if in pain for no apparent reason. So we learned to let him lie on our laps rather than cuddling him, supplemented nursing with formula to bring and keep his weight up where it should be, and dosed him with various anti-colic remedies. And he was a truly delightful baby with a predictable sleep schedule, a laugh like a squeaky gate, and a fondness for visual contrast and silly noises.

The boy child didn't walk until he was 15 months old, which is not all that late, really. When he got his DTP shot shortly thereafter, he stopped walking again for a week or so. Once he was mobile, he loved to explore and touch everything. He studied things - opening a door over and over and over again to figure out how it worked, practicing new skills over and over until he had perfected them. His approach to everything - crawling, walking, talking - was deliberate and methodical.

As he blossomed from toddler to preschooler, a few more issues became apparent. The boy child had an ungainly gait. Getting him dressed was difficult, because he had poor body awareness and was not able to anticipate what came next - first one leg goes in the hole, then the other leg goes in the other hole, then we pull it up, etc. He was not able to accurately put his body into a position that allowed me to reach and dress him easily. He either stood too far away, or flailed around to the point that he would accidentally hit me or undo what I had already done. So he learned to stand or lie still as I fluttered around him, pulling arms and legs and heads through holes (but the latter quickly, because he didn't like anything touching his face). He complained about the tags in his clothes and I had to cut them out. Loud noises upset him tremendously, as did any change in his routine. But still, he remained a pleasant and generally cheerful child. He began to develop an astounding vocabulary and taught himself to read at age three.

When the boy child was not quite five years old, we enrolled him in half-day preschool three days a week to prepare him for kindergarten. Preschool was very difficult for the boy child. The atmosphere was chaotic and noisy. Once when I arrived to pick him up, I found him crouched under a table with his hands pressed against his ears. He had problems playing on the playground equipment. He didn't like to walk on unstable surfaces or surfaces that he could see through. He continued to have motor planning difficulties and low body awareness. He didn't seem particularly interested in children his own age, preferring instead adults or children who were much younger than him.

The boy child has always lived in his own head much of the time. We used to joke that he had the opposite of ADD - it's impossible to distract him when he's focused on something. Because of this, the first thing I considered when we became aware that something was up, was autism. But the boy was so interactive! He enjoyed humor, he conversed with us and joked with us, he was aware of his surroundings most of the time. He didn't zone out to the point of being completely unreachable - he was just hard to engage sometimes. And so instead, we looked at sensory processing issues and thought we had found our answer.

In the summer between first and second grade, we had the boy child evaluated for Sensory Integration Dysfunction and he came up positive. He began working with an occupational therapist on fine and gross motor skills, dyspraxia, and social interaction and made tremendous progress. We attributed all of his quirks - the extreme interest in and knowledge of various scientific subjects, his preference for reference books rather than fiction, his difficulty making friends, his poor handwriting, etc. - to SID and attempted to address them with occupational therapy.

However, there were some underlying issues that weren't going away. The boy child showed signs of obsessive thoughts and compulsive behavior. When stressed, he developed tics - throat clearing, shrugging, finger snapping, neck rolling, blinking, etc. He developed extreme phobias that greatly interfered with his quality of life. A trip to the pediatrician had us gearing up for a possible diagnosis of anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, specific phobia, and/or possibly Tourette Syndrome.

And then we visited a child psychologist who deals with this sort of thing. And just yesterday, we got an actual diagnosis - one that has suddenly completed the puzzle of the boy child, rendering all of his unique characteristics comprehensible. The boy child has Asperger Syndrome/Pervasive Developmental Disorder. And it makes so much sense now. Now we can move forward with getting him services at school, and we can come up with a plan to cope with the perseverative thoughts/behaviors, and the boy child has a shot at learning how to cope with all of this before nature decides to throw hormones and whatnot into the mix.

Now, we have Donkey Burger.