When hard work pays off

At today's aikido class, Little Brother was honored with The Purple Stripe. The elusive purple stripe was mentioned in a class a few months ago. It is bestowed upon a student who shows good leadership and acts as a good example for others in class. Ever since he heard about, Brother has had his goal set on earning that purple stripe. He was so proud of himself when he told me about it. He said he was so surprised, and when he saw Teacher Nancy pulling out the purple tape he got really excited, and he didn't know what to think. It was very sweet listening to him recap the whole experience.

Little Brother has always been such a sensitive kid, and so much in life brings him down or makes him feel like a failure. I love that these past five months, aikido class has consistently been a place where he's been excited to go, and always comes away feeling successful. When I watch his class, I can see him working on a lot of the skills I've tried to help him with for years - remaining calm and cool when frustrated, remaining focused on his own behavior and trying not to worry about the behavior of others, speaking up when he needs something. He still can't hold it together in a lot of other settings, but he has a safe place to work on it when he goes to aikido. Tonight I loved sharing in his excitement that his hardwork didn't go unnoticed.

Update, Jan26

All is well! We're just keeping busy. We all survived the flu in December, recovering in time to enjoy the holidays.

Big Sister continues to read voraciously. She's struggling with rote memorization of math facts, so we continue to plug away in the math book while doing daily times table review. This makes her scowl, but she admits it's needed at this point. She's also doing daily journal writing, which is off-limits to teacher mom - I just wanted to see her getting comfortable with daily writing, without the pressure of spelling things perfectly. Seems to be working. Retention of spelling words is a struggle - she aces the tests, but can't seem to remember them in her writing. Not sure how to make that connection.

Little Brother is happily homeschooling. He's my eager learner right now, waking with a smile, and running downstairs to start his day. He's progressing nicely, and isn't being held back by a lot of the perfectionism that was paralyzing him when he came out of school in October. He's really into building k'nex and LEGO models right now - builds them, takes them apart, builds them again. He likes following the instruction manuals. Brother also just started an Aikido class last week. He tried it out last Tuesday, and while he did enjoy the class, he initially told me he didn't want to do it again "because they do stuff in there that I don't know how to do". See? The whole perfectionism thing. We talked about how that's kind of the point of taking a class - to learn how to do something you don't know how to do from someone who can share their knowledge with you, or to enjoy doing something with other people, even if you're "not that good" yet. He must have thought about it for a couple of days and decided that it was fun enough to take the risk. His next class is this afternoon - I'll be sure to take a picture in his new uniform!

Enough complaining and whining - time for action...

Friday is Little Brother's last day of public school! We've been going through a rough patch with first grade, and it didn't make sense to keep trying to muddle our way through when there's another option available to us. I'd obviously not been won over by school this fall, but was trying to be supportive of a choice that was making my boy happy, and certainly wasn't damaging him - until it started damaging him.

One night I heard him crying softly in his bed - turns out he was worrying about the next school day, and feeling like he's "not smart enough" for first grade. I immediately emailed the teacher to let her know what we were dealing with at home, so she could either shed some light on the matter, or work with him on her end. After all, with him away from me for 7 hours/day, she's the one who has him for most of his waking hours - plus she's "the professional" and I thought she might have a few tricks up her sleeve. She is a nice woman, and my boy thinks she's amazing, so I have no gripes against her really - it's just that her methods of trying to build his self-confidence back up were hugely unsuccessful. She let me know that she's constantly telling him how smart he is, and publicly pointing out her own mistakes and foibles to him in an effort to make him feel better, but to no avail. The fact is we can tell him these things until we're blue in the face, but if he doesn't believe it and really feel that he is successful, our words matter little.

Unfortunately, after weeks of working on this issue, Little Brother's attitude towards himself and school has not improved. He began asking, daily, to homeschool. So, after many long discussions with dear husband (who agreed that when our intelligent boy believes he's stupid, there's a problem), I set the wheels in motion to home school. I filled out the paperwork yesterday, had it signed and date stamped, and then let his teacher know. She was very supportive, and agreed that the home school environment was likely a good fit for him right now. Today I go to the school's office and let them know officially. I also want to talk with the principal about having my boy continue taking music with his class twice/week (state law allows homeschoolers free access classes, such as PE and music, on a space-available basis at their neighborhood schools). After a Halloween party at school on Friday, he will officially be a first grade drop-out!

This will be a big adjustment for all of us. Big Sister is worried about having less one-on-one time with me - a valid concern. She's also worried that Brother won't like her humming and fidgeting as she works - he probably won't. She does agree that school isn't working for Brother, and that he deserves the same opportunity to learn at home as she is having. I'm confident we will make this work, and that we will all be happier for it. Wish us luck!

A rant from a home schooling mom with a child in public school

A recap: Little Brother is in first grade at the neighborhood elementary school, and Big Sister homeschools. Little Brother says he likes school. Mom doesn't like school. Little Brother frequently comes home and shares things about school that make Mom cringe. Little Brother is a grumpy beast every single morning when we are getting ready to walk to the bus. Mom has told Little Brother that she doesn't understand how he can like school but be such a rude crab while trying to get him out the door to this wonderful place. Mom isn't having a good time.

Shall I count the ways in which I dislike school (in no particular order)?

1.We can start with the three weeks of mind-numbing math review that had Andrew in tears at homework time because "I already did this in school. Why do I have to do it again?" Honestly, I don't know. But if you want to play the school game, then this is what you put up with. And even though I would like to have kept him moving forward on the math he'd been doing over the summer, he was burnt out after a long day, followed by homework. "Afterschooling" would be cruel, for both of us.

2. The ridiculously long school day. He leaves home at 8:45am and returns to the house at 4:10pm. That's nearly 7 1/2 hours. These are children, for Pete's sake. I completely understand that the long school day is a huge blessing for families that do not have an adult home during the day, and relieves some of the financial burden of childcare. I would like to have the option of a shorter day for families that are able to accommodate that (oh, wait. i do have that option - home schooling).

3. Homework in first grade. Dumb. It's all part of the trend - cram more academics in earlier, extend the day, and you're supposed to have some magic recipe for higher test scores 11 years from now. I think the experiment is failing. If I remember correctly, when I was in school we did NOT spend all day in school and our test scores were higher. Quantity (time spent in school being stuffed full of information) does not equal Quality learning.

4. I can't even pick my own kid up from school. Last Friday I sent him to school with the proper form filled out so that we could pick him up as our family was heading out of town at the end of the school day, rather than him riding home on the bus. When the school day ended, Brother's teacher wouldn't let him get in the parent pick-up line, even when he reminded her that he did bring a note that morning. She had forgotten, and told him he didn't have a note and made him get in the bus line area. When we finally found him he was sobbing - full body-shaking sobs, afraid we were going to leave town without him. When we homeschool, I don't have to fill out anyone's form to leave town on a Friday afternoon.

5. His class earns marbles in a marble jar when they're being good. Last Friday the jar was full to the top, so the class got to vote on what kind of "party" they wanted to have for the following Monday. Brother voted for an extra recess, but watching a movie won. Monday rolls around, they start watching the movie during snack time, but a lot of the kids are talking so the teacher turns the movie off part way through and the entire class loses their earned reward. Andrew was not talking, in fact is such a strict rule-follower he probably earned half those dumb marbles for his class... and he was enjoying the movie because it was about his favorite book characters of all time: Kevin Henkes' mice. He was so sad and disappointed. I asked him (and I really shouldn't have said this, but the whole thing was ridiculous) "So did you turn around to the rest of your classmates and say 'You guys all suck! Can't you keep your mouths quiet for 15 minutes?!!'" Fortunately he said he hadn't, and you can't say stuff like that at school. Too bad - they deserved it. I hate when the good kids get punished because of idiots they can do nothing about.

6. Other kids are annoying. Really. And they don't listen to politeness and respectful behavior. What's wrong with these kids? There's a girl that is constantly in Brother's space every single day after school in the bus line. She touches him and tickles him, and doesn't stop. For the first couple of weeks he would politely say "Please stop." which only fell on deaf ears. This caused him to revert to behaviors we haven't seen in over a year, where he self-harms out of frustration - biting himself, scratching his face hard enough to leave marks, pounding his head into the ground. Nice, huh? I realize he needs to learn other ways to manage frustration, but this annoying kid needs someone to teach her that when someone repeatedly asks you nicely to stop, you stop. Neither kid is being helped by a guiding adult in this situation. If my kid someday smacks her (rather than hurting himself), I will applaud him.

7. Not enough time for my slow eater to finish lunch, and he's not drinking liquids. Not the school's fault entirely, but something that could be completely avoided if he were eating lunch at home. He never finishes all his food, and he doesn't have enough time to finish his apple juice. Because he doesn't have time to finish his apple juice, he's stopped opening it up at all. Why? Because any liquids have to be squeezed out over a strainer into a garbage can at the end of lunch, and he has a hard time coordinating a proper squeeze that doesn't get juice all over him. Rather than face that stress (since everyone is in a hurry at that point, and the line is growing behind him), he has determined it can be avoided by simply not drinking. This is my kid who is just overcoming 4 years of severe bowel issues and is finally weaned off of daily meds, and needs to be drinking fluids so he doesn't back slide. But I can't be there to say "hold on and drink your juice before heading out to recess".

8. The bus is completely inconsistent. This is a gripe, but it's related to my overall dissatisfaction with our school experience. The bus shows up sometime in a 10 minute window on either side of his appointed drop-off time (morning too, but slightly more regular). I have to block 25 minutes out of my afternoon to make sure that I'm at his stop in case she's running early, leaving Big Sister home to mill about. I'd just like some predictability, that's all I ask.

9. My boy is starting to read, but can't really read yet. Sometimes he doesn't quite get the directions right on the work he does in class. The other day he was supposed to draw and odd number of shapes, and an even number of shapes. He ended up drawing two shapes of odd-numbered sides (triangle and pentagon), then added all the sides together and wrote "8". He did the same for the evens, drawing a square and a hexagon, then adding all the sides and writing "10". We were looking it over when he got home, and he said "Hey! Why'd she mark that wrong?" Well, dear, it's because the teacher is expecting the same conventional responses to these questions out of each of her students, and it's too much to expect her to figure out that your answer shows understanding of the concept - and then some. There is little room in public education for thinking outside of the box.

This is all just a rant. School is not killing my boy (yet), or me (but almost). I think the reason the first month of school has been so hard for me is because I see daily that everything about it is unnecessary. We could avoid all of this by homeschooling. When I think about what he's gaining that he wouldn't be receiving at home, there's very little I come up with. This all struck me yesterday when Little Brother spent a school day at home with us. He woke up around 4:30am with a cough and never fell back to sleep, so I decided to keep him home for the day. It was great - we all homeschooled, he came along to Natalie's Spanish class and swimming, he learned to play tether ball, he picked a chicken egg from our friends' hen house, and we met some very rude and obnoxious homeschooled boys (and I was able see everything happen and talk to him about it later). It was a fabulous day, and it all felt right. I don't think we'll be playing the public school game much longer, as it's just not worth it to us on so many levels.

Little Brother goes to school?

One of my blog readers, whom I met through the comments section not long ago (and who has two terrific blogs that I've since started following: Best Family Adventures and A Year of Living Charitably) was a little confused by my last blog entry The "Importance" of School. Totally understandable. You think you're reading a blog about a homeschooling family, and then the blogger makes a comment like "Little Brother comes home from school...", and new readers are probably thinking "huh?".

Last fall, after a lot of thought, discussion with the hubby, and talking with my homeschooling friends (who politely acted as a sounding board while rolling their eyes), we made the decision to enroll Little Brother in morning kindergarten.

I should probably back up and explain some of the very first issues that led us to homeschooling almost six years ago. Six years ago, Big Sister was just turning 4, and had just become a preschool dropout. At the time all we knew was that the preschool she'd been going to for 3 mornings/week for the past year (which got me through a high-risk pregnancy and bedrest) was not the right fit for our daughter. We didn't know what our next step was going to be, but we pulled her out and began exploring our options for preschool and beyond. As a single income family, non-religious private schools were not a solution that could be reconciled financially. Our local school district only offered full-day kindergarten, and our neighborhood school was known to be fairly rigorous. I came from a time when kindergarten (if you went at all) was for listening to stories being read by your teacher, playing house, building with blocks, and playing duck-duck-goose on a grassy field next to the playground. Then you drank your dixie cup of juice, and went home to go play some more, and maybe nap. Full-day kindergarten was not in my vision for our kid. (And then there's a rant in here about how putting kids in school all day and starting the more rigorous instruction early on has not translated into increased test scores, or better prepared high school graduates... but I digress.)

I'm not sure I'd even heard of homeschooling before this, and I'm sure I hadn't considered it as an educational choice. It's very possible I stumbled upon it on an attachment parenting message board, but I do know that some of my first answers about homeschooling came from the homeschooling message board on iVillage. Eventually hubby and I decided that we would try it out for a year to see how it would go. Then we tried it another year... and here we are.

Spring forward to the end of Summer 2008. Little Brother is 5 years old. He's quirky, prefers to play alone, doesn't have any real friends. I should qualify that: he has kids who think of him as their friend, but their play usually involves pushing Little Brother's buttons until he gets angry and frustrated enough that he storms away. It's not that they single him out, because these kids do it to each other, too, and seem to like it. It's like some odd, archaic form of "friendship". Little Brother doesn't handle it well, and I was at a loss for how to help him out socially. He also has some issues that I was starting to feel like I wanted an outside person to see besides me, so I might know if we needed to seek outside help: sensory issues, self-injury, and the lack of friendships with other kids. So the local kindergarten started looking more and more like an educational and social experiment that we'd like to pursue.

I am not at all disappointed that we chose to try kindergarten. It is, for the most part, the kindergarten experience a kid should have if they're going to go to school. It's short, leaving plenty of the day for unstructured, child-led pursuits. It's active - the kids don't sit in one place for more than 5-10 minutes before they're up and moving to the next activity. It's fun - they have ample opportunity to choose how they want to play, they sing songs, and hear stories. I could do without the nightly homework, and the fundraisers, but those concerns are minor. I've had my initial feelings validated - Little Brother is a quirky kid, who often prefers the company of adults. He finds most of his same-age peers annoying because they display behaviors that are pointless, irritating, and make little sense. He does now have a core group of three friends who he adores, and they're all nice to each other, and don't try to push his buttons. He's getting to experience what friendship is supposed to be like.

Because the length of the school day increases greatly beginning in first grade (he would leave on the bus before 9am, and not return home until almost 4pm), leaving little time for the pursuits of childhood, we will likely be withdrawing him at the end of this school year. I can't see the purpose in having him at school for that long of a stretch when we could accomplish the same, academically, in a fraction of the time at home. We will continue to nurture the friendships he has developed, and look for other opportunities for him to continue to grow socially.

And that is the story of how Little Brother went to school.

Mulitplying Mayhem

edited (1/24) to add: "how embarassing to have a typo in the title of a post! bleh!"

While watching Bis Sister work on her math last night, I decided I'm not pleased with her recall speed on many of her multiplication facts. We'd been using Timez Attack quite a while ago, but she didn't care for it - she got really anxious when it came time to face the big ogres in the dungeon, to the point of nearly being in tears. That's my sensitive kid for you. The boy child thinks Timez Attack is great fun.

So I went searching the 'net to find hints and ideas for reinforcing and practicing multiplication facts. I came upon Multiplication.com, which was just the ticket. Lots of free online games that appeal to a variety of interests. Big Sister enjoyed "Math Models" (answer enough multiplication problems, and it opens up more outfits and accessories to dress your model), and "Cone Crazy" (serve the penguins the flavor ice cream they want by answering problems correctly). Other games include trying to fling a knight over a castle wall (rather than into the wall, or the moat), whacking moles, and much, much more. Fun stuff. In addition to the games, they also have other printable activities and resources to help make those multiplication facts stick. I haven't explored much further, but it looks like they have sites for other math operations as well. I can tell Multiplication.com is going to get a lot of use in our house!

Proud Mommy moment

There was an ice cream social sponsored by the PTA at A's school last night, and the whole family went. It was really interesting to watch him on his turf; someplace where the rest of us are complete outsiders at this point.

First of all, I can see that school fuels his desire for clearly established rules. As soon as we got out of the car and stepped onto the sidewalk that leads to the front of the school, he and sis began running excitedly, but then he suddenly stopped and said to us "Oh, wait! No running on the sidewalk!" It's cute watching him try to keep himself from running, LOL!

Later, he and N. were across the sports field as hubby and I watched from the playground. They were both headed back towards us, when A. started to veer off towards a group of older girls who were standing back in the trees along the fence on the far side of the field. Hubby muttered "Oh, here we go..." as we watched A's hands go to his hips as he strided purposefully over to the group of 8 or so girls, obviously to read them the riot act. It became apparent that the area was off-limits, and that he was going to remind them of that. Sure enough, shortly after he disappeared behind the trees, the girls began to swarm out the other side, coming back towards the playground... with A. following behind, hands still on his hips. Two girls were walking behind him, smiling and talking to each other, when one put her hands on her hips in imitation. Both of them laughed (it was really funny), and he stopped in his tracks, turned to face them and then obviously told them off. They giggled and ran to go play elsewhere. He had a big scowl, and stomped back over to us to let us know that he'd let all of them know that they weren't supposed to play over there. He also let the two girls know that he could be angered very easily, LOL! They were really good sports about it. I'll be curious to see where this leads A. in the future.

The other thing that was really cool to see is just how well-developed his social skills really are. I've always taken him as being a loner in big groups, even with kids he's known for a couple of years now. Last night he was really excited to introduce us to kids from his class that he ran across on the playground. We met Piper, Andrew F., Garret, Ethan, and ran into Riley (who we already know from his bus stop). He would go up to them and say "I'd like you to meet my sister, N." He was really animated, not in his usual silly way, but like he was really engaged in what was going on. This was in contrast to the kids he introduced us to, who seemed startled to be approached by another child, let alone know how to respond to being introduced to someone. I was pleased to see that he's evidently been properly socialized in the past five years (in spite of not attending any kind of structured school environment). I was equally pleased to see that his sister obviously holds a really special place in his life, and that it was important to him that his friends meet her, and that she meet them. I'm now wondering if some of the activities we participate in with our homeschool group are just too overwhelming because they are so loosely structured, and because there are so darn many kids there. Yesterday's LEGO club at the library had 70 people in attendance, and A. spent most of his time sitting in a small corner by himself. He didn't want to leave, and he said he was having fun, but he really didn't want to deal with all those kids. He tends to be the same at parkday. Maybe in his kindgergarten class of 20 kids, he'll come out of his shell a little bit - more like the way he is with us at home.

When it was time to go and we were driving away, I commented to Hubby that the whole experience felt really bizarre. Something about attending a function at your child's school that makes it very apparent that you are, in fact, an adult. By homeschooling these past 5 years, we were mostly able to avoid that reality. I think that last night's little ice cream social easily aged us five years, in less than 60 minutes time. I'm steering clear of that place in the future! LOL

A bumpier ride (updated 5:45pm)

Today went slightly less smoothly for our resident kindergartener. This morning he really did NOT want to get ready for school. What he wanted to do was stay in his pajamas and go downstairs to watch tv. He let me know that he's already done two days of school this week, and he didn't want to do it today. Doh. Sorry, buddy, but we're going to play by the rules here for at least the first few weeks. You don't get to take a personal day on Day 3.

When he came home, things weren't much better. He seemed happy enough, but when I was asking him about his day, he started walking towards the front door (we were outside). He closed the door, then opened it and told me "Mom, I've had to talk to people all day, and I just can't listen to anyone anymore!". Then closed the door again, and stormed off to his room, leaving me sad and speechless out in the driveway. I think he's burnt out on people (lol, ya think?) which I was kind of afraid would happen. Later he excitedly told me that he gets tomorrow off, but I had to break the news that he's got one more day. And this is only a four-day week. Sigh.

UPDATE:
Apparently I misunderstood. I thought he was telling me that he gets a full day off tomorrow, but what he was trying to tell me was that tomorrow was going to be "full day". Now, in his mind, after three days of adults asking him if he's in full-day or half-day kindergarten, he thought that full day meant he was going to be at school all day tomorrow. When I prodded him further, trying to figure out what he was telling me, he said that his teacher told them "tomorrow is going to be a full day!" LOL - imagine his confusion. He was telling me that he was going to miss lunch, and that he hoped he'd be home in time for dinner. Fortunately I was able to explain that his teacher just has a lot planned for them to do tomorrow, and he'll be home at his usual time. I'm sure his worries over spending the whole day at school tomorrow probably contributed to his attitude upon arriving home. So much to learn.

Success, and other stuff...

You'd think that nine years into parenting and we'd have the whole bedtime/sleep thing figured out. Actually our kids sleep pretty well now, it's just that there typical sleep schedule is slightly deviated from the norm. They generally fall asleep around 10pm, and wake up around 9am - probably more sleep than a lot of kids get, I would guess.

Seeing as how the youngest member of the family is venturing out into the world in just one week and heading off to School, it seemed like a good idea to try and steer the sleep into a more traditional timeframe. Last week we were on vacation, sleeping in various locations, with no schedule to speak of. Yesterday was Day One of Operation Make the Kids Go to Sleep Earlier. I had A. in jammies, teeth brushed, and story read by 8:15pm. I was pretty happy with that... except that he was still awake over two hours later. Not a good start.

This morning he was out of bed by 7:30am. We had an appointment to get to, and because I had other errands as well, I decided we should be out of the house before 8:30. Tonight we had the whole routine completed by 7:45pm, and he was asleep at 8:30pm. We're making some progress here on Night 2! N. is also getting to bed earlier, so this is nice all the way around.

N. had an appointment with the ENT today to see if there might be a "mechanical" cause for her mouthbreathing, and consequent maloclusion (ie. overbite - this came up at a dentist appointment last month). The dr. said she definitely has large adenoids and tonsils, but since they aren't causing sleep problems, apnea, or eating difficulties, he would not recommend removal unless the ortho says the mouthbreathing is causing the bite problems. Next we'll get the referal to the ortho and go from there!

The ENT's office was directly across from the biggest Whole Foods I've ever visited in my life. The place was a little overwhelming, to tell you the truth, but I could have spent hours there - of course I'd have to do that without children. Not sure what it is about Whole Foods, but everytime I've ever taken A. into one of those stores his behavior is completely wild. His body is completely out of control with only one speed: fast (unless I've just called him on it, at which point his speed hits zero because his body becomes limp and drops to the floor, muttering to himself that he'll never walk again - he's so much fun). At one point he was half twirling, half skipping as we approached the wine section, with end displays of precariously perched bottles of wine in grave danger of toppling in the wake of a frolicking Hurricane Andrew, each completely oblivious of the other. Clutching my ulcer, and wondering if it was really worth the effort of finding all the ingredients to whip up some fresh tzatziki, I pointed out the obvious to my whirlwind child ("Honey, stop a second. Take a look around - what do you see?" "Glass?" "Yes. Twirling while holding your arms out and skipping probably isn't the safest way through here".) He immediately stopped, clapped his hands together over his head like an arrow, stiffened up his legs, and began shuffling along making himself very narrow. He was happy with himself. I was amused, but eager to bring the shopping trip to a close.

Last thing here before I turn in...
I haven't mentioned this here before because my mom didn't really want the whole world to know, but she found out earlier this summer that she has a brain tumor. It's a benign meningioma - a "good" brain tumor to have, if you have to have one. Her doctor was taking a wait and see approach, holding off on surgery until she has more symptoms. She seems to be developing more symptoms, and is feeling really scared. Prayers, if you're the praying type, and positive thoughts would be appreciated.

It's a Calgon day

It's not even 9am, and I feel like I'm in that old "Calgon, take me away!" commercial! LOL!
Andrew is trying my patience. In his defense, he spent the last 3 days having a tummy bug, and is obviously still feeling a little out of sorts. But he's been crying since he woke up two hours ago. First he was sobbing because his nose is stuffed up "and I'll never be able to breathe out of it again!". I reminded him that crying usually makes noses more stuffed up. Does he want to blow it? No. More sobbing. Goes to his room, mad at me, and strips down to his underwear.

Now he's hungry. I thought he said he wanted waffles. Apparently I was wrong. He wants oatmeal. More crying. And he'd like apple juice. No problem. But now he's cold, and there are goosebumps on his arms - crying. I suggest clothing. NO!!! It's not because he's not wearing clothing that he's cold (silly me), it's because the sun isn't out enough (let me get right on that...). And he's hungry, because he's so cold that he can't use his arms to lift his hands to raise the spoon to his mouth. And he wants the bumps to be off his arms.

So he's sobbing, actually a full-blown tantrum right now. There's nothing that I can do. He chooses battles that cannot be won, or refuses to let be solved. And so he cries. And then he sits in a corner and sings from the song Ugly Bug Ball "I've got nobody to hug. I'm such an ugly bug." And he doesn't want anyone to talk to him, hold him, or comfort him. He wants to be alone to stay in his funk.

Vent, vent, vent. sigh.

Party! Party! Party!

Yesterday I had to run over to Kinkos to make copies with the kids. For some reason they're always a little crazy when we go in that place, so I prepped them before we went in "No running around, and try to keep your voices down, please. People are trying to work in there."

Poor A. He just couldn't contain himself. He was running under the tunnels (the area underneath each of the work stations), pulling himself up onto the posts that mark the line you wait in at the counter, jumping, running, hugging N, hanging on her, doing handstands. All while I made two double-sided copies.

When I was finally done and we were back out to the parking lot, I stopped A and had him look at me while I told him "In the next store, I need you to control your body. That was too much craziness, and you need to keep it together a little bit." He "Okay, Mommy"s me, and we cross the parking lot to our car. As I'm getting him buckled in his carseat he exclaims.

"ARR! It's my brain!" and starts punching himself in the head.

Me, slightly horrified, though not completely unaccustomed to seeing him flog himself: "It's your brain?"

"Yah, Mom. Ya know? My brain tells my body to do these things, and I have to tell it not to."

"Really? How do you tell it not to?"

"Like this:" and he whacks himself again, "It's a party in there!"

It was quite an insightful conversation, actually. I've read of kids with ADHD describing parties in their brain, though I've never heard A. use that description, nor would I necessarily consider him hyperactive (LOL, although yesterday in Kinko's a wave of movement had definitely washed over him). I'm happy that he's able to reflect inward like that and describe what he's feeling - maybe someday that ability will carry over during his fits of anger and disappointment, too. I don't think I've ever had a party in my brain - I think I'm missing out!

Today's swimming report

N. did great today at swimming lessons! Amazing what goggles will do for a kid. I saw the best swimming out of her today that I've ever seen. They're working on perfecting their crawl stroke, and on side breathing. Most of the kids seem pretty clueless with the side breathing, and I told N. that it just takes practice. She was quite the little fish, and even chose to work on her backstroke all on her own during freetime at the end of class.

Poor A. is so sensitive. There are some younger kids in his class who are always goofing around and being silly, not staying on the wall to wait their turn to swim across, and generally thrashing around and bumping into the other kids. A. just can't take it. He hates to be too close to anybody else, and more than that, he hates when people don't follow the rules. When a kid starts playing with a toy, he takes it from them and sticks it back in the basket, and, nearly in hysterics tells them: "It's not playtime yet! We can't play with those during class!". Today when the kids were lined up on the side getting ready to jump in, the boy next to him didn't have his toes up to the edge. A. cried out: "Wait! Wait! His toes aren't on the edge, he's gonna get hurt!" (this based on his interpretation of the sign posted on the fence that shows someone diving in and breaking their neck). Of course, he didn't seem to feel that the rules applied to him when class was over and it was time for him to get out. He came *t h i s c l o s e* to losing playtime after his next lesson. That threat from his teacher definitely lit a fire under him, LOL! Oh, and there's a preschool going on in the play area just outside of the pool. For the last month there were never any kids out there, but the schedule has changed now that it's summer. The last two days there's been this kid there, looks to be A's age, but a little bigger. A. is terrified of him. I watched him give A. kind of a look - sort of a "back off kid" kind of glare, which made A. wilt and duck behind me. He accels at many things, but social confidence is more N's territory, that's for sure!

N's bday party is the day after tomorrow. I still need to assemble gift bags, pick up the cake at Costco, and email parents to remind them to have their kids bring socks to wear. The party is at a roller skating rink, and I'd hate for all these kids to show up in sandals with no socks. It will be interesting to see how the party goes. N. has never actually been rollerskating before, but she thought this sounded fun. She's a little disappointed that we aren't splurging for everyone to rent rollerblades. At $4 extra X 16 kids, that just isn't happening! We have friends coming from out of town tomorrow to stay overnight and come to the party, and we're looking forward to their visit.

LOL - the dog just let out this big whimper, which completely startled me. I looked over, and he's sound asleep in the middle of some crazy dog dream.

Is it obvious I'm avoiding housework? Man I suck at keeping house.

Earned my second SparkPeople trophy today!!! Aren't you impressed...

Free of Gluten-free

I suppose that an update is in order on the whole gluten-free thing. The results were inconclusive. A. seemed to be doing better after a week of being GF, but then completely relapsed with the eczema a couple days after that. We stuck with it for the remainder of two weeks, but still he had the rash. It was worth a shot. We keep going back and forth with the hydrocortizone, which at least seems to alleviate some of the itching, but is not a perfect solution. However, he may be turning a corner on the withholding/encopresis! Right now he is the most regular he's been in years, and this is on a daily dose of both miralax and senekot. Theoretically, kids with chronic withholding are supposed to remain on their functioning dose of meds until they have been regular for as long as they were irregular (in order to make sure the colon has a chance to return to a normal size). I've jumped the gun and cut his meds back before with pretty disastrous consequences, so I'm leery of making changes too soon this time. It would be great to get this all worked out while he's still young - many families are dealing with these issues with much older kids. We were very lucky to have a ped. who took us seriously back at his 2yr. check-up. Most parents are told they need to wait until their kids are 4 or 5 before they'll pursue any drug or therapy interventions. Anyway, I'm sure I'll update again at some point on how things are going.

TMI (Too Much Information)

Now you've been warned. Feel free to look away if the discussion of bodily functions makes your stomach turn. ;)

A. has had stool withholding issues since before he turned 2 years old. We tried all the usual stuff, like increasing his fiber and water intake, but nothing helped. He was regularly going 12-14 days without a bm, and it completely destroyed his generally sweet disposition. I imagine I'd be irritable if I was holding it in for two weeks at a time! He eventually was put on Miralax (Polyethylene Glycol), which helped him go about once/week. After a year on daily Miralax, his new ped. added in a stimulant laxative. I regularly fret over whether any of this is good for him, but I know that the alternative isn't good for him either.

Then about two months ago I found out that another mom I know has a son with encopresis, too. Or I should say *had* these same issues. She said that they went on a gluten-free diet and saw a huge change in a number of his behaviors, including the withholding. Being lazy (we'd tried a food elimination diet in the fall, though I wasn't paying attention to how it effected A's output), I didn't feel like pursuing a GF diet right now, but I filed that info away in the back of my mind. The two laxatives we're using work relatively well, and aren't causing obvious harm, so... I don't know.

So yesterday, I take him to the pediatrician for a productive cough that he's had for a couple of months now. No other symptoms. I thought I was hearing wheezing, and the dr. confirmed that (we went through asthma with N., so it's familiar territory for us). A. also has some weird rashes that I wasn't sure about - turns out it's eczema. A. used to have eczema as a baby, and periodically will get a patch or two, but it never looked like what he's got now so I didn't associate the two. Now I know.

I can't help but start to put all this stuff together - the encopresis, eczema, and asthma. I also can't help but think that a food sensitivity might be to blame for these, as well as some of his behaviors that I've thought might be sensory related. It looks like I'm going to be pursuing some kind of diet change, but I want to have a game plan, so I'm going into Research Mode and trying to find out as much as I can. I'd be relieved if we could find an obvious food connection, or some environmental connection, that would allow us to get him off of all the meds that he's currently on. There's just got to be a better way.

Science Fair a success!

Went to the science fair last night and had a great time. There were around 20 different displays, with a wide range of science topics covered, and all the kids were eager to check out each others work. N's clouded leopard display turned out very nicely, and we are thanful for papercutters and the computer! N. dictated everything to me as I typed it in. We also found some gorgeous photographs on the internet (made sure to document them all - had a good discussion about plagiarism and copyright infringment the other day!), and she labled those by hand.

In other news, A. has become a germophobe in the bathroom. For a while he wouldn't touch the toilet with his hand unless it had been cleaned in the last two days. Then he got to the point where he'd only use a fingertip to lift the lid. Tonight he decided to only use his foot to both lift the lid, AND to flush! So he's either OCD, or lazy - because he's actually trying to avoid handwashing altogether. ;P