Pulling out the Word Tiles

In my home, the words "Mommy Homework" is pretty common. The fact is that when I ask Brandon if he wants some "Mommy Homework", he'll say "Oh no", but start to laugh. I have several things we use. One is the word tiles. I hadn't tried them with Brandon yet and decided to give them a try. Word types are broken up by color. So you need a red (verb) and a blue (noun) and so on to make a sentence. We used them a lot with Lauren. It actually went pretty well. Brandon's reading progress is still pretty slow. I was recently reminded that so was Lauren's. If anyone is looking for these things, I think I found them at Staples.

Anxiety and Timing

Last night, I'm sitting on the coach. Brandon is in bed. Lauren is in the shower. I'm just sitting and thinking. I had just finished reading the 18 page draft report, not counting the 3 graphs, from the psychologist in charge of Lauren's retest. Pretty much what we talked about, just more in depth. I found the charts interesting. I'm visual like Brandon. The one thing that really caught my eye was the difference between what I saw and the teacher saw. The teacher this year is pretty good. I find her to be observant. The thing is I rated Lauren's anxiety level much higher than the teacher. So now the questions.

Is she really that much more emotional at home? Why?

Am I seeing something that's not there?

Am I exaggerating what I see?

At that point Lauren came around the corner into the living room. Her face is red and she's crying. I ask what's wrong and she comes to sit by me. She then proceeds to tell me that someone moved the bottles around in the shower. Because of this, she put body wash in her hair. To her, this is a major disaster. I put my hand in her hair and feel that some is still there. I tell her it's alright and we go up to rinse her hair and put the conditioner she meant to put in her hair in and then rinse again. She finally calms down after much reassuring that's it's not a big deal and that I have done the same thing too. After I get her in bed I came back down. I looked at the report on the table and start to laugh. Yeah, I guess I do see more than the teacher. I have her when she's tired. I have her for more of the things that personally affect her. Although I felt bad for Lauren, it was just what I needed to relieve my doubts.

New Flash - Arion Ate a Health Breakfast

Almost had a heart attack this morning. Arion came down and ate a healthy breakfast. A fruit cup and a bowl of Cheerios. What could this mean? The kicker is, his bad eating habits are my fault. When he was younger, he had problems with being to skinny. The doctors kept telling me to feed him more and give him junk food so he could gain weight. Then he hit puberty and started really packing on the pounds. By then he was in the habit of eating all kinds of things. Hope to do better with Brandon. Even though he is under weight, we still talk about eating healthy. I refuse to give him lots of junk. I have really been talking to Arion about trying to eat better. Maybe some of it is sinking in.

Lauren's Meeting Date is Set

We have finally set the IEP meeting with Lauren's school for next Monday. They have lots of people attending. Once again, they want the principal there. Last night, while I was picking up Lauren, she saw me and called "Hello Mrs. Druger". Is that a good thing? Are principals supposed to know your name, or do they only know the parents that are a pain in the ass. Oh well. I'll let you know how it goes.

Brandon Has Fleas

OK, not really. He just thinks he does. It seems his dry skin problem has now popped up in his head and he really is itchy. The last couple of days he has been telling me he has fleas. This morning I soaked his wittle head with some spray conditioner. Not to sure what else to do. Can you put lotion in someones hair? Maybe tonight I will put conditioner on and let it sit for awhile before I give him a bath.

The Light At The End Of The Tunnel

About two weeks ago I got an email from the owner of my company. It said he would be making some cost cutting measure by the Wednesday of the next week. He had already had his first lay-off back in November and this didn't sound good. Rumors started running wild. Everyone was freaking out. On Monday, three people were laid off. Tuesday, there was a rumor that said he was done. Wednesday, the calls started again. You see, you got a call to come to the main office. The company has many satellite offices. He doesn't just run apartments, like the one I run, but offices, sells houses, etc. About 2:00 pm, I heard one of my friends had to go up. They laid him off after 18 years with the company. Late in the day I heard that one of the other managers had gotten laid off. I started to wonder who was going to cover her site. Didn't have to wonder long. At 4:45 pm I got the call. I was to report to her site in the morning. Now, I have been in my small office 6 years. I was sort of attached. The real pisser was it had just started to really get good again. I had some trouble with two of the old Supers. The new one and I got along great. So, Thursday morning, I stopped at the old site and grabbed some of my stuff and drove to the new site. I knew the two maintenance guys already. They got me in and then it took 2 hours to get me keys and log into the computer. Things were not planned to well.

Now the fun part. The other manager did thing really different than me. We all have the same forms. Our letters are similar. We all have to thing that have to be done by certain dates. But filing, and some other rules are site specific. I started looking around and saw that many thing had not been done. I started freaking out. I'm really anal (OK, OCD) about things. My old site was color coded by year. Things were usually done on or before the date you were supposed to do them by. The bad part, there were a lot of vacant apartments. A lot more then she had been reporting. Still more coming at the end of the month. So, for the past week and a half I have been trying to play catch up. The accounting was a mess. By Friday, I had gotten some of the piles off my desk and replaced them with more. I have to work today and hope to rent at least one. Traffic has been really slow. The funny thing is the other site was doing fine. Only one not rented for the next 3 months. It may take time, but I think I can turn things around. Anyway, that is why I haven't been posting. I've been spending every minute stressing about the new site. Wish me luck today. I need all the help I can get.

Sit, Not Squat

There are phrases that I say at least 10 times a day. This has now been added to the usual. Brandon has developed a new habit of squatting on his seat instead of sitting. It's not just at home either. The teacher mentioned it when I saw her last. Not sure why he's doing it. This morning it was especially bad. Not 5 seconds after I got him back on his butt, I'd notice him switch right back. Any ideas??????

What A Good Big Brother

I feel I have to talk about Arion. He has been such a big help lately. Yesterday, Lauren had to say home because she got the stomach bug. Arion watched her all day. Even when she threw up, he remained calm and called me to see what he should feed her for lunch. He had already made her soup. When I said that she couldn't have it, he just calmly said "OK, I'll eat it and make her some bullion. When I got home, he had run and unloaded the dishwasher. Everything from lunch had been cleaned up. For that I made his favorite dinner. He even didn't balk when I asked him to help Brandon read his journal for homework. One day, he is going to make a great Dad.

Long Call Last Night

Last night I spent about a hour on the phone with the psychologist in charge of Lauren's retest. The end result was not surprising. I was nice to finally hear that someone was seeing what I've been seeing. Once again she said that she wasn't allowed to use labels or diagnosis for the conditions she was seeing, just the symptoms. She said Lauren was listed has having "Specific LD's" (learning disabilities) and if I wanted it changed to "Other Health Concerns", I would have to have a diagnosis from her doctor. This would insure that when she met all her goal that she would still be able to continue with the special programs. She started with telling me that all her teachers noticed an issue with attention. Oh let me guess. Since she's not hyper, that would make her ADD. My comment was that a lack of attention could be seen as ADD and her reply was that you could make a case for that. She then said she found issues with sequencing. Let me guess again. DYSLEXIA. The sequencing problems were not just seen in her "language arts", but also could be seen in some math. She said that Lauren's issues were more with long strings of numbers and fraction, but overall she was doing good in math. She doesn't want Lauren to have math in the special class, but thinks the teacher needs to be attentive to the issues. Lauren, once again, scored very low on all the memory tests. Well, we knew that from the last testing. She mentioned that the memory could be a function of the attention issue. Since I know memory issues are a problem with kids with ADD, that's not a far reach. The anxiety issues were still there, but not as bad as before. They still can be seen as affecting her school work. After discussing the development of her gross & fine motor skills as a young child, she informed me that Lauren would be getting an OT and PT screening from the IU. None of her teachers had noticed her toe walking, but they really weren't looking. She also is much better with shoes on, so she wouldn't be doing it so much at school anyway. We should have the results by the time we do her IEP meeting in March.

Later that night I told Jim about the conversation. He had to leave in the middle to attend a meeting. I asked what he thought. His comment was to take her back to the neurologist. I asked what he thought about putting her on meds like the boys. She not doing to bad at school now, but I know it can have a big affect on attention and focus. Jim thought we should give it a try if the neurologist wanted to. We really trust him. In the end, it will be Lauren's decision. We will let her try and see what she thinks after 6 months. Of course the neurologist might not want too put her on meds. I know some of you have hang up about putting kids on meds. We really have seen the benefits. Please understand. I could care less about whether my kid is hyper. The meds are mainly to help their focus and concentration. Brandon tells people that he thinks better when he takes his medicine.

Jim's Response to Lauren's News

I was a little worried about how Jim was going to take the initial news about Lauren. His comment was the House that ADD built has claimed another one. Yeah, I guess that about sums it up. Still I feel the guilt. It mainly comes from my side. Not that I meant them to have these issues. After thinking about it all day I have come to peace with the situation. I really don't blame my parents for how I am. I don't even blame them for not knowing to get me the special help I needed. Back then, who knew not to trust the schools to know what was going on. Even now a days teachers really don't even understand something as simple as ADHD/ADD.

Brandon's Teeth Brushing

Last night was one of those nights when Jim and I knew something was up, but are not sure what it was. Brandon kept talking about needing to brush his teeth. He kept wanting to leave the dinner table to brush his teeth. We kept trying to explain that he needed to eat first. Finially we let him stop eating and go on up. After I got home from Girl Scouts, Jim said he figured it out. It seems that Brandon had eaten some of Arion's Frosted Flakes and it was making him burp. That or it was setting off his acid reflux. This used to be a big problem when he was a baby. This morning he was at it again. I think it is leaving a bad taste in his mouth. I tryed giving him a childs Pepto, but not sure if it will work. He hasn't taken Zantac since he was 3. If this keeps up I might have to call the doctor about getting some more. Bottom line is no more Frosted Flakes for Brandon.

The News on Lauren

Just got off the phone with the Doctor working on Lauren's retest. She started off with saying the they don't use the words dyslexia, dyspraxia or ADD when giving the results of the testing. She then said they would just mention the issues they are seeing, i.e. lack of attention affecting memory, flipping of letters and words, etc. She also said that she has ordered a OT and PT re-screen for Lauren and suggest I should take her back to the Neurologist for the proper diagnosis. In other words, they don't want to get sued for saying what we all know she has. She is supposed to call me back tomorrow night to give me the full report in depth. We'll see what happens when I get the long version.

Brandon's Comment

For the past several days my back has been out. Really painful. As I was cooking dinner two nights ago, I remembered that I had a pain pill left over from some dental work. I decided to take it to get a break from the pain. What I forgot was that I was supposed to take with food. After about 20 minutes I started to feel sick. I sat down on the couch and things got really bad. As I sat there with my bucket in my lap, I realized that I really needed to eat something to calm my stomach down. I had Arion bring me some chicken from dinner to eat. Everyone else was eating dinner at the table. Jim then yelled out to see if I wanted some spinach too. I said no. Brandon's response was "It's good for the colon". At least that lighten the mood. Still not sure where he got that from. You never know with Brandon.

The Hair Thing

After talking to several people, I have made a decision about Lauren's hair. She can keep it. Several other mothers I know are having the same problem. All of them just give up and brush it themselves. I have decided to do that too with a twist. I plan on letting her do it first. After that I will brush her hair and give positive re-enforcement depending on how many knots I find. This morning wasn't too bad. She did miss some small knots in the underside, but better then some mornings. Hopefully, it will encourage her to improve her efforts to get the job done right by herself.