Getaway with the Hubby

A few weeks ago I mentioned I might be able to go with my husband to a conference in Orlando.  We were able to work it out with someone to watch the children and we went away for a few days.  I was able to visit with a good friend and her family during the day when my husband was involved in his conference.  

My friend's husband works at Disney and so we made a visit there as well.  I finally got to see the Beauty and the Beast show and I loved it.  I also finally saw the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular as well and I can't wait to get my family back to see it.  I think the boys in particular will enjoy it.  

I didn't ride much while I was there since I'm pretty pregnant, but I did ride Snow White's adventure before it closes down for good, and I rode Peter Pan's Flight.

I admit to falling  asleep during Impressions de France.  I blame being pregnant.

It was some nice getaway time with DH (Dear Husband) which we haven't for eight years.  Far too long since we'd been able to go somewhere together sans children.  It was also good to visit with a good friend and visit WDW with the only child being the one in my belly.  

The kids were good for the sitter and her husband, and she gave us a new idea for handling our schedules after school.  

It was definitely a win all the way around. 

More Doctors, More Evals, and a Break

Looking at my month you can see it is very full of evaluations for Acroboy, and Doctors appointments for the kids and myself. We had the usual orthodontist visits, immunization visits for Acroboy, and a visit for Princess Ballerina to the dermatologist to look at the birthmark on her forehead. I also had my checkup for the baby and things still look good.

It turns out the birthmark on Princess Ballerina's forehead is a very light Port Wine stain. It will not fade anymore than it has.  We were told we could take her to a pediatric dermatologist and have it removed with a laser treatment if we wanted. We could also do it when she is older. DH and I talked about it, and we think if it becomes a self-esteem issue later on we'll do it, but for now we'll let things be.

I did find a way to bring up her birthmark to Princess Ballerina and speak with her about how she feels about it. She said, "If I didn't have my birthmark, I wouldn't look like me."

You rock girl, you rock.

Acroboy has had speech evaluations and a psychologist observe him at music time. She observed for about 15- 20 minutes. After spending several hours at our evaluations at our favorite autism medical center, and even with the speech therapist, let's just say I'm skeptical about how full a picture she got of Acroboy after just 20 minutes.

Our Cub Scout Blue & Gold Banquet is coming up, and it will be my last one for a while. Last month was our last Pinewood Derby until Acroboy turns eight and joins cub scouts.

Lastly, in a couple of weeks I get to join DH at a conference in Orlando. I have a good friend who lives in the area, and the plan is to hang out with her during the day while DH is in his meetings. It will be a last getaway before this baby gets here. I'm looking forward to it. We may even hit up Disney. Disney World without kids? I haven't done that in ages. If we go, I think I'll see all those shows my kids have no patience to sit through (like Beauty and the Beast).

My friend's grown daughter is coming with her husband (for one night) and their little girl to stay with my kids (the rest of the time).

I'm looking forward to a brief, but welcome break.

I Feel Guilty

I feel guilty. I really do. And yet i feel justified. I took Acroboy to music time and sat back and watched him act at his worst. I watched him be hyperactive, get in other people's spaces, and not pay attention, and I did nothing. Not a thing, nada, zip, diddly squat.

I did this because I wanted the school employees to see just how much help Acroboy needs. I just want to get him into a preschool setting where he can start working more on some social skills.

One of the other moms commented to me as we were leaving, "Boy, he sure has a lot of energy, doesn't he?"

Yep, I feel guilty.

I explained to her that I had purposely sat back because I wanted them to see how much help he'll need adjusting to kindergarten.

I think I was a little ticked off too, because I got a note in the mail saying there was no record of us ever applying for Acroboy to be in preschool. Umm, right. That would be why we got the letter saying Acroboy was on the wait list. Okay.

Now I have to straighten out this mess.

In addition, Firstborn's grades have been slipping lower and lower in math and science. He gets the concepts, but his anxieties are popping up again. He stresses out over quizzes and test and his mind goes blank for a few minutes. He then realizes how much time has passed and freaks out more. In his mind the missing time means he'll fail the quiz/test. If he fails the quiz/test, he will fail the class. If he fails the class, there is no way he can get into a good school. If he can't get into a good school, there is no way he can provide for his family. It goes on and on.

When I first started talking to the counselor, her first reaction was, "If his grades are slipping, maybe he shouldn't be in honors classes." Hold it right there sister. He gets the information, it's the tests, quizzes and organization problems that are the problem. All you have to do is talk with him and know he gets it. So do that--talk with my kid.

He had a decent handle on his anxieties thanks to the work with the school counselor and school psychologist and amazing teachers we had up to fourth grade before we moved here. Firstborn used to cry every time things did not go as he expected or when he would get himself working into an anxiety spiral. We had a number of student support meetings regarding how to help him. It was because of my friend's comment about Firstborn's behavior we talked to the school and started his diagnosis process. However it was not on an official 504. I've written a separate post on Firstborn's journey to diagnosis.

If I am really honest with myself, i think part of the reason the anxieties weren't as pronounced the last couple of years is I don't think Firstborn has felt quite as challenged at the schools here. Now that he is finally starting to get more challenged by new material and he is getting closer to high school, his anxieties have been creeping back in.

I had asked for copies of the school records before we moved, but I was told they would just forward everything to the new school. I took them at their word--everything would be forwarded. I should have been more adamant.

I went to the junior high to get copies of their current records and while I was looking at them with the counselor, we saw that there are absolutely no notes about any student support meetings, teacher's notes on behavior, counselor notes, or anything other than standardized test scores and grades. Either the notes never made it into the file, or somewhere between the move they got lost.

So there is no record of any supports or diagnosis for Firstborn. I think I have to take responsibility. I did not understand what would be at stake if I didn't put a "label" on my son. I thought I was helping him.

I was wrong and I feel guilty about it.

Now I've got to call our favorite Autism medical center and get Firstborn in the wait list to be reevaluated. I'm going to go about this the correct way so we can get him just a few accommodations so he can deal with his anxiety. He'll be starting high school next year, and the pressure will be on. I need to do everything I can to help him succeed.

I resolve to not let any guilt I feel hold me back. From now on I will be the warrior mom my kids need me to be.

School frustrations

It's been a busy few weeks. I met with the school IEP group again about my concerns with Acroboy. They actually were more concerned about his ADHD diagnosis and how it will affect his learning than they were about PDD-NOS. They basically said to me, "We don't think he really needs an IEP right now-an IEP is for education impact. But since you've come back to us again, we'll do our own evaluation of him and his abilities and we'll see if he needs anything."

Okay folks, forget the fact that a world renowned institute has already looked at him.

Twice.

Forget the fact I've been asking you for help with him since before he was two and that I've been doing all his therapies by myself until recently. Forget the fact that I was once a school teacher before I made the decision to stay home with my kids. You go ahead and finally deign to do an evaluation on him.

Sheesh.

I talked to my friend, Michele, and she helped me realize that at the core of this, they are probably stalling and putting me off because extra help usually means extra resources spent. I know how overworked teachers can be--I was on a productivity schedule when I taught which meant no free planning period--everything I did was before and after school on my own time. Still I wanted my students to succeed, and I found time to touch base with parents of those students I had concerns about.

In the end the school district said I could bring him to a preschool music time, and they would look into getting him speech help again. They were also going to talk to the preschool program people and see if Acroboy could be moved to the top of the wait list (he was supposed to be near the top already with his diagnosis).

Despite all that, this month has had some positive notes. While I was waiting at the orthodontist for Firstborn (he's getting braces off and Whirlwind is going to get them soon), I ran into Julie,my second counselor in the Relief Society, who also had her son in for a visit. She asked how Acroboy's evaluation went. Another mom was in the waiting room and she got pulled into our conversation. It turns out she has six children--three of whom she adopted. A couple of her children are also on the spectrum. She and I exchanged information, and she told me about some additional resources I could look into. Michele also found an autism support group, and what they had to say opened my eyes.

I am frankly still overwhelmed by the amount of information I need to process, but I feel like I am becoming better and better equipped to fight the battles for my children that need to be fought.

*******

Another positive thing--Firstborn had a very important concert and was first chair for his string section. He also had an important audition and we hope he did well. He's been playing the strings since 2007. I was so proud listening to him play. It was an amazing concert to watch.

Food therapy

We've started "food therapy" for Acroboy. Basically I make the nearly two hour drive every week to meet with the ocupational therapist who works with food. We do a food practice to help Acroboy get over his food aversions.

What aversions you might say? Gagging on foods he doesn't want to swallow, crying and melting down just even seeing certain foods. Limited diet that consists of pizza, pot stickers, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, pb&J sandwiches on bread (it has to be the Goober stuff grape flavor), only certain kinds of chicken nuggets,etc. Having issues with textures of foods or the way they are presented. He'll eat scrambled eggs, and but not the yolk in a sunny side or hard boiled egg. He'd eat french fries, but not potato wedges.

His therapist was great. She gave me so many things to work on with him. It's my responsibility to work with him at home to try new foods. We also don't refer to thefoods by name, but by attribute. So we try the yellow lines (Pirate Booty), then yellow circles (bananas), then blue circles (blueberries). Initially we link foods by at least one common attribute.

Acroboy won't touch a lot of the foods right now, but he thought today was fun enough he didn't cry so much when we had green circles (Cucumber slices). He wanted them as far away as possible, and he whined a little, but he didn't cry.

The therapist says it takes at least ten exposures of trying a food before you can really know if you like it or not. The goal for us and Acroboy is to keep exposing him to foods over and over and to slowly increase contact with those foods.

Let's hope this works!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! May you all have a wonderful day celebrating the birth of our Savior.

We're Tickled Pink

I can't believe it. I don't think I'll really believe it until she is born. Yes, SHE!!

Wow! I seriously thought we were getting another boy with how sick I was. The ultrasound was today and they said it's a girl. Still, my friend Lori had three ultrasounds where they said, "Girl" and it ended up being a boy (he was really good at hiding). I'm cautiously optimistic it will be a girl. Princess Ballerina is really hoping she'll get a sister and not be outnumbered.

In other exciting news, I've just had my first visit to the ER for stitches for one of my children. Given the number of boys I have with ADHD, I find it a minor miracle I've been a mother for 13 years and never had to get stitches for anyone until now.

Basically Lawboy (C3) scared Acroboy (C5) and he jumped up into a half wall topped by wood--thereby splitting open the skin above his eye.

It was one of the grossest things I've ever seen.
Acroboy also had to get his first vaccine.

We had been putting off getting Acroboy vaccinated until we knew for certain he was on the autism spectrum. We just didn't know if our family was one of those ones for whom vaccines are the trigger. I know that is a somewhat controversial stance, but it was the one we felt we had to take with our kids. I can't deny the bad feeling I had the day I got Firstborn's MMR. I brushed it off as first-time mom nerves, but what if I hadn't vaccinated? Would we have any different results? We thought it would be safer to wait and see on his brother. Acroboy has had two evaluations now, and I think it is safe to say in our case vaccines are not the trigger. We plan on using a delayed schedule with vaccines spread apart so we know if he has a reaction to any given vaccine.

I've heard too many stories of moms who have seen changes in their kids after vaccines to ignore them. I also have seen the damage polio did to my grandfather. My stance is this: A lot of vaccines can serve a good purpose. I also think we do too much too fast. We give the same dosage of vaccine to a tiny baby as we give to an adult. Anyone else see a problem with that? I also think we ought to follow a slower schedule and spread the vaccines out a little.

That's all I'm going to say on the subject for now.