Rough Week with a Happy Ending

 

It was a rough week at our house this week.  Hannah had several major meltdowns during the after school hours.  She managed to physically hurt me bad enough that I will bear the marks of her aggression for quite awhile.  She also finished up kicking the last of her door jam off of her door so that the next kick fest could very well send the door off of its hinges.  Anger management has not gotten any better with therapy or the meds thus far.  However, I did get to spend some significant time with her today while under the influence of the meds and she exhibited control with another little boy at the museum rudely ripped the police cruiser radio out of her hand.  I was quite proud of her for that and praised her profusely.  As it was happening my heart went nuts, sure there was about to be a nasty scene, but my little one kept her cool! :) Today we had a fabulous day together.  We needed it.  When too many rough days/weeks pile on top of each other it's hard to drag yourself back up and remember the good times.  Today helped me to remember the good times and to give me hope that maybe the right dose of meds can help her keep her anger/impulsivity under control enough to think about the consequences of her actions before she makes her choice of response to a situation. 

Never Dull

Life it seems is never dull around here. You know how you read something and you think, "Wow! That's crazy/funny," but it's only funny because it's not happening to you and you know it'd never happen to you because things like that always happen to someone else? Well, that's my life. I'M the one who those things happen to! Kyle's been gone on a business trip to Germany for the past week and the kiddos (mostly Hannah) decided to really give it to me while I was doing my single mommy gig. Before even a day had elapsed Hannah had cut her hair again! I believe this is the 7th, maybe 8th time she's done this. This time she decided to cut the bangs she had created the last time she got ahold of the scissors completely off. She has maybe an 1/8 on an inch right at the front of her forehead left. Then she got into the baby wipes and scattered them about the toddler's room for the dog to shred. Seriously, shouldn't that phase have passed when she was like 2? Next she decided to douse the cat in baby shampoo. Let me just say that the cat was both angry and humiliated. I still haven't managed to get it all rinsed out of him yet and I'm covered in scratches from the attempts. It's quite difficult to hold a cat by the scruff while also wielding the sprayer and trying to scrub the shampoo out. Finally, a few nights ago she figured out how to pick her door lock (the door alarm still isn't in yet so we HAD to switch the door knob around while I was here alone) by prying a nail out of the wall and using that to pop the lock! She did it several times one night before I finally figured out what she was doing and where the nails were coming from. Now all pictures and nails are removed from her room. It's starting to look pretty bare in there! Oh, and just to be sure I preserve everything, a few days before Kyle left Hannah was supposed to be doing a job card chore. I had to supervise the toddler so she was left alone for periods of 5 minutes at a time. After one of those 5 minute intervals I went to check on her and it was like all heck had broke loose in the basement! Paint was smeared on the walls in several places. The paint bottles themselves were coated in paint and then doused with glitter. The dollhouse roof had been repainted. The floor was covered in glitter. There was paint on the carpet. AND she had left a trap for me of a pool of paint on the bathroom floor for me to step in and track all over the place. This was actually the 2nd trap she had set for me. The first one she made a trail of Q-tips leading to behind her chair to try to fake me into thinking she was hiding behind there instead of in my bathroom getting into my body spray. I'd say I made a fatal parenting error by allowing her to read Roald Dahl's book Matilda!

In other news, the school system finally did thier full evaluation of Hannah for her IEP eligibility. The information the psychologist gave was no surprise. We already knew she is freaking brilliant. He mentioned that she has some executive function deficits, but that at the moment they really aren't much of an issue due to her age, but will most likely become more of an issue as she gets older. That was the first I had heard of executive function problems. We actually thought we had managed to dodge that bullet. I guess not. The big kicker was the OT's report. They assessed her fine motor skills, her sensory system, and her vision. I had no idea that OT's dabbled in the vision arena, but apparently they do. Her fine motor skills were perfect. No surprise there. She showed significant sensory issues. Also not surprising. What was surprising though was that the OT felt that she had some visual processing problems. She said that her two eyes do not work together correctly and that that could be the cause of some of her hyperactiveness. She also said it could cause reading problems down the road when the type gets smaller and the white space on the page lessens. She recommended she have an evaluation by a behavioral optometrist for possible vision therapy. UGH! That's all we need, more therapy. I read up on vision therapy since I'd never really heard much about it and I can't say that I'm convinced. A lot of what I've read seems a bit like voodoo science and there seems to be no real evidence to back it up. We are definitely going to have to do some thinking about that before we jump into something else. Anyone else know anything about vision therapy or had your child do it?

Finally, Wednesday we have Hannah's evaluation at the severe behavior clinic. Apparently, even if she does qualify for the program, we will be put on a waiting list for services. It could be quite awhile before treatment could begin. Sigh. . . .

Hannah seems to be settling into sisterhood well enough. She's had her moments of jealousy and still gets quite clingy, but I see her enjoying our new little one as well. Whenever something annoys her, such as crying, I try to put it into the perspective of how she used to do it when she was a baby. That seems to help a bit. She's been very curious about how she was when she was the baby's age. We've watched some old home movies of her at that age and then compared the two of them. Boy was that a shock. She wasn't nearly as physically competent, but boy was she a lot more verbal!

Photo Notes: All of these pictures are from December. We've got swim lessons, Christmas, and working in the shop with Pap.

Door Alarm

We have been having a lot of trouble keeping Hannah from sneaking out of her room when she is supposed to be sleeping and getting into things she is not supposed to or stealing things like money or candy. Last night/this morning she took it up a notch and what we had feared would happen happened. Instead of sneaking off with my Ipod or computer or stealing candy, last night she got into a cabinet locked with a child lock, opened a childproofed lid on a bottle and ate close to a 1/4 of a bottle of Flintstones gummy vitamins as well as several candy bars from my Christmas candy stash. Thankfully poison control was able to reassure us that since the vitamins did not contain iron, the worst she would probably fare was an upset tummy or some diarrhea. While I am glad that she's fine, I do kinda wish that she had at least gotten an stomach ache to impress upon her the seriousness of her actions. For the longest time, our way of dealing with both Hannah's rages and her sneaking things/eloping was a reversed door knob with the lock on the outside of the door so that it opened when we turned the knob on the outside, but she could not get out on her own. When we started the process of becoming licensed foster care parents we were force to abandon that measure of safety we had come to depend on. Because of the potential for abuse it was just not allowed even if we weren't using it on a foster child. We considered then buying a door alarm then, but just didn't follow through. I guess we thought she'd "grow out of it" or something. I mean, seriously, what 5 year old needs to be locked into her room at night? Last night however, Hannah proved that she is just too smart and has too little self control for us to do nothing. We must keep her safe and child safe cabinet locks and manufacture childsafe bottles just don't cut it anymore. We even have medicine safes for the scarier meds, that are also kept inside a childproofed cabinet, but I'm worried she'll figure out how to get those open too. So today I went and ordered a door alarm. We MUST know when she leaves her room. She's just too stealthy without it. It's not like we sleep like rocks, but this kid is SNEAKY! It will be interesting to see how the practical aspects of having a door alarm work with also having a sleeping toddler in the house. It could lead to some sleepless nights for all concerned, but its much better than the alternative of an overdosed kid.

And, as if that wasn't enough drama for the day. As soon as I picked Hannah up from school she began melting down. She was angry about having to complete her job card before she could have a snack. After exiting the van (I can at least be thankful that she waited until we were out of the vehicle) the hour and a half long rage began. I had my first big test as a new mama of 2 attempting to deal with the rage, keep the toddler safe and his needs met, and manage the new behavior plan and holds when she got aggressive all at the same time. When Kyle finally arrived home I was soaked with sweat and exhausted and had 2 cranky children on my hands. I think I must have jinxed myself with my last post bragging about how well the first week was going.

It's funny how whenever we have good stretches of

behavior I start to doubt that there's really a problem. I think maybe I was just over reacting like so many people have suggested in the past. Then the rages hit and I remember WHY we are headed to that severe behavior clinic in a week and a half. We may have lulls in the storm, but the hurricane is still there.

Rough Week

It's been a rough week around here. It started on Monday when Hannah's cough had reached the point that I felt like I had to take her to the doctor. We went in and found out that she had bronchitis and a double ear infection. The ear that still had the tube wasn't draining like the tubes are supposed to help it do and the doctor said the tube was crusty looking and gross. So, we went home with a script for 2 weeks of amox-clav and orders to keep her quiet. Ha! Fat chance! Hannah is one of those odd kids who, instead of becoming lethargic and restless when they are sick, goes into hyper-drive. She becomes even more active than she normally is and it's next to impossible to keep her still. Even the promise of PBS kids or a movie isn't enough to keep her still for long.

Later in the day we had to go to Omaha to pick up her new orthotics and have them fitted. Luckily, they were able to get them into her current shoes so we didn't have to buy new sneakers. I was worried about this since I had just bought her new shoes only a few weeks before we had the appointment where the doctor ordered the orthotics. I really didn't want to shell out money for new shoes this close to the holidays. Upon arriving home Hannah had a spectacular meltdown when I suggested she wash her hands. In fact, she raged. I was barely able to get her upstairs to her bedroom to chill out and once there it was basically impossible to keep her in her room. She kicked her physical and verbal aggression up several notches from normal and for the first time I was almost frightened of her. It took over an hour to get her calmed back down. To find the silver lining in this incident, I was able to video a good portion of the ordeal to take with us to the psychologist the next day.

Tuesday she was cleared to go back to school, but we had to pick her up early for our first appointment with the new psychologist. Armed with my video from the night before, her previous psych report, teacher emails, IEP, disciplinary referrals, report card, etc we marched into our meeting. After studying our paperwork, speaking with us, and watching the video the psychologist came back into the room and told us that we needed to be referred to the Autism Center's Severe Behavior unit for their outpatient partial hospitalization program. We were floored. I knew things had gotten bad, but I had no idea we were now that far from normal 5 year old behavior. She also said that her initial impression of Hannah is Asperger's Syndrome. So, yeah, we are back to that again. I'd been thinking I needed to rename the blog since the last psych took away that diagnosis, but it looks like it may be coming back. The doctor also said that she WOULD continue to see us (and Hannah) if we wanted, that she wasn't just handing us off because she didn't want to work with us, but that she thought progress with her would be much slower and that Hannah needed more intensive help than she was able to give her. We were sent home with a phone number to call and a packet of forms to fill out.

Wednesday was rough, but manageable. Thursday started off ok, but there were issues right before we left for school when Hannah tried to smuggle books to school by shoving them down her pants. A battle ensued to attempt the removal of the books and the drive to school was not happy. Swim lessons on Thursday were awesome and Hannah made a lot of progress, but then after the lesson in the locker room all heck broke loose. Hannah got angry for some unknown to me reason and started shouting mean and disrespectful things at me. If I tried to touch her she'd hit me or swat my hand away. It was SO LOUD and it echoed all throughout the locker room. Every eye was on me and I was terribly embarrassed. I know I shouldn't care what others think of me and my parenting, but seeing all those eyes on me judging it was hard to fight back the tears that wanted to come as I struggled to contain Hannah, get her dressed and just get the heck out of Dodge.

Friday morning (today) started off rocky from the very beginning and only got worse as the day wore on. Hannah didn't want to get ready for school and was insisting she had already brushed her teeth when she had clearly not done so (sink and toothbrush were both bone dry!). Instead of fight with her over it, I simply told her that I would just go over them to be sure she had done a good job. She wasn't going to have that at all and got extremely aggressive. In the end she did a number to both me and the bathroom, ripping the drawer out of it's cabinet and the door stopper off the wall and head butting me so hard that tears came to my eyes. I eventually got her calmed and ready for school. I thought it was all in the past. She seemed ready to go, but just after lunchtime I received an email from the teacher saying that Hannah had spit in another student's face at lunchtime. She was sent to the principal for another "detention" during recess. She apologized to her friend, but I fear damage may have been done to that friendship because Hannah said that the little girl told her that Hannah wasn't her friend anymore and that she wouldn't talk to her or play with her for the rest of the day. I can't say that I blame the girl, especially since she had done nothing to provoke the spitting. The thing is, Hannah REALLY likes this little girl. She talks about her ALL the time. She's calm and reliable and a good influence, the perfect friend for Hannah. I have NO IDEA why she would have done something like this to her friend and apparently neither does Hannah.

As the week has wore on I find myself wondering more and more if maybe the psychologist was right, maybe this program she speaks about really is the right place for us. Maybe, just maybe, this could be where we can finally get some help. The only drawback, it's an 8 week program and Hannah would have to be pulled from school for that time. I don't know how I feel about that. Obviously she won't fall behind academically, but I worry about the disruption to the school routine and the loss of relationships that she has started to build with her classmates. It's going to take lots of prayer to decide what to do about this.

Photo Notes: Pictures were taken in November at a park near our house. The cat in the last picture acted like a dog and followed us around EVERYWHERE we went. It even came when called. It was SO FRIENDLY. Hannah was convinced it didn't have a home and that we needed to take it home. To tell you the truth, I wouldn't have minded having it, but a cat that friendly had to have owners so we went knocking on doors in the neighborhood near the park to see if anyone knew who the cat belonged to. We eventually found the owner, but they were totally unconcerned that their cat was across the busy road wandering in the park. That made me sad. He was such a sweet cat too.

The Candy Cane Debacle

Today we had another rough night here at chez Spontak. Hannah and I arrived home to a blinking answering machine. The teacher had left a message for me to call the moment I walked in the door. That's NEVER a good sign. Apparently Hannah had been perservating on some candy canes hung on a tree in the classroom all day and now one of them was missing (the teacher knew the exact number b/c there was supposed to be one for each child in the class). She wanted me to check Hannah's backpack and search her person to see if she had taken the candy cane. She said she hated to blame her, but she just had a gut feeling. I searched and there was no candy cane to be seen. I asked Hannah if she had taken it and at first she said no and when I asked her if she was sure or if she knew what had happened to the missing candy cane she said she had taken it and broken it up and hid it in the trash can. While I was waiting for the secretary at the school to put me through to the classroom Hannah changed her story and said that she actually took the candy cane last Tuesday and it was the one she had brought home with her from school and said was from the resource room teacher as a treat for not complaining during her math quiz. We thought this was an odd reason to get a treat, but let it go. After talking to the teacher I found out that Hannah hadn't even gone to the resource room at all last week so she couldn't have gotten the candy cane from Mrs. D. The candy cane we saw was indeed the missing one. We discussed consequences and decided that Hannah would simply not get a candy cane when the rest of the students got theirs since she had already had one. When I tried to talk to Hannah about what had happened and attempted to inform her about the consequences of her actions all heck broke loose. She became alternately aggressive and avoidant. She refused to discuss the matter or even listen to what I had to say. Any attempts to force the issue were met with painful blows to my body. After about an hour she calmed herself enough that I could talk to her without threat of physical aggression, but she still was unable to add much to the discussion. She seemed completely unable to articulate her feelings or her reasons for her actions despite her advanced verbal skills. When she began sobbing uncontrollably I tried to ask her if she could tell me what she was feeling and she wasn't even able to say she was crying because she was sad or angry. I eventually prompted her with sad to try that out and then asked her what she might be sad about. She was still unable or unwilling to fill in the most obvious reason for her sadness. Instead when pressed to give an answer she listed various made up scenarios with her stuffed animals that were bringing her sadness. It was a frustrating exchange for both of us. The thing is, she can identify emotions in characters in books and movies or on facial expression cards, but seems unable to identify her own emotions or the reasons for them. Though she has verbal skills that would put many 10 year olds to shame she's unable to utter a simple "I'm sad" when asked why she is crying. It's so frustrating for me because I don't know how to help her with these big feelings and how to give appropriate consequences when she seems unable to connect her feelings with her actions. We've got an appointment with a new psychologist the first week of December so hopefully we'll finally get some help. I feel like we've been bouncing from person to person for years with no real help and if we don't get some help helping our little girl soon it will be disastrous for her self esteem. I already see it affecting her. Even tonight she said she was a dummy. If a profoundly gifted little girl can possibly think she's a dummy then you know there is something going on with her self esteem.

Photo notes: The pictures were from our trip to the pumpkin patch to get our Halloween pumpkins and then the torturous experience of carving them for my SPD kiddo!

Ups and Downs

We've definitely had our ups and downs here lately. Today was a big up! For the first time in a long time we had a tantrum free day. I know that shouldn't really still be considered an accomplishment for a 5yr old, but for us it is. We even managed to make it to church on time AND handle the anticipation of an impromptu visit from friends. Today was nice, very nice. We needed it. We needed it because the preceding week brought us cat food in the dryer, poop and pee in a slipper shoved in the back of the closet, and school without brushed teeth or hair to list a few of our trials. We also survived a 5 day weekend. That in itself is a major accomplishment I feel! In our house we like routine. We NEED routine and 5 days off school in a row is DEFINTELY not routine. Still, we survived and the weekend finished off with the best day possible.

On our 5 day weekend we kept busy even though we didn't have routine. We went shopping to prepare for a bathroom renovation, had a quiet Thanksgiving dinner just the 3 of us, decorated the house for Christmas, started the bathroom demolishing, had a spur of the moment playdate, began and completed the bathroom renovation, shopped for our adopt-a-family's Christmas presents, went to church, cleaned our house, and had friends over. I'd say we kept our days full. The new bathroom looks great, the shopping is done and waiting to be wrapped, and I have a clean house to start the new week off fresh.

Oh, I almost forgot to update everyone on Hannah's "shark teeth" (the adult tooth coming in behind the baby tooth). Her second permanent tooth came in and the baby tooth was not getting any looser. So, after giving it 3 weeks to loosen up, I had to take Hannah into the dentist to have it pulled. I was VERY nervous about how it was going to go because Hannah gets pretty crazy whenever she has to get a vaccination and this would require her getting a shot in her mouth-I'd say that calls for a tad more accuracy than a vaccination! However, I shouldn't have worried. Once again my baby girl surprised me. She was so brave! She sat very still and held my hand while the dentist put several shots of anesthesia into her gums. She only tried to cover her mouth once and that was before he actually started. She didn't even really cry. She just got some tears at the corners of her eyes, but nothing fell and she didn't scream or flail around. She even sat quietly when the dentist had to get out what were essentially pliers to yank the stubborn tooth out because it was not cooperating with his wiggling. Boy, you should have seen the root on that baby tooth. It wasn't EVER going to come out on its own. The entire root was still there. It hadn't dissolved at all and it was super long. No wonder it wasn't getting any more wiggly. Interestingly enough, I think Hannah enjoyed the sensation of her mouth being numb. She took our warnings about not chewing on her lips and being careful not to accidentally bite herself while eating quite seriously. In fact, we were alerted EVERY SINGLE TIME she accidentally bit her lip or tongue! Thankfully she didn't manage to do too much damage. When she put the tooth under her pillow that night Hannah left the tooth fairy a note asking her to bring her a horse instead of money! Fortunately she wasn't too terribly disappointed when another half dollar ended up under her pillow instead of a horse in the backyard!

The other night Hannah made her very first Christmas list. She got the idea all on her own and went off by herself to make it. When she returned to read her list to me we noticed that all but 2 items on the list were alive! I sadly had to inform her that Santa doesn't bring live gifts. So, without further ado I'll leave you with Hannah's Christmas list just in case anyone wishes to fulfill it!

Spelling is hers, my translation or additions in parentheses.

1. Horse

2. Puppy

3. Kittin (kitten)

4. Bolte Wie (Bolt Wii video game)

5. Baby (sister not a doll!)

6. Santu Clawas 2 (Santa Clause 2 DVD)

7. Hamster

Dagger to the Heart

It's been rough here lately around the Spontak house. Hannah's behaviors have increased. Mornings are almost impossible to get out the door to school. Hannah often refuses to go and once I even deposited her by the front door of the school sans shoes and coat and screaming. UGH! That was hard to do. Evenings are just as bad, if not worse, getting ready for bed. One night, after a particularly rough day, when Hannah said her bedtime prayers she asked God to make her a better daughter. It broke my heart to hear her say that. That was the final straw that told me we HAD to get her some more help. If she thought she was a bad kid/a bad daughter then obviously we weren't doing something right and we need help. Then yesterday, after a really bad afternoon meltdown resulting in injuries to myself, I emailed Hannah's teacher to see if anything out of the ordinary might have happened at school that day that could have caused Hannah to be so unstable when she got home. I felt surely there had to be some explanation for this out of control behavior. I also asked a few questions about her perceptions of Hannah's adjustment to school life, her happiness in the classroom, etc. The email I received back made me cry. It's one thing to know that Hannah has problems and to witness them at home, but it's altogether different to hear them described by someone else. What follows is an except from her teacher's email.

"Hannah is very hard to read emotionally. She seems happy at school at times and over things I might never expect…..a new center game, etc. Other times she seems like she is just passing her time with us until something else comes along. She might not seem unhappy but rather no emotions at all. I am not sure she is ever totally relaxed at school. The way she holds her body throughout the day and always observing the situation leads me to believe that she is always "on guard" even in the most relaxing of situations. I believe she is at her most natural out on the playground or walking in the hallway with a peer. At these times she seems more relaxed and very open with her conversations. What she lacks is that carefree attitude of a kdg student if that makes sense to you. She just always seems to be busy checking out what is going on around her and observing others and their reactions to things.

The day I had a talk with Hannah about her physical behavior at home I used my own daughters as an example. She seemed so interested to hear about their behaviors and how they treat me and how I treat them back. It was very interesting to watch her. You could just see the wheels turning in her head however I had no idea what she might be thinking. She seems very interested in the actions/feelings of others but as an observer only."

This just makes me sad for my little girl. I want to be able to help her, but I just don't know how. We've got a call into a new psychologist who can hopefully help shed some light on the situation and who can hook us up with a behavioral specialist, but I'm sure it will be awhile before her appointment-it always takes so long to get into these specialists and we could use help now. Prayers for my little girl would be greatly appreciated.

I Will NEVER Leave Home Again

It seems that when Mama goes away the house completely falls apart. I spent last weekend and the first part of this week in Indiana to attend my grandmother's funeral. Hannah had school and didn't know my grandmother well so she and Kyle stayed home. I arrived home late Monday night to discover that the dog was wigged out, the cats seriously ticked off, and Hannah had chopped her hair off at school! Seriously? I was gone 2 1/2 days! Poor Kyle must have really had his hands full. Upon reflection we determined that while Kyle and I have gone away together without Hannah and Kyle has gone on trips by himself several times since Hannah was born, I had NEVER gone anywhere overnight without either Kyle or Hannah and left Hannah home alone with Daddy. How on earth this was the first time in five years I don't know, but it was. I guess there was a reason I don't leave and I was reminded of it Monday night!

So, I started this post two weeks ago and I've since left home overnight without Kyle and Hannah again! Apparently I'm a slow learner. This time I went to visit my friend Sarah and her family to help them move into their new house. While the chaos that erupted at home wasn't quite as dramatic and permanent as the last time, there was one incident involving poop that poor Kyle had to call me to vent about! The real effect of my absence was saved for when I got home and Hannah really let me have it! The very next day she split my lip open in an attempt to prevent me from making her go to school and had to be forcibly removed from the van at school screaming and without any shoes on. Interestingly enough she ended up having a great day at school that day though you would have never guessed it based on her performance that morning!

Photo Notes: Here are before and after photos of Hannah's self hair cut! She started off with no bangs and decided to add them herself! The poor teacher gathered up the pile of hair and sent it home to us in an envelope!

Transistion

The move has been rough on Hannah. There has been a resurgence in old behaviors and an increase in current ones. Twice she's peed in her closet (why is it always the closet by the way) not because she had to go to the bathroom, but because she was mad at me. The hitting, kicking, biting, scratching, screaming, and shouting nasty words is at an all time high. The bigger she gets, the harder that is to manage. She is just so strong! She seems to be perpetually angry and has zero impulse control when her hair trigger is activated.

Shortly after we moved in I took her to the Omaha Zoo by myself. We used to go to the Rhode Island Zoo by ourselves all the time so I thought nothing of doing it. Well, this zoo is a lot bigger than our old zoo and requires much more walking. At one point Hannah's whining reached critical mass and she just freaked out. When I suggested we call it a day and come back another time that freak out turned into a full fledged meltdown. I ended up having to drag her close to 2 miles (most of it uphill) back to the van while she screamed, hit, kicked, scratched, and bit me. Let me tell you I got plenty of dirty looks that day. Only one kindly person offered me a smile and the encouraging words of, "It looks like someone is having a rough day," the entire way! I'm actually surprised no one called security thinking I was trying to kidnap her, she was putting up such a fuss. Even though it was a crisp spring day, I was drenched in sweat by the time we reached the van. The workout I received wrestling her back to the parking lot rivaled anything I ever did while on the P90X program! Try it if you dare. It's guaranteed to melt the pounds away!

She snuck out of the house during nap time and went visiting around the neighborhood. The scary part was that she even crossed the street and was on her way up to the next street when Kyle found her! Another scary part is that two of our neighbors that she chose to go visit actually saw and spoke with her, but neither of them called us to let her know she was off wandering. Seriously, who thinks it's ok for a 4 1/2 yr old to be off on her own running the streets?!? When I went looking for her I was in a panic after having searched the house and not been able to find her. At first I thought she was hiding in the house since she's prone to doing that. The new house is much bigger than the old one and it took me much longer to search thoroughly and that wasted precious time. Our property is also much larger and very wooded, as is the whole neighborhood so she could have also been hiding nearby outside and I not been able to immediately see her. I was on the verge of calling the police when Kyle came walking up the driveway with her. He found her at the very edge of our property on her way up to the next neighborhood! After that little episode we made the tough decision to put a lock back on her door. We were hoping that we wouldn't have to do that here. She's almost five and should be able to be trusted to stay in the house. We also live in a much quieter area and I thought even if she managed to get outside she'd be ok as long as she stayed on the property. That day she proved she wouldn't just stay on the property!

Back last year when Hannah had her latest psych eval, along with her Disruptive Behavior Disorder-NOS, Pediatric Bipolar and ADHD were listed as rule out disorders to watch because she had many warning signs of both, but the teacher evaluations did not match the home evaluations. Over the last 6 months or so we've seen a marked increase in impulsive behavior. In fact the girl barely has ANY impulse control at all (for good OR bad actions). She's never really been one to learn from her mistakes and the consequences we give for her choices never seem to make any difference in future choices so we are really starting to suspect that an ADHD diagnosis may be tacked on in the not so distant future. Her birth brother also has this diagnosis so it's not too big of a surprise and the more and more I learn about ADHD and it's characteristics, the things I thought disqualified Hannah from the diagnosis don't disqualify her at all. At the moment, all attempts at behavior modification are failing and I think it's beginning to affect her self esteem. I think she's starting to FEEL as if she is a bad girl. That is something I really DO NOT WANT. I know she is a good girl. She just can't seem to help herself sometimes. All this makes me wonder if an ADHD diagnosis comes if we should consider medication. I never thought I'd ever consider it for her for pretty much any reason, but I want her to be happy and right now she's just not. She can't control her actions and I imagine that is pretty frustrating. Have any of you ever considered/used any of the ADHD medications for your children? What factors went into your decision to try/not try them? What were your family's experiences with them?

On the positive side, Hannah's academics of course continue to accelerate. Lately she's been working on the phrasing aspect of her reading fluency and has made huge leaps! She reads with barely a thought about decoding and when she does mess up phrasing she notices and goes back and rereads the section until it sounds right. Addition and subtraction of the numbers less than 10 have pretty much become automatic for her. Counting change is also pretty much automatic. I think we are going to move up to paper money and larger amounts of change (several dollars worth of change) soon. She's cruising through a first grade math textbook with ease at the moment and we haven't really hit anything she hasn't mastered yet. Her vocabulary continues to increase and makes her sound much older than she is. Combine that with the fact that she just had her well child check up and she was in the 99.7th percentile for height and we've had multiple people suggesting that she must be in 2nd or 3rd grade lately! They are always astonished when Hannah informs them she hasn't quite turned 5 yet and she'll start kindergarten in the fall. Her fine motor coordination is also improving and her handwriting has improved drastically. Her coloring is much better too although she still hates to color. She's begun mostly using upper and lower case letters properly when she writes although she'd still rather write in all upper case. She still has several number reversals that we are working on (2, 7, 5, and 9), but the numbers themselves are formed correctly. They are just facing the wrong way! That's totally age appropriate so I'm not concerned in the least. Her spelling is getting much better and she's memorized how to spell many of the unusually spelled common sight words and is beginning to learn some of the more common spelling patterns beyond CvC and vCe. She's really into writing lists and stories at the moment and has begun writing her own chapter book. Now her idea of a chapter consists of only 2 sentences, but hey it's her book!

We've met 3 families in our neighborhood/town that have children around Hannah's age and have had play dates with them all so far. Two of those families have kids that will go to the same school as Hannah so that is a huge plus. AND one little girl (who unfortunately won't go to Hannah's school, but IS starting kindergarten next fall) lives basically next door. Our property extends quite a ways up the street we live on away from our house and all the way up to directly across from her house. We are hoping for lots of play dates with her this summer. One of the other families we mentioned invited us to attend the local festival with them and also invited Hannah to join their sons' team for a jr firefighters' water fight. It was AWESOME! Hannah had a blast. She watched the parade, climbed trees with the boys, and of course participated in the water fight. The actual competition is difficult to explain so I'll have to post pictures of it instead. After the kids' competition we watched the adult firefighters do their competition. Imagine what you see the kids doing in the picture being done with fully dressed firefighters and fire hoses! It was awesome to watch.

Photo Notes: The pictures are from painting Hannah's new room. The room was originally a dark forrest green. It was very pretty and well done, but hardly a little girl's room. Hannah also had been asking for a blue room for a year so we decided to give it a try. Kyle did a great job on it and Hannah even helped with the first coat of paint. The last picture is from the water fight. I'll post more pictures from that in my next post.

Adoption Through the Eyes of a 4 Year Old

So adoption is nothing new to Hannah. Because we have an open adoption with Hannah's birthfamily she's always known she's adopted and has been able to give age appropriate explanations for what that means. We've discussed the ins and outs of adoption with her since the day we brought her home from the hospital. Lately, there have been many examples we have come across in books, tv, and movies that portray adoption. Some of them have been positive portrayals and some not. Some of them have been fairly accurate and others, well, let's just say they seriously missed the mark. Anyway, each time I've spoken with Hannah about what was real and what was not about each depiction and she seemed to get it. We compared the fictitious situation to her adoption and founded the similar aspects and the ones that weren't the same. I thought she had a good handle on things. Imagine my surprise when she opened up with some real adoption zingers that flew so far off base from reality that you would think they were coming straight from a 1940's handbook on how to be a happily adjusted adoptive family or how to place a child for adoption! I was horrified!!!!! Here's just one example. Hannah wanted to play house. She was the mother and I was the kid and several of her baby dolls and stuffed animals were to be recruited to be kids too. She turns to me and says,"Sweetie, you're going to be getting a new baby sister. We're going to adopt her because I can't grow a baby in my tummy." So far so good right? Then she follows up with. "I have to go to the store and buy her. I'll be right back." OH MY LORD! Never once have we ever discussed the fact that adoptions cost money at all. Where did she come up with equating it to buying a baby!?!? I immediately worked to put out that fire and explain how we NEVER buy humans. How when humans used to be bought that was called slavery and slavery is wrong. When you adopt a child they become part of your family and they are not slaves. I'm not sure she was buying into the thought that the baby was not available at the store. Then later in the play session she brought out ANOTHER whopper. She said, "Sweetie, the lady next door really wants a baby and since we have two babies now (we had since adopted a baby brother for me!) we are going to give her your sister to be her new baby. She's going to adopt her." I about died! A discussion began immediately about the reasons people place babies and children for adoption and that the reason is NEVER simply because someone else wants to be a parent. Babies are not traded as property simply because someone else likes them. We talked about the reasons that Tiffany and Mike placed Hannah for adoption and that they would have NEVER placed her for adoption simply because Daddy and I wanted her. They placed her because they could not care for her. Tiffany and Mike chose us because they knew we would love her and care for her, not because we wanted a baby. Hannah put up a fight about this explanation and still insisted that it was only right to share the baby with the lady next door since we had 3 kids and they didn't have any. UGH! I never managed to get through to her on that one and she got angry with me and we had to abandon the conversation for another day. That particular conversation brought back memories of a conversation we had just after Abby died. Hannah had informed us that if either Kyle or I died she wouldn't be sad because she would still have another parent left! Adoption has really been on her mind lately all around because she's asked me to tell her the story of her birth and adoption practically every day for the last 2 weeks! Never before has she expressed such interest in it. I suppose this is just another step in her journey to processing what it means to be adopted and how that makes her who she is, a unique combination of her birthfamily and adoptive family. I'm sure in the days, months, and years to come we will continue to revisit these topics again and again. Please pray that I am able to calmly and successfully guide her through the process!

Post Script

I can't believe I neglected to write about the best part of Hannah's phone adventure in my last post. When I walked into her room to find her chatting on the phone she was talking to my step dad. She had called him because she really wanted to talk to my mom, but she couldn't find her phone number in my phone book so she had called Tom to get it! Now my mom's number IS in my phone, however it isn't filed under Mamaw or her first name! Of course it's under mom, but Hannah only knows my mom as Mamaw and her first name and she couldn't find either of those in my phone. My step dad is in there under his first name and since she knows him as Papaw and his first name she thought she'd do a little problem solving and just give him a call to get Mamaw's number! The little stinker!!! Smart, but a stinker none-the-less!

The behaviour around these parts has been pretty rough the last few days. It started the instant we dropped Kyle off at the airport. My punishment for delivering Daddy to the plane was having to drag my almost five year old daughter on her stomach through the main aisle of the grocery store to check out while simultaneously dodging hits, kicks, and bites. This continued out into the parking lot and all the way to the van. Eight things, I only had eight things on my list and we HAD to get those things. We had nothing to eat in the house so I couldn't just abort the trip like I often do when things go bad-just leave the cart in the middle of the aisle and run. We couldn't even manage to buy 8 things. UGH! The night only got worse from there and I ended up putting her to bed at 5:30pm! She had lost every possible privilige for the rest of the night so there was really nothing left for her to do so she went almost willingly. She ended up reading to herself until she fell asleep. I found her with a book open on her chest and the lights still on at 8:00pm. I'm not sure when she actually fell asleep, but she looked peaceful and happy. If only I could bottle that peace for when we need it during the day!

Dogs, Humans, and Wairies

So, I've been avoiding you. . . . . . There's been so much going on that I've wanted to write about, but I haven't been able to post it to the blog so I've just not written anything. To write, but not mention the elephant in the room just felt like lying.

First off, when I last wrote we were going to check out the Christian school to see if it might be the right fit for Hannah for Kindergarten next year. The visit went great. We decided Hannah would attend there next year and in fact we decided she would start kindergarten right away (last month actually) and finish out the year in the kindergarten class and then move on with the class to first grade in the fall unless something unusual happened. BUT something unusual DID happen and she didn't start kindergarten and she won't be going there next year. More on that later.

Hannah's behavior has been all over the map the last two months, but mostly it's been rough-aggressive and angry. The biggest difference however is that her aggression has been controlled and deliberate instead of wild and raging. The deliberate aggression almost scares me more than the raging because she KNOWS what she's doing and she is choosing to continue acting that way. Lately I've had more objects than I can count chucked at my head and the kicking, hitting, and scratching has been out of this world. Just as things started to ramp up in the behavior department we had a major stressor added to our lives and that of course has not helped the problems in the least. More on that later!

On a positive note, Hannah has been reading like crazy and has found another series she really likes, The Bailey School Kids. She actually read one of the books from beginning to end on her own in one sitting this week! She was that enthralled! Her comprehension is totally there too because she gave me an excellent summary of the book afterwords and when I skimmed through to check on her she was right on! She's pretty much mastered basic addition and subtraction and has started two digit addition without regrouping. We've been working with a hundreds chart and learning about the patterns within the numbers and she's been enjoying that. She's also been on a note writing kick. Every single day I get several little notes. At first they were just "To Mommy. Love, Hannah" but now they are more like, "Dear Mommy. I love you. I had a great time with you. Love, Hannah" They pretty much always say a variation on the same thing, but they are still sweet. She also loves to label all of her drawings and make us lists for things she wants us to buy at the grocery store. Kyle was on his way out the door one day when she called him back and quickly handed him a post-it note that said, "gum bagul." Translation: Gum, bagels.

Now back to that title. Hannah has two little friends whom she loves dearly. They are sisters and are so sweet to her. They handle her bossiness, forgive her when she's mean, and don't hold it against her when she has a major meltdown. They really are perfect for her. We play with them every Thursday after story time at the library and we've had 5 play dates outside of the library so Hannah is quite familiar with them and totally comfortable showing her true self. Anyway, Olivia, the oldest of the girls, is quite creative and sensitive. She loves to put on plays and write stories. Her favorite animal is the wolf, but she also likes fairies so she created an entire new species called "wairies." Wairies are wolf fairies. Not only is she writing a story about them, but they work themselves into most of her pretend play. Today the girls came over to play and I had to break up quite the unusual argument. From upstairs I heard screaming and when I went to investigate I was greeted by 3 girls all talking at the top of their voice. It turned out that there was a game going that included a wairy, a human, and a dog-specifically Bolt. Go figure! Apparently the "rules" of the game were that there was only one of each character and that they were taking turns being each of the characters, or at the very least both Hannah and Emmy wanted to be the dog. Hannah DID NOT want to give up being Bolt and was putting up a fight about it when it was Emmy's turn to be the dog. Hannah kept shouting, "There is only one dog and I want to be the dog!!!!" I tried to reason with her, as I always do in situations like this which are surprisingly common, that since this was all make believe she had two options. She could either change the rules of the game and there could be two dogs or she would have to let Emmy have her turn. Of course she didn't like either of these options and continued to insist that there could ONLY be one dog. UGH! Eventually she screamed at me and stomped upstairs and slammed her door. Sweet little Emmy, who was so insistent that it was her turn to be a dog and who had rightly stood up for herself, was so sad that Hannah wasn't playing anymore that she ran up to her bedroom to say, "Hannah, Hannah! Come back. You can be Bolt. I'll be the human." It just about broke my heart. Such a sweet girl. I had to be the mean mom though and tell her that she had to be the dog though (at least for a little while) because it was her turn and we don't get our way in our house by throwing a tantrum and being rude to our guests. Eventually Hannah decided to rejoin the game and begrudgingly played the part of the human.

So, now that I've kept you hanging until the very end, here is why I haven't posted. We are moving sometime next month and it's a big move again. Kyle got a new job in Nebraska. Originally we thought we'd be moving this month so we opted not to have Hannah start kindergarten and then have to pull her two months later. Because of some mix-ups with medical testing, it's taken longer than expected to complete all the pre-employment paperwork so we'll be here a little longer than we originally thought, but it won't be much longer now. Hannah has been processing the move in spurts and I'm sure it's been contributing to her behavior. It seems like the public schools are much better in Nebraska than they are in Rhode Island which makes me very happy. I've spoken with the principals of a few of the elementary schools that would be in our home search area and I'm encouraged by what I heard. It seems as if they will be willing to work with us to set up something that will meet Hannah's needs. They've also all expressed an interest in meeting before the current school year is up to make sure everything is in place for next fall. Still, it will be starting all over again as far as Hannah's schooling goes which is frustrating since we thought we'd found the perfect place for her. Now we just have to find a house in order to know what school district we will be in so that we can get the ball rolling. Though we don't have many friends here in Rhode Island, the friends we do have we are really going to be sad to move away from. They've made our stay so far from home much nicer. Hopefully we'll be able to make friends quickly once we get there for Hannah's sake.

Photo Notes: The first 4 pictures are from Christmas. I know it's March! Don't judge!! The first picture shows Hannah attempting to use the toothpaste Santa left in her stocking as deodorant! I guess it was an honest mistake as the tube is shaped more like a deodorant stick than a tube of toothpaste. The third picture is her snuggling her coveted pillow pets that she got from BOTH sets of grandparents. The fifth picture is the beach at the end of our street last month. The ocean is definitely something we'll miss about Rhode Island. The sixth and seventh pictures show the goofy side of my girl. She made a pair of glasses for herself out of pipe cleaners and then decided to use her happy meal box as glasses as well! The 8th picture was from our good-bye photo shoot we did before Abby died. The last picture high lights Hannah's unique 4 yr old little girl fashion sense!