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. 

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

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.

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!

The Christmas Crazies

Boy has our house been full of the Christmas Crazies lately. You would think that being a thousand miles away from family and most of our friends that we would have a peaceful, low key holiday season. You would THINK, but that was not the case. Hannah was totally WIRED about Christmas this year and as a result her impulse control was even shakier than usual. She managed to have a blast and so did we, but it came with some truly tense moments. It didn't help that Kyle was out of commission for most of the season having just had his tonsils out. We were basically a one parent household with our normal routine thrown to the wind-not a recipe for success.

All the commercialization surrounding the season and generous family members who love spoiling Hannah with gifts and candy made it hard to get her focused on the reason for the season and the gimmies reared their ugly head. Hard as we tired to reinforce the meaning of Christmas, I feel that Hannah was so fixated on presents that much of what we did went in one ear and out the other :( Those gimmies are a nasty bug to get rid of and they led to some spectacular meltdowns, even causing the "library curse" to strike again. While at the library Christmas party some kids came up to me complaining that Hannah would not let another little boy play with them. When I went to talk to her about it she freaked out and tried to run away from me. When I caught up with her she started hitting and kicking so we had to take an early leave of the party. The children's room was PACKED to the gills because of the party so I had quite an audience as I attempted to wrestle Hannah, her boots which she kept kicking off and sending them flying across the room, her winter coat which she refused to let me put on her, my camera, and the leftover party snacks we had brought out of the library and into the car. It was NOT a pretty sight.

The joy on Hannah's face Christmas morning however made all the craziness worth it. The wonder she expressed at how Santa managed to get into her room while she was sleeping to leave her a new book and a stuffed Bolt dog just inside her bedroom door, the smile she flashed and the absolute speechlessness that overcame her when she saw her dollhouse under the tree, the genuine thank you hugs she gave Kyle and I for the gifts, it was all just glorious. We've spent a good many hours the past two days playing new games and moving little 3 inch dolls around their new home. Hannah even loaded up the roof of their car with all of their furniture and drove it around the dining room when it was time for them to move!

One nice thing about having so much down time the last couple of days has been that I've had the opportunity to have some serious conversations with Hannah. We were able to talk about what it means to be saved and have Jesus in her heart and how exactly to do that and also what it means if someone is not saved and dies before they ask Jesus into their heart. She definitely seems to be processing everything and has had many questions about "the bad place" as she has dubbed it. She's not ready to make a decision for Christ just yet, but the seeds have been planted and it's up for Kyle and I to tend to them and to God to help them grow. She does know she doesn't want to go to "the bad place," but truly deciding to always try to make decisions that please Jesus seems a like too much work to her.

With all the talk about heaven and hell and what happens to people when they die, I'm expecting some tough questions about what happens to animals when they die as well because one of our dogs has recently been given 2 weeks to live by our vet. We've had Abby for pretty much as long as Kyle and I have been married and of course Hannah has never known life without her. Even though Hannah isn't particularly attached to Abby (she's 18 years old and has never been particularly lively since Hannah's been alive!) she doesn't care for change and Abby's been a constant, dependable presence her entire life. I'm expecting Abby's death will rock her world, not because she'll be grieving a loss of a friend like I will be, but because her routine will change. Maybe she'll surprise me and be really sad about Abby being gone, but I don't think so. The other day I tried to broach the subject of prepping her for the event and she replied, "I don't care. I'll still have another dog. I'll have Sally. She's my dog." Whatever happens, it's going to be tough. That I'm sure of.

Roller Coaster

It seems like we live on a constant roller coaster. Yesterday Hannah and I had a wonderful Mommy Daughter Day. We went to the museum, had lunch, played, did school, had dinner, bath, bed with no problems. We made it through with no screaming, melting down, hitting, kicking, etc. There was of course some minor preschool disobedience, but hey, no one's perfect. This morning, however, was a totally different story. Hannah was out of control. She threw things, hit me, kicked me, scratched me, tried to bite me, and pinched me. All this because she didn't want to turn off the TV and then later didn't want to wash up and leave for school. It's not like this routine was out of the ordinary. We do it EVERY Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. We've done it for over a year. In fact, except leaving for school, we do the same routine every single morning! Still, it's impossible to predict when she'll be able to smoothly move through the morning routine successfully and when she'll just completely lose control of herself. By the time I actually got her to school she was fine and I'm sure she'll have a wonderful day there. That's the other thing that is frustrating. She almost NEVER displays these aggressive behaviors at school. For them she's a sweet angel all the time. I can almost guarantee though that the minute I walk in to pick her up the behaviors will start building and by the time we make it home they will be in full swing. UGH! How can she act so sweetly and behave so wonderfully one moment and then at the flip of a switch shift into another gear and go nuts on me? I just don't get it.

Something that interests me about Hannah's reading level is that even though she can read at a second grade level and comprehend what the text says as far as being able to report the events of the story and the facts objectively, she is unable to make predictions or inferences about the stories she reads. In this aspect of reading comprehension I would say she is just barely at age level for a 4 year old, maybe even a little behind since my expertise is not early childhood, but elementary school. Even stories that she has read to her and that she doesn't have to expend the mental energy of actually decoding, she is unable to display this higher level comprehension. Picture books she is a little better at picking up unspoken aspects of the story, but that is only because she studies the pictures so intensely. If the pictures weren't there she wouldn't gain as much depth about the story as she does. Every now and then she'll get something that I'm surprised she catches, but on the whole this uneven development she has in reading is quite fascinating to me. A four year difference between decoding and comprehension is a pretty big gap and I am amazed that it could even develop. It's hard for me to imagine being able to read the words, but not really understanding all that they tell. I've heard that this is quite common for children with hyperlexia, but I'm not too concerned yet since really she's right about where she should be comprehension wise. If it ever gets to the point where she can't comprehend at the grade level she's SUPPOSED to be reading (even if she's still reading 4 years ahead!) then I'll be worried. For now though, I'm just intrigued.

School Girl

Tomorrow is Hannah's first day of preschool. We ended up going with the private preschool because Hannah was determined ineligible for the school system program because she tested at gifted level on her verbal language test. This wasn't news to me. I told them as much. That's part of what makes Hannah's weaknesses so apparent if you really care to pay any attention at all. She's capable of extremely advanced language for her age, but is unable to use even typical language with her peers. It's a huge gap between what she can do and what she's able to display in a social situation with other kids. Hannah is pretty excited to be starting school. She's got her Dora backpack, Tinkerbell lunchbox, and Princess thermos. In her eyes she's all set. I'm a bit nervous about how she'll do. Four hours is a long time. She's never been in a social situation for that long without Kyle or I present.

I must say that if she ends up being comfortable, this should be good for both of us. It's been a rough few weeks around here and both Hannah and I need a break from each other. Hannah has fully embraced her place in the Tyrannical Threes and has been bossing around everyone in sight. She screams at even the slightest hint that she might not get exactly what she wants RIGHT NOW. And she's ramped up her hitting and kicking to never before seen levels. I'm sure her rage is becoming a neighborhood legend. At least once a day she will get to the point that she is hitting or kicking me and I am unable to get her to stop or stay away from me so I have to close her into another room and hold the door shut. I HATE doing this (and CPS would probably be do an investigation if they knew), but all other efforts to get her to deescalate have failed. I'm no longer strong enough to hold her arms and legs down so that she can't hit or kick so my only option to keep myself from becoming black and blue is to remove her from me. Closing her into a room makes her even more angry initially and her rage usually escalates, but eventually she will calm down when she no longer has a person to fight against. The thing that scares me the most about her rages is that she seems oblivious to pain during them. She will pound on the door or walls so hard that she will bloody her knuckles, but she doesn't stop. She keeps going and going and it's only after it's all over that she realizes she's hurt herself. She's only 3, but I have no idea how to help her manage such rage. It's so unlike the temper tantrums I see other kids have. Anyone have any ideas?

On a lighter note, Hannah's reading abilities are now transferring to her spelling skills. Instead of only spelling words she has memorized she is attempting to write words by sounding them out. One of her favorite things to do is make the grocery list with me. Here is a sample from one of her recent lists: MLK-milk, PES-Peas, FROOT-fruit, JLE-jelly The fruit really impressed me. That's how I'd expect a first grader who's been learning some of the more complicated vowel patterns to spell fruit, NOT a newly turned 3 year old! Her handwriting is also improving by leaps and bounds. She can now attempt all the upper case letters with at least some degree of success without any help or anything to look at. She's quite legible on most of them. S, G still give her quite a bit of trouble, but even those are starting to come around and she can get them pretty well with some verbal cues and an occasional hand over hand to get them started. She's also becoming quite well at transcribing. She can copy up to four words in a row accurately without any prompting or supervision. That sure made making birthday thank you cards easier this year! I'm so proud of all of her academic accomplishments. Makes me wonder what she'll be doing by the time she actually makes it to kindergarten and first grade though!

Yesterday we had such a great time out on the beach. Hannah and I walked down to the little beach at the end of our street to swim. Instead of swimming we ended up catching periwinkles (little snails for those of you back in the Midwest), hermit crabs, and even tried our hand at quahogging (digging for a certain type of clam). I never managed to get any Quahog though. I kept finding what the locals call steamers instead. Hannah was so happy splashing around in the water and chasing crabs and catching periwinkles. Seeing her with her little pail dropping in snail after snail filled me with such joy. She was so content. We are so lucky to have these opportunities within easy walking distance of the house.

Pneumonia AGAIN

Yes, Hannah has pneumonia AGAIN! The poor little thing seems to be a magnet for bacterial pneumonia. This is the 7th time she's had it in the past 2 years. Her most recent case was only 2 months ago right after her surgery. UGH! Besides the pneumonia, this time she also has a partially collapsed lung. That scares the begeezus out of me. The urgent care doctor says we don't really need to worry about it unless she gets worse, but I'm worrying anyway. Scarring also showed up on this most recent chest x-ray. The radiologist said it was from past cases of pneumonia. I worry that all these cases of pneumonia are going to permanently damage her lungs and I'm also concerned about WHY she gets this pneumonia all the time. What is causing her to be so susceptible? I know that Tiffany (Hannah's birthmother) has severe allergies and asthma and Chase (Hannah's brother) battles croup and ends up in the ER for breathing treatments from it frequently, but neither of them get pneumonia. Please pray for my little girl that she recovers quickly from this and that we can get hooked up with a pediatrician here quickly and get to the bottom of all of this. On a side note, I am also sick. Somehow I managed to get strep throat and pinkeye. Thankfully Hannah didn't get either of those from me and Kyle seems to have mostly escaped it too.

Lately Hannah's defiance and sassiness has gotten out of control. She is blatantly disobedient and speaks very disrespectfully to us. It's like she's 2 going on 16! We've tried several traditional systems of behavior management and discipline, but nothing really seems to work well with Hannah so we are going to go out on a limb and give one of the more unusual methods a try. It's called the Nurtured Heart Method and was pioneered by Howard Glasser. Kyra at This Mom first introduced me to this method. At first pass I thought it sounded fine, but that it was not my kind of thing. It was way too involved for my way of thinking. However, as things slowly spiraled down hill after our moved it became apparent that Hannah needed something more. It couldn't hurt to give Nurtured Heart a try. So I checked the book out of the library and set to work reading it straight through. We are all set to give it a try as soon as Hannah is feeling better. Wish us luck. If you want to know more about the specifics of Nurtured Heart, click on the link to Kyra above. She's done an excellent job through several posts of the basics of Nurtured Heart and how they've applied it at their house.

Here's my autism blogger of the day Full Soul Ahead written by Michelle. Michelle's oldest daughter has Asperger's Syndrome. She writes about daily life as well as some of Riley's challenges. They are currently in the process of getting an autism service dog for Riley and she has written several wonderful posts about how service dogs can help those with autism. Check her out. She's a great read.