I Can't Take This!

The title of this post comes not from me (as many of you might expect!), but from Hannah. It's a quote from the middle of the night last night. She had woken up to go to the bathroom and after taking her back to bed and getting her settled she kept scratching and scratching at a bug bite on her back. I could tell she was really trying not to scratch, but it must have been itching something fierce because after several cycles of trying not to scratch and then scratching anyway she dramatically flopped over in her bed, turned to me and said, "I just can't take this anymore!" and then buried her head in her pillow! I had to stifle a laugh. I felt for the poor thing because I too have impossibly low willpower when it comes to not scratching something that itches, but it was so darn funny the way she said it and not at all how I expected a four year old to complain about a bug bite! She must of gotten that phrase off of Kyle or I, but neither of us can determine which of us says it enough for her to have picked it up. As far as we know, neither of us says it all, but she has to have gotten it from somewhere. Surely she just didn't pull that phrase out all on her own.

Hannah accomplished a huge feat this past weekend, one that Mommy still has yet to conquer. She learned to dunk herself under water and now she's an addict! She went from being pretty scared of getting any water on her face to begging Kyle to throw her into the air at the pool so that she could crash back down and go under water in one day! Now she's jumping into the pool on her own, putting her face in the water and pretending to swim, and of course begging to be thrown. That's my little sensory seeker! I'm quite excited about this development because swimming is great proprioceptive input for her and as an added benefit it tires her out too! Another thing I love is that I no longer have to tolerate screams in the tub about me getting water in her eyes. If she can stand getting launched into the air and crashing down into the pool and going completely under then she can handle a few drips of water running into her eyes! This tells me it's definitely time to start swim lessons this winter. Now that she's confidently going under and swimming around the pool independently with her flotation belt on, I think she's totally ready and capable of taking directions from a swim instructor. This also makes me feel so much calmer about us living next to the ocean. I don't have to worry as much now about her panicking if she were to accidentally go under or get hit by a wave in the water. Just her being more comfortable in the water makes me more comfortable taking her there.

Today Hannah had one of her oddest meltdowns ever. Her morning started off great and then when it was time to get ready to go I asked her to put her socks on. For some reason this set her off and she refused to comply. Socks were not an option with her AFOs and shoes were not an option for her school so she had to put her socks on in order to put her shoes on in order to go to school. Eventually she just went nuts. She started screaming and hitting and kicking and pinching. She was using all of her strength and truly intending to hurt. After about 15 minutes of this, she all of a sudden walked over to the toilet (we were in the bathroom) and sat down and closed her eyes. She sat there for about a minute totally silent and then began sobbing hysterically. I went over to hug her and ask her why she was crying and she said, "I just started. I don't know why, but I can't stop." She cried for probably 10 minutes with me holding her and then eventually she was able to get her socks and shoes on, get washed up and then leave for school. She was quite clingy when I dropped her off at school and I worry that she's going to have a rough time, but they haven't called yet so I hope that means so far so good. The odd thing is that usually she rages until she's worn out and everything just fizzles out. This abrupt end to the aggression and the beginning of the crying is very abnormal for her. I'm not sure what to make of it.

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.

No Show

The karate instructor was a no show on Saturday. Hannah was VERY disappointed and it pretty much threw her off for the rest of the day. In fact, later that day when I was trying to get her washed up she threatened to chop my head off! I've no idea where she came up with that. She must have heard someone at school say something like that because her PBS shows don't use that kind of language and we certainly don't! I'm still waiting for the situation to be resolved as to whether the class is officially canceled and we'll get a refund or if we'll have a make-up class sometime and then class will start next weekend. I'm hoping that the class won't be canceled because it's too late for her to sign up for anything else at the YMCA this session since everything is filled. We'd have to wait until September. I'd like to get her into something NOW if possible.

At the end of June Kyle and I started a fitness plan called P90X. Besides an extreme exercise regime it also consists of a very regimented nutrition plan. Needless to say there's been a BIG change in the food we eat and the type of food in the house. We also discuss our food choices a lot more instead of just eating whatever is around and handy. Hannah of course is not on the nutrition plan and we continue to fix her healthy balanced meals for a preschooler. Even so, she's become very interested in food choices and the things Kyle and I have been eating such as protein bars and shakes. She's also started to pick up on food related vocabulary such as carbs, protein, dairy, etc. It's been pretty funny to hear her argue with her Daddy about what she wants for breakfast or snack by saying, "But I told you I needed two more carbs today!" She's also started learning about the difference between good sugar (whole fruit) and bad sugar (high fructose corn syrup) and likes to look at the nutrition labels on the foods we eat. It would be nice if this led to her naturally choosing healthy foods to eat, but so far she's still got a STRONG sweet tooth and would gladly down a bag of M & M's over just about anything!

Photo Notes: These were taken at our local children's museum. We just LOVE going there!

Karate

Hannah will be starting karate next weekend at our local YMCA. I don't think it's a very intense program (how can it be with 4 year olds!) so it should be a good introduction to the sport to see if she likes it. This particular session only lasts 5 weeks so if she hates it we haven't wasted too much money and she doesn't have to tough it out too long. I'm hoping that karate will give her a positive outlet for all of this aggressiveness she has, although I am aware that the opposite could be true in that it could increase her aggressive acts. Let's hope that doesn't happen. Sensory-wise, karate should be very good for her. I'm also hoping it will help a bit with impulse control.

Six or seven months ago Hannah went through a stage where she picked at toilet paper, wadded it into tiny little balls and then stuffed it various places, bodily orifices, heating vents, between her toes, cracks in the wall, etc. It's been awhile since we've had any toilet paper stuffing, but it looks like that streak might be ending. Yesterday Hannah wadded up and stuffed a HUGE amount of toilet paper down our bathroom sink drain and then filled the sink with water! Let me just tell you that soaking wet, disintegrating toilet paper is NASTY! I made her dig all the toilet paper out from around the stopper and from as far down the drain as her little fingers could reach. I wasn't about to clean that mess up! She definitely was not happy about having to clean up, but I sure wasn't happy about her little experiment either!

Lately I've been struggling to find appropriate books for Hannah to read. She's capable of reading most easy chapter books, but unfortunately most of the easier chapter books are written at a 1rst or 2nd grader interest level and not a 4 year old's interest level. There's also the problem of the characters being very sassy and rude. When I flip through a book and see the words dumb, stupid, and hate multiple times I know it's not the right book for Hannah. We have a hard enough time enforcing our rules about appropriate language and respect for others (especially adults) without having to confront negative examples in books just yet. We can tackle that later. There are a few animal stories written by Penny Dale that are perfect for her, but unfortunately those series don't seem to be carried in most bookstores or the library. The popular Animal Ark series also made a few "Little" Animal Ark books that are good for Hannah, but again they don't seem to be in libraries and bookstores and there are only a few of them. I did recently find a cute little series in the bookstore called Appleville Elementary that are early chapter books and they seem perfect for Hannah so far. The first book is about a bunch of kids getting ready for the first day of first grade. If anyone has any ideas about chapter books that are fairly easy to read and are the appropriate interest level for a 4 year old (I try to keep the main character no older than about 8 years old) I'd appreciate the help.

Yesterday I took Hannah to get her hair cut. She'd been begging to get it done for weeks. Now that we go to a kids only hair cut place (we had a VERY bad experience at a Super Cuts for her first hair cut and it made her terrified of getting it done) she loves having her hair cut. She'd go have it done weekly if I'd let her! Actually it's not the actual hair cutting that she likes. She really likes that after the cut is done they put glitter gel in her hair and while they are cutting she gets to watch a movie. I know I pay a little more for these silly little extras, but it's worth it when I see how calmly and cooperatively she behaves as opposed to that awful first cut. Last night Hannah discovered that I had cut Kyle's hair the night before. I had forgotten to get rid of the evidence piled up on the deck! She was quite interested in what she saw as this new development (I've cut Kyle's hair on and off ever since we got married, maybe even since before we were married, but Hannah's never knew that I did it) and asked if I could cut her hair. Ummm. . . . . No! I'll use the clippers to buzz Kyle's hair (although I don't even like doing that. It totally stresses me out, but I can't handle pay $20 for a cut every few weeks.), but I'm not about to touch the scissors on a wiggly 4 year old where my mistake could take months or even years to grow back. No Thank You! This curiosity of hers in my cutting of Kyle's hair has me worried given her past indiscretions with scissors and her own hair. In my mind this is a BAD sign and a really big goof up on my part. This just may undermine my standard speech I give every time she takes the scissors to herself about only people trained to cut hair can cut her hair. Pray that she somehow forgets about this and stays away from the scissors!

Photo Notes: All of the pictures except for the last one are from Hannah's birthday party. Those of you who read regularly will remember the little boy from her class, Jesse, whom Hannah said she was going to marry on multiple occasions. Well, Jesse is the boy standing with Hannah in the first picture. Doesn't he just look thrilled to have his picture taken? He's a cutie though and super sweet. We were so glad he could come to her party.

DUH!

Here's a quick Hannah story for you all. Lately Hannah has been really interested in all things related to the solar system, but especially the planets and the sun. We've been reading a lot of books about the planets and about the earth and the sun and consequently she's learned about the earth rotating on it's axis and revolving around the sun and how those two things make our days and nights and our seasons. The other day we were driving in the van and she was reading a book to herself called "Wake Up Sun." It's a cute little easy reader about some farm animals who, through a series of misperceptions, wake up in the middle of the night thinking it's daytime and that the sun has over slept. They spend the rest of the book trying to wake up the sun. Upon finishing the book (which she's read dozens of times before mind you) Hannah claps it shut rather roughly and says, (insert teenage valley girl voice here) "MOM! That is SOOOOOO silly. The farmer's baby didn't wake up the sun. It wasn't EVEN sleeping! It was just on the other side of the earth." Duh! I guess the author of "Wake Up Sun" didn't get the memo that stated that all elements of her story had to be completely and utterly scientific. Pay no attention to the fact that she wasn't bothered at all by the fact that the animals talked!

Here are some fun summer pictures for your viewing pleasure. Don't her legs look amazingly long in that swimsuit? That's why all her shorts that fit in the waist look like daisy dukes!

Leaps

Hannah has made some HUGE leaps here recently in both her large motor skills and her academic skills. She's now a pro at riding her big girl bike and her stamina is increasing each time she rides. We took her to ride on the bike trail at our local park and I bet she went at least a half mile and that is WAY further than she's ever gone before. She was so much more confident too. There was no more staring at the ground or having a hard time getting on because she was afraid the bike would fall over. Now she just hops on and goes. She even had her first "fall" going down one of the bigger hills on the path. She didn't hit the ground because Kyle caught her, but the bike definitely tipped over as she got going quickly and she panicked when it was time to turn. Still, she got back on with some coaxing and rode on like a champ. I was so proud of her. Maybe it won't be long before we can all three ride on the bike paths together. That would be awesome. The problem is that just as she's getting comfortable with this new bike, she's outgrowing it! She towers over the handlebars and the seat is basically all the way up as high as it will go and her legs are still pretty bent. I'm not sure how she'd do on a bigger bike that would sit her higher up from the ground. For now I think we'll just stick with the Dora bike. It's working and I don't want to rock the boat.

Academically she's reading more and more chapter books and just this past week she started writing sentences independently! A few nights ago she stood at her easel and pounded out two sentences just because she wanted to write them. As her vocabulary of words that she can spell without sounding them out grows, it has become much easier for her to compose because she doesn't lose her train of thought while she's trying to spell a word. One of her favorite things to do recently is to dictate stories for me to copy down. They can get quite elaborate, but really she does a pretty good job of keeping them cohesive. I've been quite impressed. I'll have to put one of them on here someday for your reading pleasure!

Just so we don't get too complacent, she's also kept us on our toes with a steady stream of undesirable behaviors. Her venue of choice this past week has been the bathroom. She's started fishing around in the toilet bowl and pulling out poop and smearing it on the walls, dipping towels in the toilet, and just generally splashing around in pee water. UGH! At four years old I thought she'd be past that, but apparently not. We're back to having closely monitored bathroom breaks and that definitely puts a cramp in our style. Having to drop everything every time she needs to go to the bathroom really cuts down on the time I have to do things around the house.

It's taken me well over a week to write this post and it seems like a lot has happened since I started writing it. Yesterday I took Hannah to see Toy Story 3. The place where she has OT sponsored a sensory friendly showing at our local theatre and it was one of the most relaxed outings to a movie I've ever had. They kept the lights turned up (it was dark, but not like at a normal movie) and the volume turned down. They had fidgets and a break area available. They allowed you to bring in your own snacks and roaming and vocal stimming (as well as all manner of chatter and questioning) was totally allowed. No one got upset or freaked out about anything. It was so nice. Hannah and I really enjoyed the movie and look forward to them offering more sensory friendly showings.

Hannah had a field trip to the zoo and once again I was not impressed by her teacher. I won't go into all the details since you've all heard me whine about her many times, but this is just one more confirmation that getting Hannah out of there for next year is the right thing to do. In fact, if we wouldn't lose all the money we put in our flexible spending account to pay for preschool that we have left I'd pull her out now, but unfortunately the only way to get that money back is to spend it on preschool or daycare. Oh, and one more thing, I know I promised I wouldn't whine about her teacher, but this really upset me. The other day Hannah came home and told me that "Miss Nicole almost had to write me a note," but that she promised her that she wouldn't tell us what had happened. When I pressed Hannah about why Miss Nicole needed to write us a note, I found out that during nap time Hannah had went to the bathroom, but instead of going to the bathroom she went into another empty classroom (one they use for indoor large motor play on yucky days) and played in there by herself. That room has a door that opens up to the rest of the school and Hannah could have easily have just left the room and gone right on out and left the building. The teacher obviously thought her behavior was serious enough to threaten her with not allowing her to go on the field trip, but yet she did not inform us of this infraction. They lost her for pete's sake, and what she did was really manipulative. She's eloped from home before so the fact that she tried it at school is something I think we deserved to know. When I questioned the teacher about it she said it wasn't a big deal and she didn't want to write us about it and make it bigger than it was. UGH!

After the whole recommendation of a partial hospital program by the psychologist at our last appointment I had intended to give him the boot after speaking with Kyle, but we didn't make our final decision until the night before her next scheduled appointment and the late cancellation penalty costs more than my copay (doesn't seem right to me that it would cost me more NOT to see the doctor than to see him) so I took Hannah in to see him one more time and let them know we were done. While there, instead of giving us suggestions on how to better manage Hannah's behavior at home, or even doing an evaluation on her, he suggested that we should try stimulant medication. Are you kidding me! He hasn't even bothered to do an evaluation on her or diagnose her with anything that medication would be necessary or beneficial for! For that matter, he still hadn't watched the DVD of Hannah's meltdowns that I had given him over a month ago! Needless to say we gave him the boot and I've been doing a lot of research about where to go from here. I got many helpful suggestions in the comments to my last post and I'm very grateful for them. I'll keep you all posted on what direction we decide to go next.

Hannah also had her 4 year well child check up. She checked out just fine and weighed in at 38 lbs and was 42 inches tall. That puts her in the 74th percentile for weight for her age and the 90th for height. She also had to get 3 vaccinations while she was there. We had prepped extensively for this possibility and the doctor confirmed it was so. When she expressed concern he told her that they would give her the shots in her arm and that she could sit on my lap while they did it. However, when the nurses came in to administer the shots they decided to tag team her and give her two at once and all three of them in the leg, not the arm like the doctor told her. They also would not let her sit on my lap like the doctor had told her she could. I tried to tell them that this was not going to go well with them changing the plan on her and that we had it worked out so that we would have cooperation if they would just do it like the doctor had told Hannah, but they refused. Obviously they knew best. I also warned them that it would be much easier for me to control her if she fought if she was on my lap instead of on the table, but still they wouldn't listen. Well, for their stubbornness, Hannah threw a HUGE fit. She thrashed around like a crazy woman. I couldn't hold her down at all. She was moving so much they could only give one shot at a time. AND Hannah kicked one of the nurses in the chest so hard (she was even laying down too!) that I'm surprised it didn't break her ribs. All this because they wouldn't listen to mom who really did know best about this scenario and how it would go. Instead of apologizing afterwards for their stubbornness and saying they were wrong not to listen to me (I know, wishful thinking on my part) , the nurse that got kicked simply eeked out, "She sure is strong for a four year old isn't she?" Yeah no kidding! I tried to warn them.

Photo Notes: Except for the first photo which is of Hannah getting the tank reading for Evan the fish and that last 3 which are of Hannah at the zoo and playing in the sprinkler, all of the photos were taken when our good friends the Bowes visited us from Indiana. We went on a chartered harbor and lighthouse tour. It was a blast.

Beyond Frustrated

The past month or so I've been beyond frustrated with Hannah's behavior. She's growing more defiant and deliberately antagonistic by the day. She's growing stronger as she gets bigger and her kicking and hitting hurt a lot more now than they used to and she's getting much harder to restrain to keep her from hitting us. At a loss for what to do about her behavior (having tried about every trick in every parenting and medical book out there) we decided to consult a pediatric psychologist for some family therapy hoping he would be able to shed some light on what we were doing wrong and help us out of this downward spiral we seem to be in. Those sessions have pretty much been a complete waste of money. So far he hasn't given us any strategies we haven't already tried and has now swung 180 degrees from his initial recommendation that we use a sticker chart to motivate good behavior to recommending a partial hospital program for Hannah! I about freaked out on the psychologist yesterday when he suggested this. It sounds awfully extreme to me and awfully expensive! When I think of a partial or full hospital program I think about kids that are dangerous. Hannah's not dangerous, she's just extremely challenging. If we don't put a halt to some of her behaviors she could be dangerous once she's older and bigger, but right now she's not dangerous and so I think a partial hospital treatment program is way out of line. Have any of you out there had any experience with programs like these? Am I totally off base here? Needless to say, I'm in the market for a new psychologist because we do desperately need the help. What would be the most helpful would be some sort of therapeutic Super Nanny type person who could come to our house and simply observe what goes on for several days in a row, maybe a full week, and then help us develop a plan to better manage Hannah's behaviors. She doesn't display many of her most challenging behaviours at school so I feel like the same thing would happen at the partial program since it's run very much like a preschool. The herd mentality, or maybe it's just that she's not completely comfortable there, whatever the reason she saves up everything for home. The moment I pick her up she lets it all hang out. I need someone to see her in action like that, not in the structured school/therapy environment. Does a therapist like this even exist? If so, what would they be called? I'd love to know so I could google them and see if I could find someone in our area that could help us out.

Another question for all you veteran parents out there, when is it no longer considered an annoying, but age appropriate stage for a child to get into lotion, chemicals, etc and smear them all over themselves and anything else they can find? This is what Hannah did on Monday. When she was supposed to be upstairs getting her pajamas on she instead went into our bedroom, climbed up to Kyle's dresser (which she can not reach without climbing) and got his Nivea lotion, hydrocortisone cream, and the fish tank chemicals-all things she KNOWS she is not allowed to touch- and then proceeded to smear the lotion and cream all over her body plus the carpet, her bedsheets, a book, and some toys. She then dumped out all the fish tank chemicals on the floor (thank Jesus she did not swallow them!) and then lied to me when I called upstairs and asked what she was doing by saying, "I'm just looking at my books" The next day, after now being banned from our bedroom, she snuck into our bedroom and got my package of birth control and hid it under her bed. The next day she went through my purse (which she KNOWS she's not allowed to do) and took my cell phone out while I was using the bathroom and hid it from me. Then today, right in front of both Kyle and I she decided to smear chapstick all over her face! She ground it into her eyebrows so hard that Kyle had to really scrub to get it all off before taking her to school! Is this something that all kids do at her age? If so, how long does this stage last? I'm getting multiple gray hairs from this new behaviour. I've ordered some medicine and chemical safes to put everything in to keep her from getting at any more medicine or chemicals since putting them up out of her reach obviously doesn't do the trick so hopefully that will stop that part of the problem from a safety standpoint, but what do I do about this taking things and hiding them? What about the other less noxious chemicals such as hand soap and shampoo. When will it be safe to put them back down where they are convenient?

4 Years Old

It's hard to believe, but my baby girl turned 4 years old on the 6th. The time has simply flew by more quickly than I could have ever imagined. As I say every year, it seems like just yesterday we were talking with Tiffany and praying that maybe just maybe this would be our baby girl and now here we are 4 years later, parents of a high energy, super smart, opinionated, and beautiful girl. When I think back over the past year I am filled with wonder over all she has accomplished. She started preschool and learned how to successfully become part of a classroom. She made friends who not only wanted to see her, but who she wanted to see too! She learned to pedal her tricycle and then moved on to a big girl bike with training wheels. She learned to swing on a swing by herself, starting off from completely still to pumping herself so high the chains on the swing set chink! She climbs, runs, and jumps with reckless abandon. Her vocabulary is ever increasing and she's begun to ponder some of the deeper questions in life such as "Why can't we see the Earth spin?" And the reading, oh the reading. She's gone from level 1 readers to independently reading an entire chapter out of the chapter book The Boxcar Children. She devours every book she can get her hands on and can read just about any book you put in front of her. Of course, there have been some less than stellar developments over the past year such as increased levels of defiance and screaming, learning to use hateful and hurtful words, and increased aggression. Still on a whole this year has been full of accomplishments to celebrate. And celebrate we did. We rocked it out at Chuck -E-Cheese and Hannah actually gave the big mouse a high five and stood right next to him for a picture. For her actual birthday dinner she requested we go out to dinner at On the Border and she was delighted when the servers sang her happy birthday and brought her a brownie and ice cream.

Happy Birthday Baby Girl! Though they've sometimes been hard, you've given me the best four years of my life so far!

Photo Notes: These were taken at Hannah's preschool "Graduation" (though she and several other of the students aren't actually graduating and moving on to kindergarten!)

Parent Teacher Conference

Today was Hannah's second round of parent teacher conferences at Crayons, but the first one with her new teacher. This was the second time I'd met with her teacher as well as sending her a VERY long and detailed letter about my concerns. Once again I really wasn't pleased about how things went at the conference. The teacher seemed eager to try to tell me the things I wanted to hear about how she was challenging Hannah and about how if there were incidents of hitting and kicking between Hannah and other students she would have been letting us know, but her words just don't match up to what we are actually experiencing. Hannah reports daily physical spats with her best buddy Elisa (those two have a definte love/hate relationship) which her teacher denies. She says they argue, but other than the one time they informed us about, it never gets physical. Hannah reports otherwise and I emailed Elisa's mom and apparently Elisa reports otherwise as well. Something seems amiss here to me. Then there's the issue of what academics Hannah is actually participating in. The teacher reports that Hannah is producing all sorts of products of learning, but yet I can count on my fingers the number of times ANY sort of paper or project has come home in the 3 months Hannah's been in that class and at least two of those times occured when her current teacher was on vacation and a sub was in charge! It just doesn't jive to me. All of this really serves to confirm to me that we're making the right choice to homeschool Hannah next fall. We still haven't decided if we are going to have her continue to attend her current class one day a week or not. I'm still on the fence about that. I would hate for her to lose those relationships she's formed with the kids in her class, but at the same time I don't want to be paying for something that's really not benefitting Hannah as much as something else I could be doing. You know what I mean?

Hannah's birthday party is coming up this weekend and she's very excited about it. This year she will actually have quite a few kids there. I think there are 11 kids already that have RSVP that they are coming. I have to hand it to them, the kids in Hannah's old class are super great about birthday parties. They almost always attend. We've had less luck getting any RSVPs one way or the other with the kids in her new class, but I guess that is to be expected since those parents don't know Hannah and I don't even really know those kids. Many of them I can't even pick out of the room and I sure as certain wouldn't know their parents if I saw them. Since Hannah has such an early drop off and late pick up time I just don't cross paths with a lot of other parents. We'll see if the next few days bring any more RSVPs, but if not Hannah's got a full house already and it should be fun. I've got the goody bags all ready to go (no fish included!) and hopefully they will be a big hit. I'm a bit fanatical about giving children gifts. I ALWAYS give a book. A kid can never have too many good quality children's books in my opinion and most kids don't have nearly enough exposure to good literature as I'd like. So, I do my part and I hand out books. I bet you can't guess what's in the goody bags? It was my goal to make these useful. If I was going to spend money to give out goody bags then I wanted it to be stuff that wasn't just going to end up in the trash or give the kids a sugar high. So, I bought cheap sand buckets at Walmart to use as the "bag", after all we do live on the coast and filled them with books I found at one of our local bargain stores and like new ones from my favorite second hand store. I didn't pay more than $0.99 for any of the things in the goody bags, but I think the pads of note paper, crayons, markers, stencils, and of course books should be so much nicer than the stuff you normally see and I doubt it was much more expensive either (especially not the way I shop!) . Maybe it'll even keep them bus on a car trip this summer!

Evan and Catherine

This is a bit late in coming, but we have a new addition to our family. A few weeks ago Hannah attended a birthday party for one of her classmates. The theme was a carnival and they had all sorts of carnival type games and carnival type snacks (cotton candy, corn dogs, popcorn, etc). In lieu of the traditional goody bag for the guests (which I never understood anyway) the hostess instead gave out goldfish to her guests! While I appreciate the sentiment and think it was an awfully creative idea, certainly better than the junk that usually comes in those goody bags that goes directly in the trash, a fish is a living thing! You have to take care of it, feed it, have someplace to house it, etc. We had none of the appropriate supplies and had to go out the next day and get fish products to welcome our new family members. Oh, and did I forget to mention that we received not one, but two fish? Anyway, Hannah decided to name her fish Evan and Catherine. We went out the next day after church and got a tank and some food and went to work getting set up to be fish owners. Unfortunately Catherine never made it to the tank. In fact, she didn't even last 24 hours! I expected Hannah to be quite upset about it, but really she took it pretty well. Evan is now happily living in his new tank is actually quite the entertaining fish. I have never seen a goldfish as hyper as he is. Maybe we got a fish with SPD! You should see this fish eat too. When you drop the food in the tank he dives and grabs at it like he hasn't eaten in a week! It actually makes a splash of water at the top of the tank! Do you think this means we aren't feeding him enough? We're giving him the amount of food the container indicates. All in all, this hasn't turned out to be as bad as I thought it would be, but just in case you are thinking about giving out fish at your next birthday party, I'd advise against it unless you want to make enemies out of all the parents!

Last weekend we had our second house guests of the season. Our friends Sarah, Jason, Evelyn, and baby Vivian came to stay for a few days. Let me tell you, Hannah was PUMPED about getting to see her friend Evelyn. She counted down the days on the calendar and tirelessly told every person she came in contact with that they were coming. We had a great time during their visit, but I think Hannah was definitely ready for a break when it was time for them to leave. Having to be "on" 24/7 is hard for anyone, but it was next to impossible for Hannah. She needs plenty of alone time throughout her day and while they were here she didn't get any at all. Even though I was constantly on her about being a good friend, admonishing her for not playing with Evelyn, and pushing her to be social with our guests I think she did pretty well all things considering. Sometimes I just expect too much from her. I have to remember that she's not like other kids even when she appears to be doing ok. It sure was sweet to see those two playing together though. It's been way too long. Those two know each other like the backs of their own hands still, even though they haven't seen each other since November! I think that's pretty amazing. One funny thing was watching Hannah try to engage Evelyn in play. Hannah absolutely had to be the one directing the play at all times. It was like she was a little mini CEO. I kept hoping Evelyn would put her foot down and say "NO! I want to play this," because Hannah desperately needs a reminder that it's not all about her, but unfortunately for me Evelyn was a total sweetheart and went along with whatever Hannah wanted to do.

Here's a random funny Hannah story for you that happened tonight. I was sitting at the table looking at a magazine that had just come in the mail and was trying to get Hannah to go upstairs to get her PJs, but Hannah was stalling. She saw an advertisement for the Sears Portrait Studio that had fallen out of the magazine and she said, "What's this?" I told her it was just an advertisement. She replied, "For babies?" I absentmindedly said yes, thinking that she meant baby pictures. She then piped up, "Then we don't need this because we don' t want to get a baby right?" I about died! Kyle called down from upstairs, "You've got to put that on the blog." She totally thought when I said it was an advertisement and that is was for babies that I meant it was for people to BUY BABIES! If that wasn't what a lot of people feel adoption is I would think this was even more funny than I already do, but since I wanted to be sure she knew that you can't buy a person I explained to her that it was for baby pictures and that babies enter families either by being born to their mommy or being adopted, not by being bought.

Hannah's behavior lately has taken a turn for the worse. Besides defiance that is like none I have ever seen before, she's getting more and more physically and verbally aggressive. She shouts things like, "I hate you! You're not my mommy anymore! and I'm not going to be your kid!" at me routinely and hits, kicks, and spits pretty much daily. The other day the library curse struck again. Our library has removed it's check-out desk and replaced it with all self check out machines. Don't get me started on how much I hate this set up. That's for another post. Anyway, we were trying to check out the books and Hannah wanted to do it. She had a book up on the scanner, but she was trying to swipe the wrong bar code so it wasn't working. I tried to help her turn the book around so that the correct bar code would scan underneath the laser and she totally flipped out and chucked the book nearly 10 feet across the lobby. It was a miracle it didn't hit anyone. I looked like she was trying out for Olympic Discus! It's pretty much impossible to enforce a timeout outside of our home anymore so I did the only thing I could do and I told Hannah we were leaving the library right now and that we would not be able to check out the rest of our books because of the way she was acting. She went ballistic. First she kicked me. Then she hit me. Then she took off running. Leaving the books behind I took off sprinting after her and caught her. She threw herself to the ground and desperately tried to wrench her hand out of mine and would not walk. Instead she continued to scream, kick, and hit. I had no choice but to pick her up and carry her out of the library. She was thrashing around kicking and hitting and pushing on my neck so hard I could barely breathe. Several times she was flailing around so crazy that I dropped her. Eventually we made it to the van . I'm not even sure how that happened and then I had to try to get her into her booster seat. That was not easy, but eventually I got her buckled in and climbed into the driver's seat. Hannah still screaming and kicking away, I started to back out of my parking space when I heard a click. She had unbuckled her seat belt and was attempting to get out of her seat! I was shocked. This was a totally new behavior. I reprimanded her and buckled her back up, but she would not leave the belt latched. I had to hold it in place which unfortunately put me in arms reach of her hitting. She raged in the car for about 15 minutes (which felt like 15 hours!) before she started screaming, "GO! JUST GO! I WANT TO GO HOME!" I tried to explain to her that I couldn't leave the parking lot until I was certain she was going to stay buckled in her seat but that just made her more angry so we had about 10 more minutes of her raging about wanting to go home. Eventually she just started sobbing and wasn't fighting me as much so I took a chance at getting back in my seat. We made it home in one piece, but I was a nervous wreck the entire drive worried that she would unbuckle while I was driving. I don't know what it is about the library, but we seem to have a knack for causing huge scenes there. Before long they're going to ban us from coming!