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. 

Surgery

Tomorrow we hope that the 3rd time's a charm. Hannah goes in for her 3rd set of ear tubes. This time they will be permanent ones. While I'm relieved to be getting them and be done with the 3 ear infections we've had in the month since the first tube fell out, I'm worried too. She doesn't come out of anesthesia well. She's combative and crazy. It's scary to see. She's also had some sort of post operative complication after both of her previous ear tube surgeries. Neither one has been horribly serious, but bad enough to land us in the ER both times shortly after we had been discharged from the surgery center. Thankfully, Kyle can take the day off and it's near the weekend so if something does come up I won't be handling things alone.

As far as the behavior front goes, Christmas break has been rough. I guess it is to be expected since her routine is off, but this is the absolute worst it's ever been. I'm actually praying for an acceptance to the severe behavior program at this point where only weeks ago I was still wondering if we'd even accept the spot if they said she qualified.

On the foster care front we are STILL waiting on our finger prints to clear and now we just found out that one of the states we previously lived in is asking for yet more paperwork in order to clear our background checks-something about a new child protection law that recently went into effect. On a positive note, a nice lady from freecycle gave me a big bag of infant crib bedding, some baby toys, and a bassinet today.

Photo Notes: These pictures were from Thanksgiving Day. We spent the day together as a family putting up Christmas decorations, eating a wonderful dinner, and remodeling our guest bathroom.

The Candy Cane Debacle Part 2

Boy this story just keeps getting more interesting! After the horrible afternoon and night we had yesterday, Hannah had an AWESOME morning. I had high hopes for her day at school. I thought she would be in the right frame of mind to speak with the teacher and the principal about what had happened. I also thought she'd be able to handle the consequences of her action (from mom and dad: no sweets for the rest of the week, from school: no candy cane from the tree when it was her turn and no sweets if there were any offered at school to reinforce the no sweets rule from home). Well. . . . . not so much. Mrs. A reported that Hannah would not focus on their talk at all. Instead she kept blurting out that she had a great morning (which she had). She didn't seem to acknowledge a thing Mrs. A said. When informed she would need to go to the Principal's office she adopted an attitude of uncaring and was completely nonplussed when the visit happened during one of her recesses. She was however irritated about the no sweets rule and put up a bit of a fuss. THEN the doozy hit. She went to the resource room and was offered a treat for a personal best on her weekly math quiz. She gladly took it and ate it and then immediately told the Mrs. D that she would have to tell Mrs. A about it because she wasn't supposed to have sweets. She then walked back to her classroom and told Mrs. A that Mrs. D was going to give her a treat for her math quiz. When Mrs. A informed her that she would have to save it until next week she told Mrs. A that it didn't matter because she already ate it! The little sneak. She KNEW she wasn't allowed and waited until she had already ate it to inform the teacher about it. There were apparently other behavior issues during the day too.

Then when I picked Hannah up she was wound up, but behaving ok. She did her chores, finished her homework, and got ready for swimming without complaint. Then at swimming she actually listened to her teachers and had her best lesson so far! She swam the entire length of the pool on her back without any help and without stopping since she was in the deep and couldn't ever touch. I was so proud of her. Then she showered, had dinner, and got ready for bed peacefully and without incident. It was the easiest night we've had in weeks, maybe months! I think it is so interesting that when Hannah has rough days with us at home she seems to do okay at school and when she has good days with us she has a hard time at school. It's like she only has a limited capacity for behaving and she can either use it one place or the other and then it's gone and anything leftover gets bad behavior. Usually Kyle and I get the bad behavior and though it's rough I'm glad for her to save it for us instead of it impacting her schooling significantly. However, every once in awhile it's nice to get the good stuff and to have others see what we go through daily and have that validation that I'm not a crazy mom and WE aren't the cause of all the bad behavior. Does that make sense? So many times we've been told we are imagining things and that they "just don't see that with Hannah." I feel like a broken record trying to explain that she's better with others usually, but these are her normal behaviors. So, it's nice to be validated every now and then and have Hannah "share the love" so to speak!

Photo Note: Pictures are from Thanksgiving Day. Kyle, Hannah, and I spent the day hanging out together. Hannah helped me decorate the house for Christmas and helped Kyle make cranberry bread.

The Candy Cane Debacle

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

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

Ups and Downs

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

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

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

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

Spelling is hers, my translation or additions in parentheses.

1. Horse

2. Puppy

3. Kittin (kitten)

4. Bolte Wie (Bolt Wii video game)

5. Baby (sister not a doll!)

6. Santu Clawas 2 (Santa Clause 2 DVD)

7. Hamster

Dagger to the Heart

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

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

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

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

I Will NEVER Leave Home Again

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

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

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

The Honeymoon is Over

Well, the honeymoon is over for kindergarten. Hannah called another student stupid today and then grabbed her and held onto her so that she couldn't go tell the teacher. She did take her time-out quietly, but the aftermath here at home has not been so pretty. There have been persons in the past who questioned why Hannah needed an IEP when her intelligence and academic achievement are so far above normal. In fact the school district in RI refused to qualify (or even meet with us for that matter) her for one because they insisted that her social and behavioral challenges would not and did not affect her academic learning. The problem with that is that in many areas Hannah could go YEARS without making ANY progress academically and still not be considered behind or at risk. It was faulty thinking on their part, but anyway. . . . I'm so grateful that the school district here recognized that Hannah's social and behavioral challenges do indeed affect her academic learning and that she needs support to be successful. We were lucky to have gone into the school year with an IEP and had already had meetings to inform those who would be working with Hannah what to expect so that when her challenges did rear their ugly heads no one would be shocked and most importantly, Hannah would not be written off as simply a troublemaker. From talking to her teacher after this latest incident it's looking more and more like we'll be having an ADHD reeval sooner rather than later. I'm sure I'll learn more at conferences on Wednesday, but it sounds like regardless of how much she enjoys the task, her teacher is having to redirect her significantly more often than a typical kindergartner to begin and complete her work. It's just fortunate that at the moment Hannah is able to quickly and easily complete the tasks with little effort otherwise this would be a huge problem. If her work was actually challenging she'd be falling behind or at the very least struggling to keep up already.

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!

Pleasant

Today was a pleasant day with Hannah. I NEEDED that after the rough month we've had. We've had lots of acting out, sneaking around and taking things, stealing sweets, soiling carpets, and nasty words the past several weeks. BUT today was a breath of fresh air. We played, went out to eat, she played appropriately (not bossy at all) with some other girls at the play place, and she even took a nap. That today was so normal, but yet so nice highlighted the fact that things have been so tough lately. We are still on the waiting list for a behavioral therapist and I'm hoping we come up soon. I don't think the 123 Magic has been effective at all. She doesn't seem to care about the time outs at all. Sure she hates to take one, but they have no effect on her behavior and they do nothing to stop the cycle of poor choices she's making even in the moment. I feel like it's going to take something else, something really tailored to her to make a difference. I just hope we can find a therapist that's willing to put in the time and effort to really get to know Hannah, us, and our specific situation to help us get this figured out.

To update everyone on our dog Abby, we had to have her put to sleep last week. :( She had begun to suffer and we just couldn't let her hang on like that. She just couldn't breathe at all anymore. It was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do making that decision. We were all going to be there with her to say good-bye, but Hannah was being very naughty and didn't seem to care at all so Kyle had to take her back out to the car and I had to stay with Abby by myself. When we were trying to explain to her that Abby would not be coming home and that she would never see her again she said something that completely floored me. She said, "I don't care if Abby dies. I'll still have another dog and I like Sally better." At first I wanted to believe that this was just her way of coping and that it would all hit her later, that she really wasn't being heartless, but that wasn't the case. Hannah truly hasn't cared about Abby passing away at all. I'm just not sure that she gets death at all. In fact she's actually told us that if either Kyle or I died that she wouldn't be sad at all because she would still have another parent left! Talk about a stake through the heart!

Besides losing Abby we also took another step towards growing our family last week. We turned in our foster care licence application and went to our orientation. We'll start our training classes at the end of the month. The classes run for 9 weeks and if all goes well our home study will also be conducted during that time period so that by the time we finish the classes we should be ready to take children into our home immediately. So, by the middle of April we could possibly have a new (most likely temporary) member of our family living with us! We are so excited and can't wait to get started making a difference for some little ones. Our ultimate goal is to adopt at some point either a child that is waiting or one of our foster placements that becomes unable to be reunited with their birthfamily. Right now we are open to foster placements of any child 6 and under or an adoptive placement of a girl of any age that is a good match for our family. Hannah is just beginning to understand what foster care means and how that is different from adoption. One thing that has come out of our conversations about foster care is her needing frequent assurances that we will always be able to care for her so that she will never have to go live with another family. The fear that I hear in her voice when she asks for this assurance just breaks my heart because if she feels that scared just thinking about it, how much more fear there must be for the kids who are actually entering foster care and being shuffled around?

Another big milestone went down last week, Hannah got her hair cut SHORT. She's wanted short hair for a long time, but I just wasn't willing to part with her beautiful locks. Eventually though I just couldn't take the hair brushing meltdowns that were occuring at least twice every day so I broke down and let her get it cut. I must admit it's a really cute cut and she loves it, but she looks so different to me. I keep wishing she still had her long hair. Lots of people have told me that she looks older with her new cut, but I actually think she looks much younger. I think her cut made her change from looking like a beautiful young woman to a cute little girl. So without further ado, here's the big reveal! What do you think? Do you think she looks older or younger with the short hair?

Photo Notes: The first picture is at our local Children's Museum. The second two pictures highlight Hannah's new fashion sense. She's taken to making her own outfits and seems convinced that she hasn't done her job properly if any of the individual elements are of the same color! The next two pictures are hopscotch during the library holiday party-scene of the most recent manifestation of "the library curse!" Check out the 3 links here if you don't know what I mean!