@ Home in the World

Grouch

One of the things that I am going to appreciate about going back to work is not having to deal with the morning crap around here every day.

I'm still not a morning person. That hasn't really changed since the initial shock of having a small child who frequently awoke well before 6:00 AM, raring to go. Pumpkin is not as much of a morning person as Tigger always has been, but they are often up and frequently screaming at each other long before I'm ready to deal with the day. It's really more accurate to say that Tigger is tormenting and Pumpkin is screaming, but really, at that hour, who cares? It's all noise.

I really dislike having to badger everyone at every turn to get things done. It's really not that hard. If you are the first one down in the morning, let the dog out. If there's an accident, clean it up. If it's a school day, get some breakfast or start packing your snack bag so the grown ups aren't rushing around trying to coordinate four meals before the bus comes. Don't get dressed before breakfast. Inevitably you wind up wearing your food and having to change - wasting time and creating more laundry.

Most mornings I come down between 7 and 7:30 and find none of this done. Instead the TV is on (bleah, Sponge Bob), and the dog is on the couch (he's not allowed and he's too old to jump up there by himself anymore). A good day is when they aren't fighting or throwing things at each other. Piper is either running or on the stationary bike and then in the shower, which means that I have to play the bad guy.

Hopefully starting next week, I'll be gone at 7. While I'm never thrilled to be up that early, driving to work means I don't have to talk much in the morning and that's the way I've always preferred to start the day. Piper can tell me all he wants about how smoothly mornings tend to run when I'm gone, I'll just be glad I don't have to deal with it at all.

Speaking of grouches, have you heard all this nonsense about right-wingers upset about Sesame Street, again?  From the "why didn't I think of that" files, some skit involving Oscar the Grouch made reference to "POX" News, calling it a trashy news show which, in Oscar's upside world, is supposed to be a compliment.

Now, most people would recognize that as the sort of double-level humor that good children's shows employ to afford parents some entertainment while they are doing the right thing and watching what their kids watch. But no, out come the right-wing extremists with charges of leftist indoctrination of children on a (barely) taxpayer funded show.

Just goes to show you who the real grouches are.

It must be hard to live your life in a constant state of high dudgeon.

Humor: we all need it.

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How it's going

So I think we are on week four of Tigger-on-meds. Long enough anyway, for me to lose track.

He has come home with a few notes in the first couple of weeks praising his behavior. The principal wrote him a note and sent it to our home so that he could get it in the mail. I am assuming that he would do this for any kid who has pulled off this kind of turnaround, and not just because he knew how utterly conflicted I was about the whole thing.*

Someone, I forget who, asked me a question that has been rattling around in my brain, but that I almost can't afford to worry about right now. The question went something like this "Is he proud of himself, or does he feel that this is the medication and not really him."  The short answer is that he is proud of himself, and is not self-conscious about the medication, or about the fact that he is taking it. I do know families with children who fight taking their medication. We do not have that issue. I guess that we are lucky.

The more existential question, if that's the right word, I just can't deal with right now. It helps that he is not a zombie, and that his personality has essentially not changed. Riding up to New Hampshire last weekend, with both boys picking at/feeding off each other for the entire 3-hour ride up and the 3 hours back (omigodmakeitstop!), Piper asked me if I really could see a difference with and without the medication, because he sure as hell couldn't.

With first hand experience of trying to get through homework with Tigger, pre- and post-meds, I have to say that I do see a difference. I also see more instances where Tigger's behavior is more age-appropriate than inappropriate. Yesterday, instead of finding him upstairs in front of the television, where he always goes when he sneaks off away from us, I found him in his room building something with blocks, something he has never done on his own.

At the risk of sounding overly dramatic, it's as if we have been living in the prison of our children's behavior. You know the old saying "I can't take you anywhere?" For us it was literally true. But it also meant that we really couldn't go anywhere, either. Everything had to be carefully planned, talked through with the boys, over and over, and even then, the excursions we took were risks. We risked spending the entire outing breaking up squabbles, we risked disturbing everyone around us, we risked losing Pumpkin in a crowd, because he would not stay with us or threw a tantrum if we insisted he hold the hand of an adult. Any successful outings were worthy of celebration, and totally, utterly, unpredictable. More often than not, we did not take those risks. We stayed home.

With the advent of Tigger-on-meds, it feels as if someone has cracked a window of that prison, and a little bit of sunshine is peeking in. Some weight has been lifted off my shoulders, but that sunlight has also served to illuminate that we have multiple issues to tackle here; Tigger's issues, Pumpkin's issues, and the Tigger-Pumpkin dynamic, which can be overwhelming. It's a reminder, as if we needed one, that Pumpkin's issues are far, far more complex.

And as of now, they are still eluding diagnosis. I may have mentioned that the neuropsych evaluation raised the issue of the autism spectrum, and then backed away from it. It mentioned Executive Function Disorder, which often goes along with ADD, but ADD has not been indicated in this case so far. We have a seven-year old, who has caught up or surpassed his age cohort academically, but is continuing to behave like a three- or four-year old.

Some days are great, and I still marvel over Pumpkin's huge leap in language over the past year. We can have a conversation, he asks amazing questions, he takes in all the information that his grandfather gives him, processes it and applies it to other learning. He has this interest in the natural world that's only really surfaced in the past few months.

Other days, it's like living in a zoo, where, at least the monkey isn't throwing feces, but he can not stop talking about it. He has the worst table manners, and family dinners are a constant litany of "use your fork, stay in your seat, use your fork, don't shovel your food." You look at him, and you expect to see a toddler, wearing a bib. I think it must be some kind of sensory thing, because nothing else makes sense.

I find myself making mental lists of the things we still need to get to the bottom of. On the really tough days, I wonder if there is no bottom.

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* Somewhere in the process of looking into ADHD meds for Tigger, some healthcare provider asked me if they had been recommended by his teacher. Sensitive as I am to the over-diagnosis of ADD/ADHD, and the potential use of these meds as crowd control in schools, I have to admit, the suggestion got my back up. But I shortly realized that the answer to this question was NO. Not ever, not even once.

I mentioned this to the principal some time later who told me that it was policy. Teachers, in his view, should not be pushing medication. I not only agree, I'm extremely grateful that I was allowed to come to this decision on my own, even if it took longer than it might have. Julie has a really interesting discussion of the issues surrounding boys in schools. So much of it has to do with culture changes alluded to in her post, which can be unbelievably frustrating, but I find myself here with an example of how a public school got it right.

Zoom, Zoom!

It was race weekend in Louden last weekend. Yep, NASCAR came to New Hampshire. So we packed up the car and headed up North to

Oh, HELL NO!

Though the Pumpkin would be perfectly content to watch cars go around in a circle for hours and hours, the rest of us really don't get it.

We did go to New Hampshire, but this was more our speed.

Those little things in the background? Those are go karts. They are little motorized cars not much bigger than a wheelbarrow, and not quite as high off the ground. This was the highlight of the boys' trip to see their grandparents this weekend. We drove for 45 minutes to get there, paid $5 each for two 15 minute trips around a roughly 8-shaped track. Then we left.

Really, that was it. It wasn't part of a park where there were other things to do. Their whole business was this track, maybe two dozen go karts, and some vending machines. It was amazing to me that they made money off of that, but perhaps they do. They may also have owned the building next door. Decidely NOT family oriented.

New Hampshire is littered with Tattoo shops, especially near the border with Massachusetts. Tattooing was illegal in Massachusetts until a few years ago.

Pumpkin told me I wasn't a very good driver in the go karts, and he was right. These things were way too low to the ground for my tastes and I couldn't hug the curves, couldn't even stay in my lane in the turns, they way I expected. I kept feeling like the kart was going to tip even though it was wide and low to the ground. Piper and Tigger wound up lapping us before the end of our session.

As much as I love the look of those Smart cars that have finally made their way to the US, I'm really a big car girl. I don't like being that low to the ground. I told Piper that driving those go karts was like being back in the Tercel he drove when we first met. Was that mean? I hated that car.

From the race track, we moved on to this cute little place.

 

Mmmm. Waffles and ice cream! Actually, all we had was the "make your own" sundaes. Waffles were a separate thing. But a Belgian waffle with warm apple slices on top - my favorite thing in the world! We'll have to go back for those.

The go karts weren't the only encounter we had with strange transportation. On the way home, we encountered this contraption. Can you see it up there?

 

At first we thought it was just parasailing, but it really looked like it was self-propelled.  It also sported a blinking light - to warn the passing airplanes, perhaps?

Of course we got into the raceway traffic on our way home, but even that had a side benefit. Just as all the spectators were leaving Louden, so were the race cars themselves. We must have passed a dozen of those race teams on the highway. We didn't see the cars because they were riding in their own souped up trailer transport - like Lightning McQueen rides inside of Mac. The trailers themselves were enough to keep Pumpkin interested for miles.

Piper speculated that Pumpkin might want to work on those kinds of cars when he grows up. To which I responded  - "if by working on you mean designing, well then I'm all for it."

No stronger believer than a convert

TIgger on Meds, Day 1 = Calm, got his homework done without fighting it. No fighting with Pumpkin, no grabbing at the dog. Sat down and paired socks with me.

Tigger on Meds, Day 2 = note home from teacher praising his behavior in class.

Really, the biggest change I'm seeing is his attitude. He's not constantly getting scolded so he is feeling better about life. I'm not constantly after him, so I'm not as harried.

He's begun telling people that he's on this medicine that's helping him. He seems to be okay with it, and maybe I should just let him be okay with it and not go probing into how he's feeling so that he starts thinking it's a big deal where maybe he didn't before.

When I was that age, I told everybody everything. I knew I was different and it was important that people knew why. It never occurred to me that the kids would use it against me. I'm not sure how much it mattered. Those kids who liked me, did so anyway. Those who didn't were probably going to bully the weak kid regardless.

I had an IEP meeting with Tigger's team earlier this week. He will take the MCAS for the first time this year and the plan is for him to have extra time and take it in a small group with a scribe. The testing period is in March. It will be interesting to see how much this effects of the medication allow him to improve his spelling and reading skills between now and then.

I still have questions about how this all works. Are there things that we can teach him while he is on this medication that will have an impact when he is not? Will his ability to understand consequences, right and wrong, cause and effect, stick with him when he is not on the meds? 

A couple of other things that had been "stuck" over the summer seem to also have broken loose, so between those and the meds, the tension in the house is way, way down.

Phew!

Mothers' Little Helper(s)

You know, the little, yellow pills of Rolling Stones fame.

Or some other medication, maybe even the ones we now give our kids.

Clearly, I'm still stewing about a comment made by a pediatrician in response to my son's fidgety behavior in church. Here's the backstory - she did not make the comment to me, she made it to my mother-in-law. I wasn't even there. I believe that she intended her comment humorously, and that is the spirit in which my MIL relayed it.

But my immediate reaction was apologetic.

I felt that I needed to apologize for my son's behavior and for the fact that I hadn't yet drugged him to contain his impulsivity. The message I got was that I was doing a disservice, not only to my son, but to those around him who had to put up with him, even for an hour.

I would guess that most mothers go through this at some point in their experiences. Maybe it's not to the extreme of medication, but in those moments of getting caught with a tantruming child in the supermarket.  Do you push through and get the chore done, knowing your child probably is overtired and will fall asleep as soon as you get him in the car? Or, do you subvert your need to get the grocery shopping done so you can cook dinner in order that the other shoppers not be made uncomfortable by your child's misery?

Now we all know that a good mother plans her day around a younger child's nap so she is never caught out in such a way. Just as good parents never take their fidgety children on an airplane, to a restaurant with a taste level above Friendly's, or it seems, a Catholic Church. Of course, back when I was growing up, such fidgeting would have earned me a whack on the knee or a thwick on the ear, but we don't do that anymore, because we are more civilized than that. Right?

And as civilized people we drug our children so they can cope with high expectations of their behavior and so we can cope with them.

Tigger has had a rough start to the school year. Tougher than I've seen probably since preschool. I'd say that it started the very first day of school, but the reality is that it started before that, maybe a week or so before. Then with the last week of homework (two straight days of struggling for hours on homework that should have taken 20 minutes) I finally raised the white flag. 

We have an appointment next week with his pediatrician to discuss medication for ADHD. I am irrationally angry about this, as if the way that I started this post didn't make that clear.

I'm angry at myself for doing this, and I am angry at myself for not having done it sooner. I'm angry that boys can't be boys anymore, and I'm angry that I personally can't cope with the behaviors anymore. The therapist has indicated that we will see results immediately, and I am angry that I'm not sure I know who my son is without all his behaviors. Pass the Kleenex.

I'm doing this because I don't want to spend so much time being angry at him.

And so I feel like I'm doing this from a position of weakness, rather than strength. I should be the one that has to change, not him. Had I been more patient, drugged myself, done things differently, had only one child, we might not be right here today.

I could beat myself up about this all day long, but you get the gist.

Watching him struggle these last couple of weeks, and realizing that it was taking a toll on his academic progress, has pushed me forward. Tentatively.

I know of two kids who are or were on these meds. One got way more aggressive and was taken off, the other was, and still is, a zombie. Of course there could be plenty of other kids on these meds that I don't know about who are doing just fine, and that's partly why I don't know about it.

Cross your fingers that this works for us.

Even though I hate myself for it.

The Way Life Should Be

Maine has magical properties.

Or at least so I've believed that since I was a teenager.

I first went there on a family vacation when I was 14. Of course, my mother's idea of a vacation involved lots of antiquing, which was not really a vacation for us kids.

But one evening we got to go out to dinner and walk around the streets of Ogunquit afterward. I marvelled at the open businesses and the streets crowded with strolling couples and families well past the dinner hour. The warm light of the shop windows and the happy sounds of relaxed people making their way around town filled me with such delight that I decided to live in a place like that when I grew up.

And so I do. But it's not in Maine.

When I was 20, I returned. This time I was in Booth Bay Harbor with a boyfriend and another couple. Sitting in a restaurant, looking out at the passers-by, I recall feeling like an adult for the first time because I was there without family and without obligations to other adults.

A couple of years later, I persuaded a friend of mine to take a day trip up to Maine with me because I was having a hard time in life an just needed to get out for a while. The headache and sinus troubles that had plagued me on the ride up were gone after about 20 minutes of walking around in the cleaner air of Maine.

After I was married, I was going through a particularly hard time careerwise. I had left a very good job and taken a risk that didn't pan out. I was distraught and not sure where to go next. Piper and I went up to Rangeley Lake for nearly a week, did not much of anything at all. It was heavenly, and I returned with a new commitment to the job I had. That lasted me about a year.

Of all the places we've been, that trip stands out as the most peaceful, the most soul-renewing.

So I was interested to see what returning there with children might be like. We were invited to share cabin with another family we know well and spend a lot of time with. They also have two boys and they have gone through a lot of similar challenges as we have with ours.

Still, I was a little nervous about sharing space, especially when I have one child who shows little consideration for, or even understanding of, the personal space of others.

But I was pleasantly surprised by how well it turned out. It was still as beautiful and as quiet as ever, the cabin was just the right compromise between rustic and well-appointed, and our host kept all four boys busy until they crashed after dinner.

Our cabins looked like this but with a porch instead of a balcony.

The boys spent a lot of time on the neighbor's boat. Tigger got to drive.

Pumpkin was focused on jumping off. I didn't actually mean to cut off his head in the photo, but because I did, I can use the picture on the blog.

There was a lot of tubing and a lot of swimming. You've heard of swimming with the dolphins. This was swimming with the ducks. They came very close.

On the other hand, we didn't see any loons this time. Though we did hear them at night.

The town was lovely, and very small. The bookstore had a regionally appropriate punny name.

A lot of the merchandise sold throughout town featured bad moose puns.

Does anyone know why these hot dogs are bright red?

I don't think the photo does justice to how red the casings are. If there were such a color as neon red, These hot dog would be it.

We went hunting for moose (without guns), but we didn't see any. Saw a fabulous sky instead.

Isn't this incredibly peaceful?

So much so that Piper actually tossed out the idea of getting a second place up there someday. I've been saying things like that almost everywhere we go, but mostly we joke about it. This is the first time he's brought it up so I know he's serious.

A vacation home in Maine? Now that's the way life should be.

What would you think

if the pediatrician sitting in the pew ahead of you in church turned to you and, indicating the cantsitstill child next to you, said "They have meds for that now, you know?"

And the difference is...?

Pumpkin's first therapy appointment has been pushed back into July because the insurance company (Arrgh, Magellan again) says the therapist is not a registered provider with them and that it will take 30 to 45 days to get him registered. The kicker is that the provider is registered with another practice, just not the one that is close to us. Apparently, that doesn't count.

On the night I heard about this, I found myself listening to Newt Gingrich going off about how no one wants government bureaucrats making decisions about people's health care. As if we didn't realize that the only difference between a government bureaucrat and a corporate insurance bureaucrat is that the guy working for the private insurance company is getting paid more than the guy working for the government.

Why do the Republicans treat us like we are stupid?

Oh, wait....

"Are you sure he's not autistic?"

This photo of Pumpkin and me was taken in the first few minutes of our first meeting. If you don't know the situation, it might look to you like any mother talking to, or even comforting, her child.

What you may not see, at least until you've read this,  is that I am trying to look into the eyes of this child and will them to tell me the answer to the question "Are you okay?"

Now you might see the fear in my eyes as I know this question essentially can't be answered. Not by him, not by the Russian medical records, not by the doctors at NEMC who specialize in international adoption and the associated medical concerns.

In this photo, Pumpkin is about two weeks shy of his third birthday. He is tiny, except for his head. His eyes are two different sizes, and the bridge of his nose and philtrum seem flatter than normal. These could be signs of fetal alcohol syndrome, or they could be nothing. I've been stressing about the possibilities for months; concerned about his health, concerned about my ability to handle whatever his issues are. I'm terrified of accepting him and I'm terrified of turning him down.

Later that afternoon, when I express my concerns to our facilitator and the orphanage director, the room suddenly fills with people. I've probably offended some of them, but that's not the point. They assure me that I'm wrong, that the mother was not a drinker (the director apparently met her to get her to relinquish rights), he is small, but his development has been consistent (a good sign).

On the ride home, our facilitator is frustrated, not so much with me, but with the FAS stigma, at the drawing he says that has been published in America to represent FAS children, he says that reports of FAS are much greater than the reality. Viktor is characteristically blunt and honest, but I have no way of knowing if what he is saying is only opinion.

That night at the hotel involves a lot of crying. Piper thinks the child will be fine, I am not sure. I go down to the hotel's business center to contact the doctor at NEMC, but I look at the facts of Pumpkin's medical exams and I realize they are not going to be able to tell me much more than I already know. A part of me is worried that they will discourage us from adopting him, and that I wouldn't be able to handle that either.

There is a certain amount of fatalism in the adoption process. You grow to believe, rightly or wrongly, that a child is meant for you; that the long and meddling fingers of the Universe (or God) put you together and you do what you have to. I tell myself that night, that if my plans for the future had to change because this little boy's needs turned out to be greater than we expected, then so be it. I mentally cross my fingers, and we move forward.

We return to the baby home the next morning and tell Viktor that we would like to proceed with accepting the referral. Members of the staff come out and smile at us; indicating approval across the language barrier.

Not until we are home, awaiting an adoption court date, do I see it. We have video tape that we are playing for Piper's parents, and on it Pumpkin is stacking blocks. They are new blocks for him, nesting cardboard boxes really; but he knows, without hesitation, to stack them biggest to smallest. When his tower is four or five blocks tall, he is left with the biggest block of all. He knows exactly where it goes and picks up the entire tower to place up on its new foundation. In that moment, I realize there is something special going on in his brain, and that it is good.

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Pumpkin has been with us four years this month. In his first year with us, he grew 5.5 inches, and the texture of his hair changed. The shape of his face has changed, and his eyes are no longer markedly different sizes (I've read this sometimes happens to babies who spend too much time lying on their backs - consistent with orphange life). This year gave us a huge growth in his communication skills, though we still struggle to get what's going on in his brain out in the open where he can use it.

He draws produces entire studies on things, designs cars, and car parts, and bridges. He can tell you that 4+4+4+5=17 without thinking much about it; facts are easy, as are things he can see and touch. Concepts are harder, and his social skills and adaptability to new situations are far behind his age group.

I've had more parents than I can count ask me if I was sure he was not autistic, and there are some days I wish I could say yes. At least then there would be more understanding on their part, as if the label was explanation enough. Instead we wade through a world of non-diagnosis and unexplainably quirky behavior, not always sure what he really knows.

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Pumpkin's first drawing for the cover of the church bulletin was printed for the Mother's Day service this year. Although I explained to him that what he drew would be reprinted for everyone to see, he didn't really understand what I meant until he saw it for himself. At the end of the service, our priest held him back from the children's recessional to introduce him to the adults in the congregation as a new artistic contributor. As he stood there waiting, he reached out to trace and retrace the cross carved into the side of the pew with his finger in a perfect illustration of how he interacts with the world.

I lost it then; sat in my own pew and cried for him. It hit me how hard it was going to be for Pumpkin in the coming years. I'm reasonably sure he'll come out okay on the other end, he's incredibly smart, but the road ahead will be rocky and full of potholes.

I've been where he is in my own way - different from the other kids, socially immature but still wiser than my years. It's a lonely place. One thing I know though, that my mother didn't, is how important the emotional support will be - for him, and maybe even for me.

The meaning of that promise I made in a St. Petersburg hotel room four years ago is becoming clearer. It extends, of course, to both boys, and I am relieved to find myself increasingly at peace with it.

New Dinosaur Species!

Scene: The boys are watching How it's Made. The people on the screen are making fake dinosaurs for museums displays. Tigger (my Mr. Know it All), turns to his brother and  says:

"See, Pumpkin, that's an ASStodon!"

I think those are omnivorous.