Hitting a Low Note

It has been a while since I posted anything.  It's hard to feel inspired to write when you are just plain in-the-dumps.  Once I had a wonderful 2 weeks with the loving support of hubby at home, I finally pulled myself together and I'm shaking it off.  New Year, New Beginnings, and all that good stuff.

The Dumps

The T Man progressively became more anxious over the past couple of months, getting sick to his stomach going to a playdate and eventually even refusing to go to the park.  He almost skipped out on Halloween! ( Luckily he pulled it together and got some good trick-or-treating in.)  By the end of December, we were seeing a weekly occurrance of nausea and vomiting at night time before bed.  Hm... manipulation to stay up late or??  I began to get not only frustrated, but sort of hopeless. And then a teenager in Newtown, CT brought me a startling wake-up call: Would my son become this broken if I don't do something immediately to fix this??  By mid-December I yanked money out of my retirement account in order to finance the testing to figure out what is going on with my little boy.  That will not be my teenager!

Keep on Keeping On

Even with all of the drama of these months, the kids are relaxed and happy at home.  I can't even imagine how stressed our life would be if we attempted school this year.  Little PJ has made strides in his sensory issues these last couple of months: he began to wear jeans and even socks and underwear! He hasn't worn anything like that in well over a year!

Our learning continues, and as does our chasing of happiness. We've been spending a bit of time on our workbooks and they have both boycotted their online math program, Dreambox.  It's way too repetitive for them.  There's a wonderful line of books called "Math for the Gifted Student" by Flash Kids that I picked up at Barnes & Noble and it keeps math interesting and brain teasing  - perfect for my two curious boys!  T began to see the connection between multiplication and division and is just starting on fractions; PJ is starting to appreciate word problems and his reading skills have tripled in the last months.

We're still struggling with "screen time" and it's an overpowering impulse for these boys.  We have to earn it by doing chores and doing our learning time.  I just wish I didn't have PJ asking me for Xbox, PS3 and Wii games ten times per day!  It gets really old, really fast.  This weekend I compromised - as long as PJ read all the dialog, he can play My Sims Agent.  It's pretty fun watching him read all this stuff!

Television is T's addiction.  We recently upgraded our cable package so the Hubs and I could watch The Walking Dead. (I mean, who doesn't love Zombies?)  Well, along with our show, we were graced with Cartoon Network.  I could go off on a rant here, but will try my best to hold off.  Some of the shows are just plain stupid.  I do not want my kids watching this stuff, but my gosh they want it - badly!  Adventure Time and Annoying Orange are big annoyances, one for the content, the other for it's language.  Adventure Time is rated 10+ so that helps my argument on why they can't watch it.  The problem is that T is mentally about 13 years old.  He wants humor at that level.  He relates to Disney's "Austin & Ally" and "Jessie," but he isn't ready emotionally for most of these shows.  Le sigh.  Plus, anything he watches, little PJ watches too.  Double sigh.  When we next move, we will not be getting cable television at all.  That is my resolution. I hope hubby agrees.

The Recovery
Armed with several thousand retirement dollars, I have taken the first steps to recovering my son.  We saw an Allergist and T suffered through 65 pokes on his back to eliminate any food allergies that may be causing his nausea and vomiting.  The Allergist, an expert in his field, was extremely alarmed at the description of what we have been experiencing.  He referred us to a Pediatric Gastro-Intestinal Specialist and also to a Psychiatrist that he believes to be an expert in the field of anxious children.

We scheduled with the GI guy who turned out to be a very quirky guy himself.  He has an Asperger teenager, and was highly entertained by the T Man.  As we discussed our experiences and issues, T pipes up with, "What is this Asperger stuff?  What are we going to do, make a sandwich out of butts?"  The doctor and everyone just burst out laughing.  (That's life with my boys!)  The doctor explained that sometimes car sickness can indicate an ulcer and asked T if food ever felt stuck halfway down his chest.  He was scheduled for an Upper GI barium x-ray for the next week.  (that's a whole other post)  Long story short, he did not have an ulcer (thank God!) but does appear to have a viral infection in his stomach, causing swelling in the lining/folds of the stomach.  We started medicine twice a day last week and we are already seeing a more reasonable, happy child.  No vomiting since, but we haven't added any cause for anxiety to the mix since then.  We are crossing our fingers. 

In the meantime, we began to see a gifted-specialized Psychologist, www.drvula.com for therapy.  She began working with him just a couple of weeks ago and will be talking about her findings very soon.  He has enjoyed both of his sessions, as they are play-based.  Last week we began to map out his life in order to pinpoint what may be causing his fear and anxiety.

Looking Forward
I have contacted a Psychiatrist locally, as referred by the Allergist.  It turns out he is the resident doctor for a school that is just down the street from us, specializing in special needs kids like mine.  I am hoping he will do a full work-up/battery of tests and be able to determine the cause of T's school anxiety. 

PJ has been asking to go to school and since he has improved so much in the sensory stuff, I believe he will be ready by Fall.  By then we will probably have relocated, as the job in Los Angeles may be coming to an end for the Hubs.  Hopefully we will be in a place where there is a school that is affordable and understanding of quirky smart kids like mine.

I recently attended a talk by the esteemed Gifted Psychologist, David Palmer.  Aside from all of the reaffirming information I already knew about dealing with gifted kids, he gave us some really wonderful information that I wanted to share.  First, he said that K-12 online schools will allow children to work quickly through curriculum and finish years of study at their own pace.  This is something I plan on looking into for the Fall.  In addition, there is an Early Entrance Program at Cal State Los Angeles, where a kid can begin working on their Bachelor's degree as early as 11.  I guess I found this hopeful because right now we have little in terms of a learning Goal.  If we can get healthy and decide on a goal, we may have a more motivated child!

As a last minute deal, I was able to attend a parenting workshop by the author of "Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids" Dr. Laura Markham on Emotional Intelligence, or "EQ."   She outlined her strategies and tools to "Stop! Drop! (everything) and Breath when things get tough and emotional with your kids.  She gave us some "Power Tools" like Empathy, always make sure your child feels heard and understaood; Special Time, always have a bit of special time with them each day and Roughhousing, every single day should have a moment of physical play that will get their giggles out.  She explained that Laughter is the best cure for Anxiety.  That was an excellent take-away for me!

What really stuck with me was her parenting style definitions and where we fall on the "Strictness" line and the "Support" line and how kids are affected in the long term by our style. The Support line is how much you can support them (be there for them) emotionally and in other ways. She talked about how people that are in touch with their emotions are much more successful with life; and how marriages work better when people are emotionally intelligent.  I had to draw out the parenting chart so I can hang it on my bathroom mirror as a reminder. Plus I wanted to share it, as I think many parents could be interested ;-)

So our lives are currently filled with doctors, analysis and goals, with the hope that things will turn around not just for T, but for us all.  I am feeling hopeful and see a light at the end of that tunnel we were living in for the last couple of months. :)