Holpineville

I used to worry that he would never learn to eat solid food

Me: Carl, I'm coming to school tomorrow for the Thanksgiving Feast. Is there anything special you'd like me to bring, to go with the school lunch?

Carl: hmmm. A Z Bar, okay? And some Caesar salad. Maybe a sandwich. And oh yeah! A Lunchable!

I Just Can't Wait

There’s a special kind of magic in the air…because somehow, the stars have aligned and the energy is flowing and there is (almost) NOTHING on the official family dance card this weekend.  It’ll change, of course.  Ruby has a project to work on, and Carl wants to have at least two capital-B-full-of-beans-BOYS over for a sleepover, and Rod will be anxious to spend quality time with his 3-D prototype thingy, but just the concept of glorious free time gets me happy.   

And then next week, once I make it through the school Turkey Parade and Thanksgiving Feast, there’s a long weekend, too!  No one invited us anywhere for Thanksgiving, and I have been so partied out lately that I made it clear to Rod we were not hosting anything, and I was leaning toward pizza and a video for the big day.  But then some friends asked us over, and I gleefully accepted and now I need to figure out appetizers and kid food and a really awesome veggie.  Yay.    

You’ll be happy to know that Ruby’s wart has been pronounced gone, with luck for good.  I also took both kids to the dentist, and by some miracle, there were no cavities.  Carl has mysteriously broken off a big chunk of one baby tooth, but as long as he’s not in pain, we’ll just wait for it to age out of his head.  As for Ruby, the visit-to-the-orthodontist countdown clock is ticking away at 18 months to two years.  The dentist said some orthodontists might start right away in her case.  However, she says the situation isn’t dire, and starting sooner would probably just turn a two year project into a four year project, so we’ll wait for the last eight baby teeth to fall out.  Good news, although I did have a little mini-freak out about paying for that, and her occupational therapy, and the sorry state of her college fund, which God willing, she will need in a mere eight years.  I really wanted to order some new yarn this week (yes, for my extensive collection of unknitted yarn), but I resisted and I guess I need to keep on resisting. 

What more?  The TMJ is mysteriously 90% better, which might explain my happy zippy mood.   I had a bunch of meetings this week, so many I had to miss a couple others due to scheduling conflicts.  Rod is working really hard at work.    

 

Advice Floodgates Open

Last night, Ruby's occupational therapist basically said I should consider getting Ruby evaluated for attention deficit disorder.  She hinted around until I flat out asked her if she thought it was something we should look into, and the diplomatically phrased answer was yes.  She says Ruby definitely isn't hyperactive (no ADHD), but she isn't sure whether the problems Ruby has with staying focused on her work and getting things done are strictly due to her difficulties with language processing...or not.  And as a statistical matter, dysgraphia/dyslexia often comes with ADD/ADHD.

So, processing all that myself, I touched base with a couple of friends whose kids have ADD/ADHD or know people who do: what do you think?  Is it possible?  where should I go for a good evaluation?  I'm really iffy about medicating a growing brain, but what if it helps?

Oh, my, do the opinions come flooding in: you should try the X Diet, you should give up gluten, you should eliminate dyes and additives from her diet, you should give her fish oil, you should make her do heavy-duty exercise for 90 minutes a day.  You should talk to A, she gives her kids some weird supplements but it really seems to help.  You should see Dr. X, or Dr. Y, or this naturopath I know, or go to Z clinic for a full something or other workup. Give her some coffee every morning; if that helps, then you know she's got ADD (or, maybe she just wakes up slow like her mom).  

It's funny, because I still think ADHD is way over diagnosed in little boys, but in Ruby's case, I am starting to wonder.  A couple of her previous evaluators have brought up the possiblity, and after working with her on math for hours and hours on Sunday, it makes a little sense.  She knows how to do the work, she wants to get it done, and yet getting her to plow through and finish is a struggle.  Maybe she's not just trying to yank my chain about homework.  When you talk to her, she switches topics randomly pretty often, and she complains about the school environment being distracting.  From what I've seen of kids on ADD meds, though, there are serious trade offs and side effects, and it doesn't seem to work for everyone.  

Nothing like another expensive, time-consuming problem to tackle.  Blah. 

Koala Wizard

I had a very long and confusing entry written for you about Carl and his social issues, but I ditched it because it ended up being mostly about my maternal anxiety and some stuff about one of his pals that the pal's parents might not want all over the Internet.  But I have been thinking of you, dear readers.  

Do you know some people actually write on their blogs every single day in November?  Not going to happen here!  Nope, I'm busy preparing for the Thursday PTO board meeting by pretending that it doesn't exist.  I still have both the cold (hack, hack cough) and the TMJ (wanna laugh?  my symptoms: a little pain, slight headache, soreness that comes and goes, lost range of motion, teeth that won't close together in front, facial numbness, slight lisp)  but both do seem to be improving a little.  I love being me. 

To tell you some things about Carl that I can freely share:

His latest major obsession is playing D&D (Dungeons and Dragons, if you haven't been around any preteen boys since 1970).  I'm not sure that they're really playing by the official rules, but some pals and their dad got it started, and now all Carl wants to do is go to their house and play.  His (new?) character is a koala wizard.  He's trying to get enough points to do something to someone and reach some level.  Or maybe that's on his video game....I really should listen more closely to him, but he's hard to follow.  

His favorite foods lately are: caesar salad (he's been making them for snacks, even), Clif Z bars (thanks to the introduction by the D&D friends) and of course, kidney bean curry.  Remember how I was trying to get him to eat more sensibly?  Now I'm just trying to slow him down.  

His feet and his hair seem to be growing really fast right now.

He prefers the Elvis channel on satellite radio, and was telling me all about how Elvis and Michael Jackson are a lot alike, except Michael Jackson is blond.  He's also incorrectable when he's convinced he's right. 

 

Seven

That’s how many loads of laundry are sitting around the living room, waiting for someone (well, it’s nearly always me) to fold them. 

Today I am tired, though not as tired as I was earlier in the week, and I have a bonus cold, and a TMJ flare-up, which means my face hurts and I can’t close my teeth together properly. 

I must also say that I have misplaced Carl.  I believe he went home with a friend, because I had talked with Friend’s Mom about a play date this afternoon, but we never really firmed it up, in my view.  Friend’s Mom is one of two or three people on the continent without a cell phone, and they’re not home, so I can’t be 100% sure.  

To start to recap some of the things I wrote about last time:

Rod and I had a conference with Ruby’s teacher.  She is very nice, but oddly reserved and hard to chat with.  I think she may have Asperger syndrome or something.  Anyway, it seems that Ruby is turning in work appropriate to her grade level and despite what Ruby says, she seems to be keeping up pretty well.  She asked to be moved up a few notches on the reading comprehension work, and was, with apparent success so far.  The teacher thinks Ruby understands the math well, but is terribly unconfident, and that, combined with a slightly lower than desirable score on the first benchmarking test for the big state standardized test, got Ruby into the math tutorial group.   We will just keep on plugging away at those multiplication and division facts and trying to make her see that she really does know how to do it.  The teacher also noted the same thing I have, that Ruby has a terrible time finding and correcting her own mistakes, but she had no brilliant solutions for this. 

We asked about some accommodations that had been promised earlier in the year, but not yet provided – typing and handwriting instruction, for example—and the teacher is supposed to follow up, but I am not holding my breath.  I got Ruby’s spelling tests back; at best she scored 4 out of 20, and usually only about 2 out of 20.  The teacher explained that she corrects the tests, but doesn’t use them in calculating Ruby’s grades, as per our agreement with the school.  Again, we said we’d just keep trying.

We talked about some social problems in the class; two kids’ moms have told me about distinct episodes of bullying, and Ruby has made some comments about the class and certain older boys in it, as well.  Plus, she just generally doesn’t feel like she has friends in class yet, which concerns me and makes Ruby less interested in going to school.  The teacher says that it’s hard to police the bullying because kids do stuff behind her back, and they’ve had a lot of class meetings and discussions about behavior and how to treat each other.  The perpetrators have been dealt with, apologies have been made,  parents involved, etc., etc.  She says they’re now on a zero-tolerance plan in terms of handing down discipline.  I am only partially happy with that answer.  I think they need to work on team-building and group unity, at a minimum.  The teacher is going to try to encourage Ruby to buddy up with one of the other girls in class more, so maybe they’ll get to be closer friends. 

I asked about curriculum: what they were doing for science, writing, social studies, etc.  Ruby likes to read, but the school reading assignments  are all “SRA’s” and “RFUs” which are basically fragments or essays about which you later answer questions.  Don’t they ever read books?  I asked—like a novel, and then discuss it, or even write a book report?  No, was the answer, which depresses me greatly, even though I hated book reports, myself.   Sorry, kids: no art, no music, no literature for you.

So Rod and I walked out not much better informed than when we walked in, and not feeling  better, really.  I can see why Ruby’s depressed about school sometimes:  a big list of not-terribly exciting tasks to complete, in an environment without a close friend but with some potentially-mean boys, and always  with this extra burden of trying to convert phonemes to graphemes or ideas into words when the circuitry to do that isn’t necessarily there in her head. 

At occupational therapy two weeks ago, the therapist offered some constructive criticism of a paragraph Ruby had written, and Ruby didn’t take it well, which I think surprised the therapist.  Ruby is usually so sweet, after all.  Last week, Ruby brought in her spelling list and they worked on it a little bit.  Apparently Ruby threw a bit of a fit, just a little taste of what we get at home, and the therapist remarked that she gets it now, about the homework tantrums. 

On a happier note, Ruby’s musical performance went well.  Carl got to be in the show and play the xylophone, and two of Ruby’s pals did, too.  She’s working on a Christmas composition now.  And, she loves her drumming class.

I will update you on Carl, and the Festival!  And the Bake Sale!  And the Reunion!  Later, after I find Carl and face the eternal dilemma of What the Heck are We Having For Dinner.