Awesome evening

I've been told before that all I do is complain about the boys. I don't intend to, but I mostly use blogs and such as ways to vent after exceptionally rough days... so I suppose it does seem like all I do is complain about the boys.

Anyways, I wanted to point out a really awesome evening that I had with the boys tonight. I had hired a friend's son for manual labor around the house (he needs money, I need things done that I either haven't done or can't do, so it works out beautifully), so we dropped him off at his place and then were going to go get some food. I had thought about going out to Ikea so I could pick up some magazine holders, but the boys were overly wired and Liam hadn't finished his homework yet.
Liam was ticked off, even tho I had told him a few dozen times to finish up the last bit of homework he had so we could do something fun after we dropped off the kiddo. Nope. He would rather scream and throw a fit. Ok, fine, but then we aren't going the whole way out to Ikea when he has homework to do.
On the ride back towards the house, I started asking Liam about questions that were on his homework. Then I remembered I had a notepad in my bag. We pulled over so I could pull out the notepad and a pencil, then I told him we were going to work on the assignment on the way home. If he would work on it, then we could possibly go somewhere cool for dinner. Otherwise, we'd pick up what I needed for the rabbit, and go home.
He was pissed. He insisted he couldn't do anything without the book. I told him that I would help him to remember little details, so just quit screaming and freaking out and let's talk it out. He knew the questions that were on the paper, since they are the same each week. He had no trouble remembering those... and really, he had very little trouble remembering the parts of the story. It was like pulling teeth to get the first few easier things out, but once he got those out, he was doing really good. He ended up "finishing" the assignment even before we got to the house. We passed the house and headed off to dinner. He was quite proud of himself, as was I!

I had been trying to figure out what to do for dinner. Then I remembered I had coupons for Boston Market. I asked Liam if he wanted to go there, and he was all for it. After we ordered, I realized I didn't pick the coupons up at home, but the food was more than worth it anyways. Ethan ended up having Macaroni and Cheese with a side of Macaroni and Cheese :P Liam had a bit of an issue with picking out food since we had to avoid the gluten and casein. What he really wanted was corn. Last time we went, they told us the corn was in butter, so I told him that the corn wouldn't work. He was annoyed, but found they have a new "Garlicky Spinach" that he went for right away. The girl filling our order asked what his allergy was and I told her. She then offered to go into the back and open a new pack of corn, since when they get it in, it's plain. Liam was THRILLED! He got to have butter-free corn! :) So he had turkey with garlicky spinach, butter-free corn, and cinnamon apples. He was in heaven!
Both kids sat and ate their entire meals. No fighting. No screaming. The only dropped food on the floor was when Liam had a cinnamon apple try to run for it off of his fork. They both finished their entire plates. I ended up taking about half of mine home, but they ate all of theirs. I had some kosher dark chocolate in my purse and ended up giving each of them a piece to eat while I went to the bathroom before we left. I came back from the bathroom to see them talking nicely to each other and they had cleaned the whole table!

It was honestly the best dinner I've had with them in ages.

I was feeling a bit blah (this "spring" shit is wreaking havoc on my allergies. I hate it when things bloom. My head feels like it's going to burst.) so I said that we were just going to hit Petsmart across the street to pick up the bunny nail clippers that I wanted to get and then we'd head home. They were even pretty good in the store! I did have to talk to Ethan about randomly walking up to people and their dogs and starting to pet them, but that's not a huge deal. He was being nice and gentle (which is a big change from how he used to be), but some dogs just don't like kids, and he doesn't get that at all. He also thinks it's "awesome" when the dogs jump up on him and knock him over or lick his face.

Both boys are fast asleep and I think I am going to attempt to clip one of the bunny's nails and then go to sleep myself :)

Update on Liam

At ECS, each kid has a "shape" for the day. Their shape starts at 'green' and then moves to 'yellow' or 'red' as behaviors indicate. For Liam's class, if they end up on 'green' at the end of the day they get $2 in classroom bucks. 'Yellow' is nothing and 'red' is that the kid owes $5 in classroom bucks.
We ended up modifying Liam's a bit more, in the hopes of being able to track his issues and then once the time is pinpointed, we can then figure out how to fix it. With Liam's he now has smilies for his day. He has two columns to get smilies: "I will make responsible choices" and "I will follow directions the first time they are given". He can get a smile for each of those two columns for each segment of the day. At the end of the day if he gets 16 or more, he gets $2; 12-15 and he gets $1; 8-11 and he gets $0; less than 8 and he owes $5. If he has any issues where he is violent, it's an automatic "red". I sign them at the end of the day (or usually at the end of the week since I scan them in for reference later).
If he gets on "red" (or has any other major issue), he needs to fill out what is called a "Think About It" sheet. This is set up like a letter to home, where he has to say what happened (ie, "I had to move my shape to red today because...." and then it says that he'll work on his behavior, learn from his mistakes, etc. and then he signs it. Then I sign it and return it.

Since he had his "incident" yesterday at dismissal, he didn't get to do his "Think About It" sheet right away like normal. He needed to do it first thing this morning. I was really worried that this would set him off again and he'd flip. Sometimes even asking about an incident days later will upset him and literally ruin the entire day. He gets so upset (or maybe anxious??) about the incident that he just seems to not be able to handle talking about it. It will cry and then completely shut down. I think he's embarrassed about what happened.

I wasn't sure what to expect for today.

I'm happy to report I was pleasantly surprised! I got an email from his teacher saying that he did AWESOME! He sat and talked to her. He was calm. CALM! He talked about ways he could have calmed himself, things he should have done instead, etc. THEN he went on to have an AWESOME day and even got 2 bonus smilies!!!

WOO HOO!!!

I completely realize that this might be the only good day we have for a month, or it could be the start of an upswing and we could have a few weeks of this before it all goes down into flames. Really, there is no way to know. I'm hoping that this is, at least, a good upswing. I think both Liam and I could use that.

But really, it's still one day at a time.

Minor accomplishment

This is going to be a quick post since I'm sleepy and really want to go to sleep, but I didn't want to go to sleep without at least writing down the good thing that happened today.

Liam had an iffy day at school, which ended in a bad day. I got a call from his teacher a few minutes after he got onto the bus and she said that something happened and he ended up hitting another kid in the face. She said it took three teachers to get him to calm down and get to his bus.

Now, you are more than likely confused since I said something good happened today. No, I didn't hate the kid he hit -- matter of fact, I like the kid. That's not the part that I'm happy about in the slightest.

I talked to his teacher for bit to try to figure out what our game plan is from here. We are lucky with how much Liam's teachers have been willing to work with us so far. All of his teachers so far have been really helpful and really do care about him.

Anyways, I had been working on school lessons with Ethan when she called. I went back to his lessons when I got off the phone and started formulating my own game plan for what to do when Liam got home. Last night we had hours of screaming, crying, throwing things, and even had Liam smacking himself against the doors and walls during his fit. I really didn't want a repeat of that tonight. I had a meeting to go to, so I also didn't want to leave the house in the middle of a screaming fit.

When Liam got home, I let him in and asked how his day was. He told me 'yellow'. I asked if he was sure and he looked at me, sighed and said it was 'red'. I told him I had already talked to his teacher since she was worried about him and we didn't want him to keep having these kind of days. Then I dropped it. Told him to grab a snack and then bring his backpack into the room. When he came in, I asked what homework he had, and set up a TV show for Ethan and told Liam he could watch it. After about 30 mins, I called Liam upstairs. I brought his math homework and his reading homework up with me.
He was a bit crabby about going up, but went up and sat with me in bed. I showed him the mp3 player that he'll be able to use on the bus (this is a technique to get him to ignore the bully who keeps picking on him, so the bully can get in trouble instead of Liam getting so upset that he attacks the bully and then he gets kicked off the bus), then I asked him if he could talk about what happened at school. He did whine and start a bit of a fit, but I just told him that I needed to know what happened so we could all work together so he didn't have days like this.

Surprisingly, it didn't take much more than that. I won't go into detail about exactly what he told me, but he said was playing around with boy #1 and then tried to continue with boy #2, but I'm guessing he had gotten himself too riled up and excited and ended up either actually hitting boy #2 or coming close enough to make boy #2 think he tried to hit him and it got translated to a hit. Either way, he thought he was playing and then as far as he knew, it turned into him being told he hit someone -- which led to a melt down.

He actually talked for quite some time about the whole thing. I think I might have gotten him to at least understand why the other kid thought he got hit (I decided to compromise a bit and not push whether or not the kid actually got hit. Even a close call was enough in my opinion for what I was trying to do). I also tried to emphasize that he can't just fall to the ground and have a total melt down, requiring three teachers to calm him down. If something isn't right, he needs to talk about it and not flip. His tantrums can be pretty major. He's a tall kid and he's strong. He broke my nose when he was littler, and I'm pretty sure if he went into a full tantrum, he could easily inflict a lot of accidental damage. I don't want that to happen to anyone else, and I don't want him to have to deal with that guilt on top of all of this other shit. I've seen him feel really bad after injuring me or Ethan.

Anyways, from that, he did his math worksheet and a good chunk of his reading. When I left for my meeting, I told him what I wanted him to do of the rest of his reading since we want to do something tomorrow evening and then the Autism Awareness event on Thursday. I told him that I wanted as much done as possible so we didn't have to deal with it tomorrow/Thursday. When I came home, he had done almost everything. He only had a little bit left, which will be easy for him to finish up tomorrow night... as long as we can deal without a tantrum again...

Random thoughts after the "homework" debacle that was tonight...

There's a lot more that I want to write out on this, but as I was thinking about the other posts that I had made tonight, along with the talk I had with Kelly about all of this stuff, and then was writing a response to a current FB thread (http://www.facebook.com/JanetGreenley/posts/10150123855695920) this simple post ended up becoming paragraphs long. I figured it was probably better to put my ramblings out in here, rather than in a little comment window ;)



Honestly, I can't deal with Liam having a good day screwed to hell by some kid who thinks it's funny to pick on him and doesn't realize that he goes from 0 to explosion when teased. I'm thankful Liam didn't do what he's done on other occasions, which is grab the kid by the throat and squeeze until someone makes him let go. (Of course, part of me thinks the kid deserves to have Liam flip on him... especially since the other kid has been warned that Liam doesn't always control himself and has "problems"... but then Liam would get permanently kicked off the bus. :P and yes, I know that's not a good thought and I DON'T want him hurting someone else, but I'm frustrated beyond belief here and I'm tired of him getting his feelings hurt.)

Liam always loved doing "schoolwork". He thinks that workbooks, worksheets, etc are the greatest things in the world. He LOVES learning. He could spend hours in a museum or looking through anatomy books. He'll beg for "educational" type things. He's always done that. On our plane flight to Oregon, he asked for math worksheets and reading worksheets from school, rather than video games to play. We go into Costco and he looks for new school workbooks.

That's why this sudden hatred of everything school is really frustrating. He's so afraid to be wrong. He's so afraid of being teased for saying or doing something wrong. He doesn't WANT to do stuff at school, because kids might see he did it wrong. BUT he'll still do the "curriculum" workbooks for his grade level at home.

He gets 'stuck' on stuff from school because he can't process the way they teach it. Several times this year, I've had to tell him "No, forget how they taught you. Try this" and re-teach him the way he needs to hear it and BOOM he gets it. (Then I email the teacher and tell her "Hey, I told him to do it different and he understands it. This is what I did" if it's something really different)

That's why I'm wondering if switching him to PACyber, where Ethan is in K4 (pre-k), might work better for him. I've gotten a feel for how the curriculum is with Ethan, and how the day goes. I've also been able to get Ethan to actually sit down daily and do the work without any trouble at all. He loves the "work". I realize Liam would be doing harder work than Ethan, but other people do it without issue... and we could slow down and work through the things he needs to take more time on and go quicker through the things he has already got down pat. If he's forced to work more on things he already understands, he freaks. He begins to get antsy and then is certain he's messed up and can't do it. I'd like to be able to spend more time with some of his spelling. They move through a list of 15 words in a week. He MIGHT remember them for the test, and then he's completely forgotten them weeks later. Leading to frustrations and arguments when he asks how to spell them and we remind him that was the one he had on last week's spelling test and ask him to try first.


I've spent years with anxiety issues (and depression). I've only been diagnosed for maybe 10ish years, but looking back I had them from around his age. I know how terrifying it is to KNOW the right answer and KNOW what to say, but have that fear that everyone will laugh because you'll trip, sneeze, make your number look weird on the chalk board, say the wrong thing... I spent many times not answering in class or being afraid to write on a paper because someone might see I'm taking too long, or that I'm going too quickly.

I missed out on my chance at finishing college with my friends because of it. I had awesome classes at Pitt that I wanted to be in... that I wanted to do. I had biology labs my first semester where we dissected pigs! It was SO COOL! But I couldn't go to class because I was afraid of walking in late, or too early, or messing up something as we learned. I would panic so much I couldn't enter the building. Then I would panic because I couldn't tell anyone. Then I would panic because I was failing because I couldn't contact anyone to tell them I had a problem. Just watch the snowball get bigger and roll down the hill faster.....

I don't leave the house many days because of it even now. I don't call the doctor, even if I'm having bad pains, because they might think I'm wrong. I forget things pretty easily, and they might think I'm lying when I forget something. I occasionally can't figure out how to speak certain words, which is not only annoying, but rather embarrassing, as I'm standing talking to someone and I can't remember the word "water" as I'm trying to ask for a glass of water.


It just kills me to have the same thing happen to Liam. To see him so anxious and freaked out makes me angry, upset, and.. well.. anxious and freaked out. There isn't a fucking thing I can do either. Dr Faber doesn't want to raise his meds since higher doses can LEAD to anxiety and stress... and we don't want to make him more anxious. I'm doing my best to keep him GFCFSF, but I haven't figured out how to afford the food for him for lunch, and the school says they can't provide it (even tho I have found sites that say the school is legally required to provide it... I just can't go in and argue about it with my anxiety issues).


ARGH! It's just so frustrating.... Think it's time for some melatonin and my pillow... maybe when I wake up in the morning, it will have all gone back to "normal".

No More Blood: Part 1

Ok. I just have to say that blood is now ILLEGAL in my house. I swear if CSI ever used Luminol in our house, they'd be blinded by the glare. Seriously.

Let's start with the blood work the boys had on the 9th. I figured I'd take them then since Liam didn't have school and we'd have the whole day to suffer get it done. The plan was to drop one kid off at the Sibling Center (otherwise known as the best possible place in the known universe) while the other one had his blood work done. Then swap the kids and repeat. This way both kids get playtime at the Sibling Center and I only have to fight one child at a time with blood work.
Liam decided to "let" his brother go first since he had had blood work done last year and remembered it too well. Ethan never had blood work done before, so didn't know what he was in for. Liam had worked himself up into quite a tizzy. I had hoped that if I had told him about the blood work and reminded him that, while it hurt last time, it didn't take long and he survived it. I'm certain had he been on his regular medicine I would have been able to reason with him and calm him down. Unfortunately he was NOT to be reasoned with.
So he was sent off to the Sibling Center and I went upstairs with Ethan. Ethan *danced* up the stairs... singing "I'm getting blood work done! YAY!". Needless to say, people were very amused. We checked into the office and he got all excited. The registration girl asked if he knew what was happening and I said nope. He saw the lollipops on the desk and asked for one. The girl told him that he'd get one when he was done.
So we went to the waiting room and played with Liam's Leapster Explorer. When they called him into the office, he ran in and was all excited. The Phlebotomist saw on the paperwork that the doctor was Dr Faber, so asked if Ethan was Autistic. I told her we were unsure and explained that his "current diagnosis" was Disruptive Behavior Disorder NOS, Rule Out of PDD (Pervasive Development Disorder), Sensory Issues, and we're not totally sure on other things. She asked him to go into the room that was 1+1. Ethan looked at her. Laughed, said "That's two" and walked to the second door. She asked him what 2 + 5 was and he immediately answered 7. She just smiled like she totally knew what she was dealing with.
As an aside, the girls at Children's Hospital are *wonderful*. They always have two girls per kid. One is changing the vials and the other stays only with the child and the needle. This makes it perfectly wonderful for kids who fight. I love it :)
Anyways, so Ethan DANCES into the room and jumps into the chair (it's like a normal adult chair for blood collecting, but it's double size so the parent can sit beside) and starts playing the Leapster Explorer. I sit down beside him and the first Phlebotomist tells the second one that he'll be a bit interesting of a case. She said that he probably won't notice the needle at all or he'll over react. Second Phlebotomist seems to not believe her. I told them that they could do whatever they needed to -- don't worry about hiding blood from me or making him cry. I'm used to the routine *lol* (My Godson used to be quite an experience to get blood draws from... *shudders at the memories of 4 adults laying on him to do a blood draw at 3-4 years of age)
First Phlebotomist starts to explain to Ethan what they're going to do. He won't put down the Leapster Explorer, so we have to take it away to get him into position. He looks at them a bit odd when they put the rubber band on his arm, but nothing big. When they put the needle into his arm he says "ouch." and then does a bit of "ehhh" and mild whining. First Phlebotomist puts her hand up and covers the needle so he can't see it. He acts like nothing is happening. At all. He starts to try to get up and we have to remind him that no, he has to sit. I pull out the Leapster Explorer and told him that he can play it with his left hand. He then proceeds to play with his left hand like nothing is happening.
It was almost freaky to watch him. At one point I almost got up to video it with my cell phone because I was in such shock. First Phlebotomist looks at me and says "He's Aspergers isn't he?" Second Phlebotomist couldn't believe it at all. She says she has been doing this for years and has never seen a kid act like nothing wrong. She's seen them be calm and do the "Ok, it will be over soon" routine, but never acting like nothing is going on as they move the needle. They did approximately 19 vials. Yes. Nineteen. Dr Faber's first blood work is extensive.
I'm pretty sure he did the same initial work up as he did for Liam's initial work up a year ago. This is what he checked for on Liam's: Serum copper, plasma zinc, lead level, selenium level, T cell subsets - CD3, CD4, CD8, CD19, CD4/CD8 ratio, quantitative serum immunoglobulins, CBC and diff with platelets, ESR (Sedimentation rate) , Tissue transglutaminase (tTGA) IgA antibody, antigliadin antiboties, antigluten IgG antibotides, anticasein IgG antibodies, antisoy IgG antibodies, total protein, albumin, calcium, phosphrous, alkaline phosphatase, ammonia, iron, TIBC, percent Fe saturation, ferritin, free T4, cholesterol, AST, ALT, electrolytes, BUN, creatinine, random glucose, amylase and lipase, and DNA for fragile X.
So anyways, Ethan sits still through the whole thing with no flinching. I asked First Phlebotomist to uncover his arm at some point since I wanted to see his reaction. She waited a minute or two and then moved her hand. He looked at his arm and did a reaction of "Ehh.. ehh", almost like a reaction of a bug or something being on his arm. She covers it and he stops. When she takes the needle out of his arm, he made no movement, until she uncovers his arm and he sees the band aid. Then he begins to pick at it. We tell him that no, he needs to leave it on. She takes off the band from his arm and he makes the "ehh" sound again.
She tells him he's all done. His reaction? He jumps into her arms and gives her a big hug and a kiss, then DANCES/moonwalks out of the room and up to the reception desk and asks for the lollipop. The receptionist actually thinks that he hasn't had his blood work done since she never heard him make a noise. The Phlebotomist had to come out and explain that no, he did have the work done. The office ended up amazed.

Liam was the opposite and about killed the nurse when she touched his arm to look for a vein. Cried all through the draw and most of the rest of the day -- even to the point of freaking out tonight when he took the band-aid off and saw the "hole" from the blood work.
I'm not sure which is worse -- Mr OverReaction or Mr UnderReaction! It was nice not having to hold Ethan down kicking and screaming, but was disturbing to see him SO relaxed....

Yes, I am still here...

Yeah, I haven't posted much in a while. I'm quite the slacker, I know. I keep intending to post and then one thing or another comes up and then I end up forgetting about it or I'll do a short status update on FaceBook and leave it at that. I still need to do a full update on the cell phone drama and a few other things but those aren't going to happen tonight.

I figure a good way to get back on track for what I had planned on this blog being about, would be to post something cute that Liam did today. Now we're having medication issues with Liam (again, another long post that I'm going to try to get to this week), so Liam didn't have a dose of medicine yesterday so I could make sure he had a dose today (tomorrow we're just paying out of pocket to get more for him). Anyways, because of this I think Liam was a bit off. So this is what happened...

Since I only have one paper left for class, and that's due tomorrow, I decided to turn on some music and fold some laundry and stuff tonight to clear my head so I can work better tomorrow. I ended up going through a pile of clothes that I've been digging through for laundry for way too long. Got a bunch folded and put away in drawers.
After I had a good amount done, Liam comes up to me and says:
"Mommy! Your room looks SO nice with your laundry all folded and put away and stuff picked up! You have done SUCH a good job! I am SO proud of you Mommy! I love you!" and gives me a HUGE hug.
*waits for everyone to stop "oohing" and "aahing"*
Now, this would have been the sweetest thing I had heard in all of my life IF I was not sitting on the toilet and wiping my behind while he was hugging and praising me. *snort*

I told him thank you and asked him if he could please wait until I was done in the bathroom and then that would be a more appropriate time to tell me that. He seemed a bit confused, but stood outside of the bathroom door as asked him to. He tried pouncing one more time before I could wash my hands and I had to again explain that no, this was NOT an appropriate time.



I have also decided to implement something similar to what our BSC and another friend told us about. We're going to do a "reward book" for both kids. It's pretty much a booklet made out of construction paper with lines dividing it into 20 squares per page. I am going to give them stickers anytime that I catch them doing something nice/polite/following a rule/etc. It's not going to be everytime they do something, but at random times. We started it this afternoon and so far it's done pretty well. I'm hoping that focusing on this might help both of them -- for Liam I'm going to be focusing on being nice to Ethan, helping around the house, doing homework, getting "green days" in school. For Ethan, I'm going to be focusing on safety rules, being nice to Liam, helping, being nice to Tiger, etc.
I'm not sure what to make the rewards at the end of the page. I was thinking maybe 50 cents to be able to spend when we go somewhere that has those little toy machines (like gumball machines). They love those silly things. Or maybe when they fill the page they get to pick where we go for dinner or get a "no chore" evening or something. I'll have to keep thinking on it. For now they are content with earning stickers without a concrete award. I am sure this will change as they approach the end of the page. Thankfully 20 things should at least get me through a day or so ;)