One, Two, Three, Four...Fifth!

Hannah celebrated her fifth birthday yesterday, her golden birthday! She went to school with cupcakes and treat bags in tow. We picked her up from school with a large bouquet of balloons. Had lunch at her favorite place-Red Robins. Traveled to Best Buy to pick up Wreck it Ralph at which time the balloon bouquet decided to exit the car. Bought a second bouquet of balloons. Came home and played before heading to the mall later in the evening. Hopefully she had a great birthday despite the balloons blowing away and a few other minor disasters.

Carter had his psychological evaluation while Hannah was at school and my Mom watched Amelia. Nothing to really report about that, it was surprisingly the easiest part of my day. They let him play while they talked to us. We then implemented a clean up time that went pretty well. Next, they tested him while he was buckled into a high chair and all the toys were taken out of the room. They showed him a book with pictures and asked him questions, they worked with red and white blocks, etc. He did not care to be buckled in the high chair and was getting angry at the lady for not letting him out. Tom and I filled out about seven pages of questions in regards to his behavior and then we went to the playground to see how he does in a playground setting. From there we left. The evaluation lasted around two and a half hours. They will give us a call to have us come back and talk about what they found during his evaluation.

Yesterday was a hard day for me, I think the easiest part of the day was taking Carter to the Children's Hospital which is saying a lot. After the balloons blew away the day went downhill from there. I cut my finger (which still hurts), Carter jumped on my back (which also still hurts), Carter choked and threw up at the dinner table because of his paper eating obsession and to top it all off he jumped into the mall water fountain and was completely drenched and choking on water. Yeah, it was a long day for sure.

I'm sure one day I'll look back and laugh at some of these shenanigans but today is not that day.

p.r.i.d.e.

Our weekly behavior clinic appointment was today.

Today went really well, we learned about P.R.I.D.E. It is basically a way to provide your child with a "special time" that you dedicate to just your child everyday. It's a little different then the normal playing with your kids that we do. It is one on one and no other kids are to be around. During this particular time you announce that it is time for "special time." You then let the child lead the activity, it could be playing trucks or using the toy kitchen; whatever they want to do. You do not ask them any questions, not even things like "Is that a horse?" You don't give any commands and you don't discipline or correct them. If they pick up a horse and say "look a giraffe," you would reply "Yes, you think that's a giraffe."
P.R.I.D.E represents:

• Praise appropriate behavior
• Reflect appropriate talk 
• Imitate appropriate play
• Describe appropriate behavior
• be Enthusiastic

Playtime stops immediately if there is aggressive/destructive behavior. If its something minor liking throwing a cup, ignore that and wait for them to pick the cup up. When they do let them know they did a good job picking the cup up and that you really like that.

I will say, I'm not a SUPER enthusiastic person, ever. It feels like all of the advice Tom and I have received is making us much better at giving praise and being enthusiastic. This new type of parenting feels like we praise the tiniest thing; "Thanks for walking quietly in the hallway." Which to me is not something I would normally think to praise. However, I've come to realize that the constant affirmation of good behavior is deterring some (not all) negative behavior. It's been a good thing for our family and I'm anxious to hear more advice.

Plans for next week include a four hour psychological evaluation on Tuesday and another behavior clinic on Friday. We're making progress :)

speech & development

First experience with the speech folks went pretty well. They picked up on the speech issues pretty quickly.


What Carter is doing with his words is adding "gah and/or kah" where it doesn't belong. A few examples:

• ackle for apple
• Hangah for Hannah
• nanga for banana

He also tends to say what something does instead of saying the name of the item. A few examples:

• Banana is nanga-peel
• soda is soda-spill
• hammer is nail-nail

The developmental issue was harder for them to get a "score" on because he is "so busy." Which basically boils down to the fact that he is attention-deficit. He has that compulsive urge to wonder about looking at what he want and he isn't hearing and absorbing the information he is being given.

Our next step will be a meeting to discuss what they found during this study and to discuss any services that Carter will qualify for. He may possibly qualify for the Head Start Program, etc.

At home we will be working on:

• Clapping out our words so that we are slowing down and providing better articulation when we are teaching him
• Bringing items to our face to talk about them and speaking slowly and clearly. This will help him to look at our face and get his attention
• Practicing sounds and using our lips to show him "pppp, Apple." etc...

behavior modification...for everyone

We had our second visit today with the behavior clinic at our local children's hospital. It was a good visit and we received a lot of tips and advice on what to do with Carter. She refers to him as a more "spirited" child and because of this Tom and I need to modify the way that we parent. Once we modify the way be parent we should then see the effects the change has on Carter. Somethings she said we are currently doing so no change is needed. Other things we need to do that we are not currently doing. I'm a little anxious about the whole process but more so to see if this helps with the oppositional behavior.

Things we'll be working on:

• Praising quiet play and telling him "Carter thank you so much for playing quietly, you're doing such a good job rolling your truck." This will affirm his behavior when he's behaving well and also help him with his speech/development to show him you're rolling a truck.Which also means quiet time is no longer time for washing dishes or throwing a load of laundry in. We will need to be near him, watching what he is doing and praising the quiet, good behavior.
• Ignoring bad behavior. For instance if Carter is rolling a truck you praise him for doing a good job but if he then begins to bang his truck into the wall you ignore him. When he plays nicely again you then praise him for doing a good job.
• Forcing him to work through his anxiety. When he doesn't want to go to the bathroom because it is "yucky" we force him to sit on the toilet any ways. This was one we currently do but can also be applied to other compulsive behavior. He has a tendency to do things in a certain way and she said that we should encourage him to get out of those behaviors as well. For example he puts all of his cars away and then puts the animal toys away last. We need to help him to push through having things in a certain order.
• Avoid using "no, don't, stop, behave, gentle" words. Instead if he's touching things you tell him to put his hands in his pockets or in his lap. This way you are giving him a specific direction to take instead of telling him he can't do something.
• No yelling, this one is obvious but is sometimes hard to achieve.
• Work on timeouts taking place on a chair or special spot as opposed to sending him to his room.
• Don't phrase things as a question but as a command. Instead of saying things like: "I think, we should, lets" you would say: "It is time to clean up" and then follow it with a certain task, "put the blocks in the bucket."
• Never give more than one command at a time as that will cause confusion and don't give too many commands so that he feels like he is constantly being corrected.
• Never use complex words that he will not understand, simple, short words are best.
• Be consistent.

I think this will be good. While some of these behavior changes are obvious, unless you hear it from someone you may not notice that the way you are phrasing your words can be an issue.

If this doesn't help and we are still receiving a lot of opposition we will be venturing down a different path.

To be continued next Friday...

another chapter

You know, I've debated whether I want to write about this and initially I wasn't going to. But now I feel like it's starting to eat at my thoughts and if I can write down what's going on it will help me to get it out and breath a little easier. And by chance it may end up helping me later on down the line with a problem that I don't yet know exists.

It's about Carter. I love him, as much as any mother loves her son. That part goes without saying.

We've been struggling for three years with different issues and noticing quirky things here and there. Tom and I finally decided to call our local children's hospital to have him evaluated. It was oddly a hard decision for me. I think as a parent you only want to ever see the good in your children. The thought of something being "wrong" no matter how major or minor throws me off a bit. Even now I still find myself in denial and telling myself there's nothing wrong and then that quirky particular-ness comes out and reassures me I'm doing the right thing. Answers are better than questions, right?

I called around the end of November and was put on the waiting list. Last week we finally got the call wanting to know if we could come in that Friday for the initial behavioral consultation. Tom and I agreed to the 45 minute long consult and started to map out the days events. Like most things in life they rarely go according to our plans. It snowed that morning and DelDot didn't bother to salt the roads and I think we were a total of 25 minutes late for the appointment that we waited six weeks to have scheduled. They were very understanding and let us have our appointment, albeit shortened, it was kind of them just the same. In that short amount of time the clinician picked up on two concerns. One was speech which was the one I expected the other of all things was possible OCD.

It was like a light bulb went off. I never, not once, thought of him to have OCD. It makes perfect sense the way he needs to have things just so and why no matter the amount of reprimand the same events happen.

A few main triggers Tom and I have picked up on:

• cutting his food...don't do this ever
• sticky/dirty hands
• the potty is "gross"

There are more things than that but those are the big ones that we see the biggest breakdown about. It's like watching a child have a tantrum but to the tenth power. I don't know that you can truly appreciate what I'm talking about without seeing it. Fortunately, I guess I'll use that word, the clinician had the chance to see one of the "potty is gross" meltdowns complete with Carter shoving and hitting my legs while screaming at me and crying. It was super fun and made me want to cry right there in the doctor's office. It hurts my heart that he may have to deal with having "issues" and he's only three.

Once that appointment concluded they wanted to go ahead and set up an appointment for a psychological evaluation with them. I was also given the information to call the school district to start the process for the speech and developmental studies. 

I called the district and they ordered the speech and developmental studies and we are now on a two week waiting list to have that done. The lady was very kind and gave me a lot of useful information over the phone about how the process works. Today the children's hospital called to make his psychological evaluation appointment. It's not until March and we will be there for 3-4 hours when the day finally comes. I got the call at work and even though I knew it was coming it still had a little sting. Hearing the woman tell me she was calling to "set up Carter's psychological evaluation" just seemed like the words didn't belong together.

So here we sit in the research phase, I'm trying to take it all in stride but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a little scary. Next stop will be a behavioral study on the 22nd of this month, time will tell.

"Do Something About It!"

I'm not for resolutions of the New Year's variety. But I am very aware of a few things that need to be changed in my life. Last night I started cleaning the house after Tom and I had a movie night with the kids. I started scrubbing the tub and my knee as usual was in pain and feeling like it didn't want to bend. I finally get my joints working only to have to get back up and proceed to limp around. Tom just so happened to be standing behind me as I was going through the motions.

He finally says: "What is wrong with you, your knees, your elbows, it's always something."
To which I replied: "I'm too fat combined with getting older and it's killing my joints."
T: "Then do something about it, go on a diet."
Me: "I plan on it I just don't know what I want to do."

The truth is for the past month I've really been psyching myself up to pick a plan and stick to it. The fear of failing has left me with reservations on getting started on my endeavors.

I'm about 80% sure of the path I want to take to lose weight. I know enough that a diet alone is not going to save me. If that were the case I'd have been skinny years ago. My battle is of the mental variety and once I get done making excuses and telling myself I'll not make it; I'll be able to get something done. What I need most from others is support and kindness and not everyone in my life offering me "good advice." I really dislike when people try to help me lose weight as weird as that may seem. If I tell someone I lost five pounds the last thing I want to hear is "ooh, I have a recipe for sugar free cookies" or any other "healthy" item. As nice is that is to share a recipe; I don't want your recipe. I'd rather have a kind/encouraging word or silence.

I've come to realize I am highly addicted to junk and because of that, changing the way I eat feels like a never ending battle. I crave crappy food and when I'm trying to rid myself of sugar/sweets/junk I don't want any substitutions. By eating the substitutions I'm still allowing my body to crave sweets/junk thus prolonging a seemingly unending cycle to just stop craving them altogether. I need to eat healthy and I don't want sugar-free, fat-free, low-sodium processed substitutions to get me through it.

This year is going to be about discipline and perseverance. I will train myself to stick to this even when I really don't want to.

the end of 2012

I'm glad to see this year come to an end.

It's been hard for me to blog the past two months. For one reason we've been uber busy and the other reason is that I find myself wanting to rant about things and people who have aggravated me and I really don't want to be "that" person.

Hannah's class took a field trip to Coleman's Christmas Tree farm and I got to be a chaperon (yay!). So fun and has prompted me to add this to the to-do list at some point for our family. The trees are gorgeous, by far the best I've seen in our itty bitty state.

We celebrated Carter's birthday with the Fam. I can't believe he is 3!!! He played with his birthday presents for a solid two weeks non-stop for hours at a time. I'm glad he is at the age where he really enjoyed his birthday.

This is the first Christmas in at least five years that Tom has not had to work! It was so nice. We did presents with the kids and presents with family and had a delicious dinner; it was overall an awesome day.

It even snowed a couple of days after Christmas which for Delaware is most often as close as you'll get to having a "White Christmas."

To cap off the adventures of 2012 I had the treat of meeting up with my oldest and best friends for a much needed night out. Love this bunch :)