Yeah, I'm not sure why I even bother. I've been blogging here for what... 4+ years? And yet I still get online every now and then to announce with great fanfare that I'm Going To Write More, but I seem to have permanently blocked the realization that Life Gets In The Way. Maybe I have brain damage in a particular area? I can think of a few nights in particular which certainly must have decimated some IQ points, so I guess it is theoretically possible that I had one too many Tanqueray & Tonics back in '97 and blew out the portion of my cortex that is responsible for accurately evaluating grandiose blogging plans, right?

The birthday boy had a great birthday. His party was a rousing success, with almost all of the kids we invited showing up, and there was not a single tear-filled or screaming episode for the whole 2 hours we were at the party zone place. I got to hang out and talk to the other parents while the "party assistant" wrangled the kids. It was great, and I almost hope Peanut doesn't decide he's too cool for this place again next year.

At home, we had a decent weekend. Yesterday was a high energy and high emotion kind of day, and there were one or two outbursts, but nothing like we'd seen earlier in the week. Today was great - I decreed it a "stay in your pajamas" day, and luckily no friends called to get the kids all riled up about doing anything outside the house. Peanut was great all day long - no violence or crying or crazy non-sequitar monologues. At the very end of the evening, after I'd given him his melatonin, he did have one crumpled face tear-fest, prompted (and I wish I was kidding) by the memory of the song "Our Last Summer" from the "Mamma Mia!" soundtrack. We'd watched a portion of the movie this afternoon, and apparently it was just too much for him to handle.

Ahem.

After some cuddling and quiet attempts to get him to talk about what was making him so sad, it came out that "Hotel for Dogs" was also bothering him. A day of lazing around with the television on was to blame! He couldn't verbalize it at first, but eventually I got enough out of him ("It's okay for 10 year old boys to cry!" and "Big sisters don't always have to go away!") to realize that the entire premise of the movie was too much for him. (In case you aren't familiar with the movie, a brother and sister in foster care have run through their options for staying together and yet risk it all to save a bunch of stray dogs.) He just couldn't get past the story line - the parents had DIED, the older sister TRIED to look out for her younger brother but FAILED and they had to live APART from each other for a short time - and even though the movie ends happily, the entire premise was enough to send him over the edge.

It's really hard, this sensitivity thing, and what is hardest sometimes is trying to explain to other people that this isn't overdramatic spoiled rotten kids trying to manipulate their parents. I worry that people think I'm making excuses for the kids, but the truth is that I was one of these kids, too. Hell, I still am, which is why I take Wellbutrin and still have minor pangs of anxiety whenever I try to think about space and the universe and the vast emptiness of the cosmos. Too big! Too scary!! Eeep!

That there is my weekend wrap-up. I just want to take a second and thank everyone out there in the internet ether again for all the kind and supportive e-mails and comments you have sent my way.

It really, really, really helps.

Labels: autism, gifted education, oversensitive, Peanut

After all my grandiose plans from the last post, I feel badly that all this day has given me to relate is worry and dread and sadness.

Peanut is in a bad place these days, a darker place than he showed us in pre-school and kindergarten. There are a lot more tears, a lot more emotional outbursts, and a lot of bad and unacceptable behavior. There is kicking and shouting and throwing thing. There is self-injury and almost-but-not-quite biting behavior. Other children are starting to think of him as "the one who is always in trouble," and I absolutely cannot express how devastating this is, to me and his dad and his sister and himself.

I am calling around, waiting for recommendations on counseling and evaluations. I think we will probably start with taking him back the the place where we had his first neuropsych evaluation done almost 2 years ago. We'll see what they have to say - it is a combined center for child development and I have hope that they will be able to give us some guidance as to which angle to deal with first: autistic, gifted, and emotionally disturbed.

Where the hell do we start?

Labels: bad words, it sucks so bad, Peanut

That's how I feel when I read back over MY OWN BLOG lately. This is not good.

(Let me clarify: This is not how I feel about my life, it's just how I feel about my blog.)

(And blogging. And commenting on other people's blogs. And my ability to write in general.)

Nothing new, nothing earth shattering... just the realization that it's time to step up my game, NaBloPoMo or not. It's something I've been meaning to do, been thinking about doing for such a long time... so, yeah, I'm doing it.

The blog redesign and move to Typepad will hopefully be happening within the next few weeks. I can't promise you better, but I can promise you more. We'll start with that and see where it goes, yes?

Labels: oblique promises of things to come, things that I am hopefully not talking out of my ass about

I dunno. I kind of sucked at it in September, and it's not like I've had much success posting lately. Still, I think I'll give it another whirl.



Halloween was a success. The kids had fun, the weather was balmy, and we even ventured out for our very first door-to-door-in-the-dark trick or treating. The kids were thrilled, and for the first time they have enough candy left after the big "peanut-safe" candy dump to have that special childhood feeling of being able to luxuuuuriate in the candeeeeeeeee!

Peanut dumped it all out again this morning and grouped it into piles by type - half a dozen Hershey's bars, 4 packs of Milk Duds, etc. After he got tired of examining it all, he piled it all together and then started all over. When I looked at what he was doing, I could see he was piling it together according to candy manufacturer. So yes, the luuuxuuurriating in the candeeeeee continues.

And aaaarrrgh! He's got an eyeball where his mouth should be!!

Labels: candeeeee, dentally challenged, Halloween, happy happy joy joy

Wow, there has been a lot going on in my life these days. Dr. V. is over the flu (we don't know exactly which strain it was, but are sure the Tamiflu helped.) I had a very quiet birthday, which was fine since we'd done our big celebratin' the weekend before. I actually met with a lawyer the morning of my birthday to discuss having our wills drawn up. Nice reminder of one's own mortality, I thought.

Peanut has continued to be challenging, more so this week than last. He has had a few self-injury episodes in the past, mostly involving scratching himself when he is super frustrated, and he had one this week. Tuesday morning he woke me up at 5 a.m., climbing into bed and loudly talking about the dream he'd just had. I put him back to bed but then couldn't fall back asleep, so I was a little bleary when I sent him off to school that morning.

It was one of Those Mornings, when the only clean shirt was way too small and had sleeves coming halfway up his forearm. We got down to the bus stop and I got a good look at him in the daylight and saw his poor flaky allergy eyes - the skin around his eyes is irritated but gets even more so if we try and clean him up too often. He's looking a little rough these days. He needs a haircut, he's got dark circles under his eyes, and he won't stop worrying at his lower lip so he's got this reddened chapped rim under it.

When I picked him up at the bus stop that afternoon, I was disturbed to see scabbed-over scratches on his forehead, neck, and back of the neck. He told me he'd been angry and frustrated because he accidentally cut off part of his art project and he scratched himself. When I got home I read the note from his teacher talking about the incident, and at the bottom she had written a note about how we had forgotten to send in our school picture order... which was that day. And of course, art class is in the morning, so the pictures were taken after the little bout of self-mutilation. Because what could go better with an already scrubby-looking kid than a bloody forehead? FABULOUS!

(Needless to say, this year I'm shelling out the extra $10 for "digital re-touching.")

Labels: allergy, autism, frustration, ick, Peanut, school

I'm typing this tucked into bed on the family room couch. Dr. V. has been awarded full custody of the king sized bed after coming home sick from work, something that rarely happens. He definitely has the flu, type as yet undetermined. I picked up a prescription for Tamiflu for him, so hopefully that will help with his symptoms. Blergh.

This after a couple really tough weeks has me feeling blue. Peanut is just so much work these days. There have been bad days, and lots of medium days, and few all good ones. Blergh. Dr. V. and I had the chance to leave the kids with his family overnight this past weekend, and we jumped at it. By last Friday, I felt like my nerves were exposed every time Peanut had a meltdown, and even 24 hours away from the kids made me feel much more centered.

And now we may be getting the flu. Blergh.



-- Post From My iPhone

Wow. I haven't gone this long without posting for months and months, but it's been an exceptionally crazy couple of weeks. 97% of the crazy has been dealing with Peanut, who has regressed tr emendously over the past few weeks. We think most of the bad behavior was related to a new allergy medicine we put him on, because his allergies were breaking through so badly. Remember the self-gagging? The new medicine did work to solve that issue - no more itchy throat - but the spaced out-and-emotional version of my boy we've dealt with has not been worth it.

After a two week trial, we switched him back to the old medicine last night. He seems better today, but we'll have to seen what the school week brings. Hopefully there will be no more sticking his tongue out at his teachers and parents, no more throwing objects to the ground to express his displeasure, no more yelling out "OH, COME ON!" whenever he is told to do something he doesn't want to do.

Labels: allergy, it sucks so bad, Peanut