Honor Roll & Suspension

My boys were both honored at school this morning for making the honor roll. This is a new thing our school has started this year at the elementary level. They got long sleeved t-shirts that say "I am the Definition of Ambition" on the back, and have the school name on the front. They were adorable and I was very proud. ( I will try to post some pics soon)

Then, the call came this afternoon that I have been knowing for years would come. Akila got in a fight after school on the bus, before it left school property. I had to go pick her up. She is suspended for tomorrow and is kicked off the bus the rest of the week. She says that the boy told Imani to shut up so she slapped his face. He pushed her down, she went back at him and they got into a smackdown. Akila is tiny, this boy is much bigger than she is, I love how she has no clue that she has no business hitting a kid that could squash her in a single step.

Anyway, I have told her no computer or TV or fun for tomorrow. Only chores and homework. I anticipate a very problematic day. I am not looking forward to it. She has been having a rough week. Her aide at school has said that Akila has gotten more lippy and full of attitude with her lately, I knew the honeymoon phase would wear off soon, although I hoped and prayed it would not.

After I picked her up from school, I brought her straight to dance class. The entire way there, she was full of attitude and I thought I was going to have to pull over and get out of the van to take a few breaths to calm myself down, but we made it. When I picked her up after dance, she was much more appropriate and knew that she should not be pushing me. She was polite on the way home, and went straight to bed, I was very relieved.

We talked about other choices she could have made when she thought this boy was disrespecting Imani, but I don't think she really gets it. When we got in the van after dance, she said, before I brought it up, "Mom, I'm sorry for fighting with that boy. I just couldn't control my anger". It was a good reminder to me that she needs time to process things, and I need time to control my anger. It was an interesting day- to start the day going to the school for an honor, and to end the day with a suspension. I wonder what they think of me at that school sometimes!!!

Is this week over yet?

Well I sent Akila and Imani to school on Wednesday. Imani had not had a fever since Sunday and Akila had not since Monday night. And neither was acting very sick, meaning that they had high energy and Akila was her regular sassy self.

I got a call about an hour into school from the nurses office. Akila had a 99.3 temp and was complaining about her tummy. I talked to her and told her she could make it through the day. She was definitely not hit as hard as the other kids by the H1N1. I got another call at about 12:30, she had a temp of 100.5. Nuts. I went to get her, brought her home, took her temp and it was normal, and she was acting normal (I mean what is normal for Akila, not the typical brained child). But an hour later, she did have a 99.6 temp.

This H1N1 has been a hard one to figure out. The temp goes away for over 30 hours, and then returns. Looking back, it did that to all 4 of my kids. So Akila stayed home on Thursday, as well as Hezekiah. Hezekiah had no temp since the ER on Monday night, but with his pneumonia, I wanted to keep him around still.

On Wednesday night, I had a little tickle of a cough, very tiny. I of course got paranoid, and for good reason. On Thursday, the cough progressed. By Friday morning, I was a wreck, just in time for all 4 kids to go to school, thank goodness.

I spent the day in bed, with a fever and the aches and chills. When the kids got home just before 4:00, they had free reign of the house as I was at my worst part of the fever. Well, sweet little Akila took advantage. She was being so good, if I had been in better shape (and really cared at that moment), I would have known she was up to no good. She basically went scavenging through the house.

She went into the basement, which she is usually too scared to go into because of the cobb webs, but not now- she was on a mission. She found where I kept the make-up bag. This is a bag full of cheap make-up that I will use as a reward for her. She is so obsessed with make-up and wants to do it all the time, so it is a great reward. She went into several other areas that are where I stash things and got into all kind of junk. Her room looks like a tornado hit it. And still, I don't care.

She gave me the space I needed, and for that I am grateful. She even made herself some scrambled eggs. Michael got home about 6:00 and got to spend the evening cleaning the kitchen and messing around with the kids. I actually cooked real meals on Tues, Wed and Thurs evenings. Thursday, I was feeling rotten, but knew it would be good to be filling the frig with more left overs.

I could not sleep at all last night,and I didn't want to get up and clean or do things that would spread my germs onto kitchen plates and such. I was suppose to get a flu shot today, but I guess I won't be able to. The ER doctor told me that 97% of the flu cases being seen are the H1N1, this is why they're not testing for it.

phone book & med apron

I should probably clear out the memory phone book on our home phone. Akila has figured out how to use it. So I am sorry if she called you yesterday and left an incoherent message about our families flu struggles.

I just got a call from our friend Emily. Akila left her a message yesterday about how sick our family is. Not sure who else she called, hopefully she did not call 911 this time to alert them to our woes.

I have to be intentional about what I wear today, or I have to start wearing a medicine apron, like one from home depot with pockets. I am just walking from room to room, taking temps, giving out meds, juice, having the boys trade being nebulized, and charting all of their meds, fevers, etc. I bought a ton of Tylenol and Motrin last night at CVS so I should have enough to get us through this bout.

I called our clinic this morning and they are faxing in a Rx for Tamiflu for Zeke to CVS. It is kind of weird that I can't get it for the girls, but they don't have asthma. Zeke is the only one who woke up with a fever today, which means nothing I have learned. The really good news is that everyone slept pretty well last night. I was only awakened once by Zeke, so I got good sleep- and they all slept in later than normal. Praise the Lord.

4 kids + crud = H1N1, and 1 tired mom

We have had quite the whirlwind weekend. Started out the long MEA weekend with the kids sleeping over at Aunt Tara's and Uncle Dan's. Michael and I went out to the Melting Pot (my fav), to a movie, and out to breakfast and shopping on Friday. Picked the kids up at 5 pm on Friday, drove the boys to a friends house for a sleepover. The girls and I went to my friend Juli's for a birthday party for her 10 year old, Eva. Imani was complaining of a sore throat and little cough. No big deal.

Picked up the boys Saturday morning at 11 from their sleep over, and Hezekiah was sleeping. He got in the van, and he looked like a zombie. I had been assuming in the friend's house, that two nights of a sleepover in a row had worn him down. As I was driving them home, I could tell by looking at him that he was sick. Got home, took his temp, 104.4. Imani was out running around the neighborhood, playing like nothing was going on. I took her temp, 102. 5. And the fun began.

The two of them were sick all day Saturday, and Hezekiah has asthma so he was making me nervous. I watched him very closely. Sunday morning, they woke up and both had a low grade fever that went away by 9:30 am. Although Zeke woke with a low grade fever on Sunday. By Sunday evening, Zeke's was a bit higher. Imani and Hezekiah were playing fairly normally, but still had sore throats and coughs. I planned on keeping all 3 home today and sending Akila to school. Akila woke up with a 100.0 temp, so they all 4 stayed home.

Imani had no fever when she woke up, neither did Hezekiah. Zeke had a low one, and so did Akila. Imani played normally and was bored out of her mind. Hezekiah laid around. Zeke played, Akila drove me nuts. Is it bad that I am tempted to not five her Motrin so her fever stays a bit high so she lays around quietly? I won't do it, but I am tempted. Just being honest. Hezekiah had been complaining that his chest hurt, but he has not been wheezing, or having any outward signs of breathing issues.

This afternoon, around 3:00, I took Hezekiah's temp again. It was 102.9. He had not had a temp for over 30 hours. I called our clinic. They said to bring him to the ER. I hate the ER. I know that almost everyone does, but I have bad memories of it. When we first adopted Zeke, he was a little preemie who was sick, and we spent about a month at Children's Hospital. Two ER visits for him, one for Hezekiah. About 17 nights total in one month overnight at the hospital. Long waits in the ER, during February, the respiratory distress season. Gives me the chills just thinking about it.

And as much as I love Children's Hospital, their waiting room in the ER, is horrible!!!!! They are opening a new ER in 9 days, couldn't this plague have waited 9 more days? Anyway, Michael came home and Hezekiah and I headed to the ER. Waited for 2 hours. Saw a triage nurse pretty quickly, who didn't hear anything when she listened to his chest. This along, with Hezekiah pleading to leave, and the long wait with a room full of very interesting people, made me think hard about leaving (there were two women with a 3 year old waiting to be seen as a sitter had tried to put hot sauce in the little girls mouth, and it got in her eye. Her eye was a little swollen on the bottom, but that was it. They were on their cell phones carrying on to friends that nobody had flushed her eye out even. Ugh).

So, after two hours in the waiting room, we were brought back. The ER rooms were full, so we were in the Pre-Op rooms. Another long wait to see a Dr. Eventually, we learned that Hezekiah has H1N1, they did not test for it, but said it is pretty obvious. And it has progressed to pneumonia, as they did a chest X-ray. I was very glad that I did not leave earlier.

We were discharged at 8:50. Really, right before the pharmacies close? So I had to call Michael and have him look up the closest 24 hr CVS, and of course, it is in St. Paul. Over 6 hours later, we finally returned home.

Akila's temp was up to 102.something by bedtime, and Imani's temp was back, although it was low. Zeke still had a low one also. It is going to be a very long week. I forgot to mention that Akila threw up this morning once, and a little tonight, although she ate all day. Not sure what that was about. I read on Facebook, that in one 2nd grade class, 10 out of 20 kids were gone today. Hezekiah is in the other 2nd grade class. Crazy.

So, our house is basically full of the plague. I feel like we should put a red sign on the door or something. Stay away people, this thing is crazy contagious.

Hopeful

Last Tuesday night was a rough one, when I had to restrain Akila 4 times. I have not really had to since, and we are restraining her anytime she hits/kicks/pushes Michael or me. She did today afterschool, when she was trying to convince me that one of Imani's shirts was hers, she kicked me.

I restrained her, and I used the basket hold restraint, which I could not remember from my restraint training from when I worked in the schools, but a friend gave me some pointers last week. This worked much better than the one on the floor, my knees are still recovering, seriously. And the beauty of this restraint, was that it lasted less than 10 minutes. I did not have my watch on though.

I am really hopeful that this means that her brain has at least momentarily learned something, and possibly two things. One, she hasn't been physically hurting us as often the last week, and number two, the restraint was much shorter which hopefully means that she understands to calm down so I can release her. One thing I have definitely learned about FASD, is that often when Akila conquers a new thing, it can stay for an hour, a day, a few weeks, or months, but rarely does it last forever. In particular, when it is a behavioral thing, it does usually not last forever. One of the books I have read and appreciated, has said that when you find a discipline technique that works, rejoice, and use it for as long as you can knowing that it will probably lose it's effectiveness at some point.

So, I am hopeful- and it feels good.

Being held hostage

I am struggling with the feeling that Akila is too often holding our family hostage. Her violent bursts of anger are not lessening at all, and the main advise I have heard and read from experts, is to try and avoid the "triggers". Well the main trigger, is when she does not get her way, on the most tiny little thing.

One trigger, is when Zeke chews with his mouth open. One trigger is when I call her honey (which I do quite often, but sometimes it makes her mad). One trigger is one of the other three kids is standing in the kitchen and she wants something. One trigger is when you ask her if you don't turn the music up loud enough in her bedroom at bedtime. One trigger is if you ask her if the music is loud enough. One trigger is if you don't tie her shoes tightly enough, even though she can tie them herself. One trigger is if she can't find her lip gloss. One trigger is if you give her too many carrots at dinner. One trigger is if you don't give her enough carrots at dinner. One trigger is if you ask her how many carrots she would like at dinner.

So often, there is no rhyme or reason to her triggers that we are able to discern. There are some which are pretty consistent, like if she is watching TV by herself, if another child tries to join her, there are guaranteed fireworks. If she sees any of her siblings playing with our neighbor girl, there are guaranteed fireworks. If she can't find her teddy bear, there are guaranteed fireworks.

These guaranteed fireworks, are things I can often try to avoid. Sometimes, this is where I start to feel like we are being held hostage. Like not letting the other kids go into a room that she is in if she is playing nicely, watching TV, or engaging in an activity. There is nothing worse than disturbing her when she is doing well. I work very hard to help her keep track of her teddy bear. If I have to pick her up from school, dance or somewhere else, if I bring the bear and have it waiting in the van, it puts her at ease instantly. I am even ashamed to say, that sometimes I intercept the neighbor girl before she has rung the doorbell, and tell her the kids aren't available to play. I just don't want to deal with the issues that it is sure to cause. I know, I am a chicken.

But some days, this is what it takes to get through. Some days, I am not emotionally prepared to battle, and try even harder to avoid the rages. Some days, I say bring it on. And I send Zeke down to play with legos (see previous post). So I do try to avoid triggers, and I try really hard to not make it seem like we are always giving her what she wants. In reality, on any given day, even if I have avoided many rages and let her hold us hostage to a certain level, there are still a million things that have made her mad and that she has not gotten. She is by far the most demanding of all of my children and the one who is always wanting or needing something. We have just hopefully been able to avoid as much raging as possible.

Tough night

The girls were playing nicely all evening. Until I let Zeke go into the playroom to play with legos. Dumb me. I thought it would be fine for him to play far away from them with something totally different. Well it didn't work. As he was too loud when he looked through the lego box for a new lego with each move. Akila kept on going ballistic, and eventually lost it. Michael had her upstairs and she was raging. Imani told me that I blew it by letting Zeke go down there. I love how she basically holds our house hostage, that is how it feels sometimes.

So I went up to relieve Michael eventually, and Akila hit me. So I got her on the floor and restrained her, the response we are trying lately to deal with her hitting and kicking. 28 minutes later, she finally settled down. I could barely stand up my knees hurt so bad. I put her in bed, and went to our room to fold laundry. She came in there carrying on about something and then hit me again. I restrained her in our room for 20 minutes, and then brought her back up to bed.

I went back to folding laundry, she came back, and eventually kicked me. Restraint #3, much shorter. Put her back to bed. She cam back, kicked me again. Restraint #4, shorter, but longer than #3. She is still upstairs carrying on. I think I am out of patience. Michael is up talking to her. I think she is going to calm down. I have been called every name in the book tonight, listened to curse words, been threatened (that she is going to kill me, jab my eyes out with her earrings, etc), kicked, pinched and hit. It has been loads of fun. And people wonder why I don't look forward to the weekends.

Sisters

On Sunday, Akila and Imani played with Barbies almost the entire afternoon and evening. They played together the whole day after we got home from church and lunch. It was so nice to see. I worked very hard to keep the boys away from them so they could have time together undisturbed. I talked with Imani about it at bedtime and she expressed how nice it was to play with Akila.

Right now, they are playing with Barbies again and once again, I am keeping the boys away. Our neighbor girl just rang the doorbell to play and I sent the boys out and did not interrupt the girls. On Sunday evening, when I was processing the Akila playtime with Imani, I was telling her how glad I was that they were able to spend some quality sister time together, and mentioned how well they seemed to get along. Imani said that Akila had been behaving very well, and that she imagined that daddy and I were very glad that Akila was "out of our hair". I dug a little farther, and what she meant is what I thought. She meant that Akila behaved well and dad and I did not have to constantly mediate and deal with her issues. I said that it was very nice.

What a mature 9 year old to be thinking about her mom and dad. This comment shows the various levels of how Akila's issues affect the other kids. They all worry about mom and dad and can see the stress that the behaviors put on us.

Today afterschool, Akila wanted to make sugar cookies to celebrate fall. This did not fit into the plan and schedule for the evening, and she did not take this well. There was some minor raging. About an hour later, as I was cooking dinner, Akila came downstairs and said she needed to show me something that was not good. She was telling me not to be mad. I asked her if she had spilled, she said no, come here. I followed her up the stairs to find this:

She had kicked a hole in the wall at the top of the stairs. When she is mad, over the most piddley thing, she will stand against a wall or door, and kick her foot against it. This has resulted in a hole in our kitchen wall, a small dent in our frig, a dent in our minivan, and now this fresh dent. I was very controlled, for once. She said that she was mad and couldn't control herself. I talked to her about how else she could have let her anger out, like squeezing the ball in the anger kit, squeezing play-doh, etc. I told her she would have to do several chores to "work off" this damage, and I returned to finish dinner.

This is one more reason why I need to keep plugging away at removing all the wallpaper in our house. When we moved in 7 years ago, the entire house was wallpaper, except for one bedroom. Even every inch of hallway. And when I say slowly plugging away, that is what I mean. I have removed wall paper from one bedroom, one bathroom, and a third bedroom but I still need to remove the glue from the walls and paint it. My next room will be the kitchen. It is a daunting task. I really don't mind painting, I just hate removing the wall paper. And I can't imagine removing it from the stairway hall where the new hole has been kicked. It has super high ceilings and will be quite the chore. I hope to finish Akila's room by the end of November. There, I typed it. Maybe I will do it now.

Last night, Sunday night, after we had all the kids in bed, I looked at the calendar and realized that tomorrow, Tuesday, is picture day. Aaarrrggh. Akila's hair was in no shape for pictures.

So tonight, after her soccer practise, I combed out the french braids and gave her a bath. As we were getting lotion on her, she realized that she has hair growing on her privates. Oh please pray that she does not have to tell everyone at school about her new growth. After this new revelation, we got her hair done, although not to her liking. She of course wanted some kind of extravagant style that I can't really do, and especially not when there is not enough time. So we struggled on this point for awhile.

Then at bedtime, she wanted me to find her lip gloss that is in a fake pink plastic cell phone. She had it yesterday, but had no idea where it is n0w. As I was calmly asking her and trying to help her trace down where she last saw it, she was exploding and calling me an A-hole, multiple times. So I did not look for it, which really set her off.

After I got her in bed, and boy was she mad, she called me back up a few minutes later as I had forgotten to turn on her night light. I could have kicked myself, I know better. But when I got there and turned it on, she wanted it off. I left it on not understanding her and then she yelled crazily at me when I walked out. I then turned it off. After awhile, I had to go back up there, to have a discussion about if she has ever slept without a night light. I said that she use to all the time when she was young and she disagreed with me. So i agreed with her. No sense arguing with someone who is completely out of their mind at the moment.

On Saturday, Michael was out running errands and I ended up restraining Akila for over 30 minutes. Our new strategy to her hitting, kicking and other physical violence, is to restrain her. This was the longest one, and I could barely stand up when it was over and bend my knees. It is so emotionally exhausting, and she was pretty calmed down when it was over, but I didn't want her to go back into the red zone, so I suggested we play with Play-doh. We did. I can't tell you how hard that is for me to sit so soon after an emotional hour, and play with her. I know this is shallow and little of me, but all I want is at least a 15 minute break at this point. But leaving her alone, would not work. She would instigate something with the other kids, or get "stuck" on something else.

I can't even remember what set her off. Oh yeah, it was that she wanted to play with the neighbor girl, who was outside playing with Imani. She always wants "alone" time with this girl, as she is jealous of Imani. I tell her that this child can choose who she plays with and I can't make her play with anyone-although sometimes I will set it up so Akila does get "alone" time with her. Imani and Maria are open to Akila playing with them, and they do sometimes all 3 play together, but it usually doesn't work. So when I was telling her that she was welcome to go outside and play with Maria and Imani, but that it was Maria's choice, Akila started kicking and stomping on me-and the fun began.

Roller Skating

Last night was a rollerskating family event for the PTSA fundraiser, and I usually dread these events. A few years ago, at the bowling night, Akila was out of control, it left a bad taste in my mouth. Michael was working late, so I was on my own and I decided to go for it.

Actually, at the rollerskating one, Akila is not bad until it is time to go and we don't stay until the end, which is 8:00. That just puts the bedtime schedule way too off and really messes us up, especially Akila. So I made it quite clear to all the kids that we were leaving at 7:30. I also told them that if they changed out of their roller blades, and were good cooperators, they would get $1 to either save or spend on the dumb cheap toy things they have at their toy counter.

So yes, I bribed them, but hey- it worked!!! Even Akila did not throw a fit. It was great. I did give her a half a pill of the Clonidine that our Dr. said we could try in the evenings, not sure if that helped, I have just tried it a few times and I think it is helping a bit.

Our biggest problem was on the way home when Imani, who sits next to Akila (and Akila does not like her to sit next to her), tooted. You would have thought that Imani had just smacked Akila or something. Akila went hysterical and I couldn't help but laugh, which did not help. Especially when Imani was saying that she just really "had to go toot toot". Thankfully, it happened not too far from home.

Last weekend, Akila went to her first slumber party and only had one problem according to the brave mom. Michael and I and the 3 kids had a nice peaceful evening and went out to dinner. Yesterday, when Imani was praying, she thanked Jesus for Akila going to the slumber party and allowing us to go out and have some peaceful family time. The kids take turn praying before our meals and they are pretty consistently praying for Akila to control her anger issues. Most of the time, Akila smiles when they say this and it makes her feel special. Tonight, she didn't really like it, although she held it together and did not explode during the prayer.

It is so interesting listening to children's prayers. I have been trying to pray more that God would help us to learn how to better deal with Akila and her anger issues, which is something I genuinely want!!