Monday, October 13, 2008

Water Fountain

Yesterday, we celebrated my birthday which is actually tomorrow. I am not like my friend Juli who won't tell anybody how old she is (she is 39), I have no issues with my age, yet. But I will be 40 tomorrow, and other than how weird it sounds, I'm OK with it.

I was craving my favorite salad which is at Tony Roma's and their only location now-a-days is the Mall of America. Good thing I love rides and Nickelodeon Universe has some great new ones. We ate, rode a few rides, played in Lego Land and had a pretty good time. The kids were good, Akila wasn't too bad, even with me forgetting to give her meds before we left (maybe 40 is going to be painful).

We got ice cream for dessert and were sitting on some benches eating it. There was a water fountain and we gave each kid a penny to put in it. Then as we were leaving shortly after that, we realized that Akila had a handful of coins and hat taken them out of the fountain. Michael was furious, I had a hard time not laughing. I was annoyed with the two of us for not keeping our eyes on her enough. Imani ran the coins back and put them in their place.

The truth is, we have had two weeks of really good behavior from Akila. What is funny when I say this, is that it is still not what most families would call good, or normal. Far from it. But the rages have been short, and the struggles have been fewer. There has been more cooperation on simple things that are usually a struggle. Getting dressed in the morning, taking meds, going to bed, eating meals. She asked for gum last night and I said no and she said OK. That is very unusual. There had been several other times over the weekend she had asked for gum and I said no and she kind of freaked out. It is rare when she does not freak out when told no.

We have still had unusual behavior that is not age appropriate. Like when we went to the park on Saturday, and I watched her go behind a tree and realized she had her pants off. I was about to walk over there when I saw her shaking the pants off. As I was walking over there, I could see that she also had her underwear off, and was shaking them off. She then put it all back on as I was approaching. She had gotten sand in them and couldn't stand it. I talked to her about other options, like asking me for help so we could make sure she was more hidden when shedding her clothes.

1 comment:

A said...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! :) I hope 40 is the best year, yet! I'm very glad I "found" you and look forward to learning and laughing (and crying) with your family through the next year!

I so understand about appreciating BETTER behavior instead of good behavior. The fountain story really is cute - how did she respond when she had to give you the coins? You're very deserving of a wonderful birthday weekend. What a great gift that was for Akila to give you!

Sassy has gone to bed for an ENTIRE WEEK now without a struggle, Barb. A WEEK. It's miraculous. In the almost 10 months she has lived with us, there had only been about 2 nights without massive struggle and melt down. Now we have had SEVEN DAYS STRAIGHT. I had called the dr. about the melatonin after you told me, and she suggested I do Benedryl instead. I have been giving it to her at dinner, and it does not drug her by any means - but it seems to take that edge off that made her wired about going to bed. She lays in there for me, reads a book, then doesn't fuss when it's lights out. It's like a little piece of heaven. I'm going to stop doing it after this week and hope that I did it long enough to get us into a good routine.

Sorry to write a novel for a comment, but you were such an ear for me so I wanted to share the GOOD news instead of always the bad.