All Things Hold Together

I am so overwhelmed I cannot even put it into words. I did not realize how much I was tuning out The D’s problems and not dealing with them. I mean, I was dealing with them, but more as if he was just being a bad kid. Now I realize that this disorder gives him a completely altered way of seeing the world and dealing with life. Absent learning to adapt to his condition, he does act like a bad kid. But he is not. The changes we are making in our approach to parenting are starting to work already. As much as I abhor schedules, the schedules are helping. Standing in as his substitute brain when he is frustrated is starting to help. He went all day today without stomping. You have no idea what a big deal that is. To put it in perspective, he was stomping so much, he made the light in the downstairs apartment fall down last week! Thank God that the property manager was understanding.

I know that things are going to get better. They already are. Most importantly, I enjoy being around my son again. He has been so mean for so long that I all but gave up hope that he would ever be nice again. For 2 years he has acted like a mouthy teenage punk, but now he is just a little boy again.

The downside is that this is exhausting me. I am on duty every second of the day. The only reason I am online right now is that he is at a meeting at church. The other two boys are so quiet and independent by comparison. Even Little E, who is only 4!

I am so physically and emotionally wiped out that I started crying when I read, “ADD is an ‘invented disease,’ it is a ‘media-myth’.”

I Googled “homeschooling” and “ADD” and “ADHD” to find out more about what other parents do with homeschooling ADHD kids. I found that gem on Home Education Magazine’s web site. I have not read the articles linked there yet. I was crying too much.

Why do people think they know everything about everybody else?

This is not a made up condition!!!

In all my years of political blogging and dealing with complete idiocy, I have never wanted to call anyone an asshat until just this very minute.

After everything my son has been and is going through, and the difference in his mood, attitude, and behavior since starting the medication, you cannot convince me that this is a myth.

This is not just a kid who won’t sit still or doesn’t pay attention. He is not difficult to teach or slow or behind academically. All the judge-y know-it-alls think ADHD is all about drugging active kids to get them to sit still.

No. It isn’t.

True, The D does not sit still. Neither do my other two boys. I read to them while they are hanging upside down or rolling on the floor. I homeschool. THEY DO NOT NEED TO SIT STILL!

This is a kid who is unable to process through his emotions because his brain won’t sit still. So, he reverts to primitive behaviors, like stomping, yelling, and hitting.

He had no way to process the things that sent him into a depression a year and a half or so ago. And no one had any idea that this disorder was affecting him. That is why therapy was not making things any better and everyone threw up their hands when they could not help us.

But, you know, I am sure it is just an invented disease or a media-myth.

And I am even more sure that people are insensitive nitwits without a clue.

Too bad that doesn’t stop them from talking typing.

So, the D has been taking ADHD medication for a week now. I have noticed a positive difference. We still have so far to go.

I am not sure if more could be accomplished by a higher dose - he is taking a very small dose - but I am not sure if I want to take chances with it. We have a follow-up with the nurse practitioner who prescribed it Wednesday, so I’ll discuss it with her.

I am not sure that he really has anything else going on (like the severe mood dysregulation that was mentioned during the preliminary diagnosis) that cannot be attributed to the ADHD, especially since it went undiagnosed for so long. Man, there is a lot more to that than I thought. I was under the impression that it was just inattentiveness and hyperactivity. There is much, much more. (I want to post more about that.)

I was kind of upset when I realized that the public school should have caught this during the 3 years he was there. They should be trained to spot the early signs.

Instead, it went so long that his behavior got to be really bad. Now he has so much work to do before he will be functioning at his age level. (As do we.)

I am not going to dwell on it, though. I have more important things to deal with.

Like sleeping! I am so exhausted from dealing with all this.

But, it’s great to start to see the little boy I love coming back!

Well, I don’t have weight gain/loss numbers to report, since I put away my scale, but I feel like I have gained a little.

I know that I have been eating a lot of junk food. There are several factors at work there, not the least of which is my stress over the situation with The D. He has been really difficult lately, but I think things are starting to turn around and we are meeting with a doctor tomorrow, who specializes in behavior plans for children with ODD. (I’ll update more about The D in a different post.)

It hit me the night before last that I was really turning to food in my stress and now that I am aware of it, I am going to put a stop to it.

That brings me to my second reason - I do not have the right foods around to go to. For one, I let junk in my house. For two, I don’t have the good foods that are readily accessible.

Step one for me is to make a shopping list and get to the store.

This was a real reminder of how key menu planning is for my weight loss success. If I do not have a good plan, I default to bad behaviors.

Wow, as I typed that I realized that is why The D needs a behavior plan.

So, I’m feeling good about moving forward, even though the past week was not so hot.

I don’t really have a recipe this week, but I have a fun food tip to share. On Monday, I came home from shopping for way too long with my mom and sister and I was completely famished. Fortunately, we had left over rice and cooked boneless skinless chicken breast. I threw them (carefully measured portions, of course) into a pan coated with cooking spray, some onions and some frozen peas. I added a little soy sauce and cooked until heated through. Delicious and light, yet filling!

A kindergarten teacher had her class vote on whether or not to send a student to the principal’s office.

Excuse me, but isn’t that the teacher’s job to determine?

“The teacher decided to bring him in front of the class and let the other kids tell him what they didn’t like about him, kind of ridiculed him,” said officer Michelle Steele, spokeswoman for the Port St. Lucie police.

[The teacher] then had the class take a vote on whether to boot the boy out of the class and send him to the principal’s office.

I empathize with what teachers have to put up with in their classes. Even with only three “students,” The D can bring everything to a halt with his behavior on some days, but to subject that boy to such embarrassment and psychological stress is just cruel.

I have been making melt and pour soap for quite a while now. A couple of years, at least. I really enjoy making it and giving it away.

Some time ago, I decided that in order to sustain this hobby, I need to start selling some of my soap creations. I make more than we can use and, as much as I would like to just give it away, it is really not economically feasible.

The problem is that I have done little to nothing to promote my online shop. I don’t even have a link to it on this blog.

I am just not good at selling. It is not that I do not think that I have a quality product, it’s just that I can’t believe people would pay $4.00 + shipping for soap. The whole reason I started making my own soap bars is that I am too cheap to buy glycerin soap in the stores.

Anyway, I am kind of getting off topic. Actually, this post was supposed to be about the fact that I am going to start sharing some of my techniques and recipes on this blog. I love soap making and I think you will, too. If you already soap, I hope that my ideas will inspire you in some way.

For you newbies out there, here are a couple of basic melt and pour tutorials.

The first is from About.com: Candle & Soap Making. It has lots of good photos and a video option, too.

The second is from Teach Soap, a website and forum from Bramble Berry Soap Supplies, where I buy my stuff from.

I don’t own a microwave, so I used to melt my soap base in a double boiler (actually a bowl over a pot of water). Now I use my little 1.5 quart slow cooker. It was free with the 8 quart one I got for Christmas. I just cut up my soap chunks, put them in, turn the cooker on low, and leave it for a while.

It works very well for me, especially since things tend to come up that interrupt me and the slow cooker will keep the soap warm, if needed.

I look forward to sharing my first tutorial with you. In the meantime, you can see a few of my soap creations at charityt.etsy.com.

So, we met with the Nurse Practitioner at the pediatric psychiatry department for our follow-up visit about The D, last week. I haven’t written about it yet because it is just a lot to deal with. There is such a stigma surrounding mental illness and it really took me some time to accept it.

To some extent, I already knew. A while back, Bob started using the term “special needs child” to describe what I was dealing with, on those days when I was feeling like a failure for not getting enough done.

We already began the process of accepting that we could never expect “normal.”

Anyway, the diagnosis is Severe Mood Dysregulation, with ADHD and ODD (oppositional defiant disorder).

SMD is very new. It does not even have diagnostic criteria in the DSM IV (which is the book that psychiatrists use to diagnose mental disorders). It is an area that is being researched right now, so she was able to get us in with a really good doctor, who is going to help us with a behavior plan. He has a lot of experience working with families of children with ODD to develop strategies for managing behavior.

The ODD was absolutely no surprise. I have known that he met all the criteria for years. Honestly, I thought it was a made up disorder to describe children who lack structure. Well, I was wrong. We do not lack structure. And I have two other children who do not act this way. The D really has problems that require a different approach.

ODD is treated with behavioral therapy, but he also has ADHD. I, along with the teachers he had in public school, thought that he did not have ADHD because he can and does focus on school work.

As it turns out, some ADHD children can become hyper-focused on things that interest them - like video games, etc. The D just happens to be interested in reading and school work.

She prescribed a stimulant for the ADHD. It is supposed to calm his mind down enough so he can process things. The D often wants to do the right thing, but he says that he can’t help it. He is excited to take the meds, hoping that he will be able to control himself better. That is good, but also sad. I can’t imagine how that feels for him!

He starts tomorrow. We wanted to start on a weekend, in case he has a bad reaction. I want Bob home and a car here. (I don’t have a car when Bob is at work.)

Last weekend, we went away, so we couldn’t start it.

The medication was the hardest part for me to accept. I became a mom around the time that it came out the kids were being over-prescribed Ritalin. You know, adults just couldn’t handle rambunctious boys, so they gave them medication.

Well, I was always anti-medication. I want to let my boys be wild. I homeschool for Pete’s sake! They do not need to sit still all day. Or at all, really.

But that is not what this is. This is a boy who has no ability to calm himself - even when he wants to. He has over-the-top reactions to every mood - happy, sad, angry, you name it. He wants to control himself, but lacks the biological means to calm himself down.

I don’t know what the medication will do, but I am hopeful. I know that there is a lot of work to be done, but this could help calm things down enough to get that work done.

So, that’s what is going on with The D. I will update you about how things go. I also want to share how this has helped my husband and me to lean more on God. But that is another post altogether.

I finally got around to posting a Weight Watchers Wednesday post! It feels like it has been too long.

Let me get right to it. I do not have a gain/loss to report because I put my scale away.

I don’t go to WW meetings; I have the Weight Watchers at Home kit. So, I do not have to have weekly weigh-ins, but I usually weight myself once a week.

A couple of weeks ago, I was in the bathroom and I got on the scale. I do not know why. It was not my weigh day and, worse yet, I was getting my period, which means I usually gain about 2 pounds.

Well, I had gained about 2 pounds, but my irrational, emotion-driven brain (at least the irrational, emotion-driven side of my brain) immediately started the self-defeating talk. I was able to reason my way through it, but it was not a fun time for me.

Why does that little plastic doodad have so much power?

Why do we give it so much power?

That same morning, I came across this article: The Toss-Your-Scale Diet Plan.

You’re sailing along in life, feeling pretty good about everything, even your body. No, it isn’t perfect, but it is yours and it is doing what it’s supposed to do — mowing the lawn, ironing your skirt, playing baseball with the kids. Then you get on the scale. You weigh more than you thought you did, and within a nanosecond, the scary voice in your mind begins to rant: “You’re fat, you’re a failure, you don’t deserve to feel good about anything!” Suddenly everything that was right before you stepped on the scale is wrong.

Most of us have experienced this shocking self-esteem swing, and although we hate it, we don’t see any way out. But I do. The solution is to just stop weighing yourself. Throw away your scale.

So, I did. Well, I put away my scale.

And I feel great!

I don’t need a scale to tell me when I am losing weight. I have clothes that will feel looser. I have an image in the mirror that will look better. I have a husband whose eyes will tell me all I need to know. (Though, his eyes already tell me all I need to know, which is that he loves me no matter how I look. But, still.)

If I stick to my healthy eating plan (yeah, I mean diet) and keep adding in more exercise, the weight will keep coming off and I don’t need a scale for validation.

I know this is radical and goes against our very nature, but at least read the article. The writer totally understands the mind of a crazy, weight-obsessed woman.

I will weigh myself again after I lose a pants size or two, just so I can celebrate the victory (and, no, I do not mean with a triple-scoop, hot fudge sundae), but no more obsessing over those little numbers that own me.

Or should I say, used to own me.

Okay, here’s a recipe.

Weight Watchers Banana-Oatmeal Bread. 4 Points.

I made this, but I added cinnamon and vanilla. It’s just weird to me that they were not already in the recipe.

The kids loved it. I thought the texture was slightly rubbery, but it was over all, pretty good.

Last night I signed up for Twitter.  I wanted to see what all the buzz is about.  At first I thought it was lame, but it’s actually pretty fun.

I put a widget in the sidebar, so you can follow my tweets.

If you Twitter, let me know, so I can follow you.

I made Bakerella’s cupcake bites for my mom for Mother’s Day. They came out pretty well for my first try. Next time, I would make the balls of cake mixture a little smaller. (Like hers are.) My cupcakes look very top-heavy.

The link above has complete directions.

They taste oh so yummy! They taste like a candy - kind of truffle like, yet reminiscent of frosted cupcake.

The kids made some of them, too, and had a blast.

I have not had time to blog much lately, so here is a summary of some of the things I would like to tell you in a longer post, if I could scrounge up some *me* time.

* I am sorry that I did not get a Weight Watchers Wednesday post up this week. I just couldn’t get to it.  Nothing major to report there.

* I am finally getting the delicious purplish blossom pattern laptop that I have been dreaming about. The best part is that I will be able to blog when the kids are using the computer, which is about the only time I have during the day when they are not needing my attention/too noisy/annoying me/annoying each other/otherwise prohibiting blogging activity - or just so darn cute that I would rather hang out with them than blog (which really does happen).

* I spent the day with my 25-year-old sister yesterday. We went to a store near her that sells the kind of broomstick skirts I love for a great price. After we left, we had the following conversation.

Sis: Did you get the skirts you were trying on?
[She hadn’t actually seen the skirts I was trying on because she was trying stuff on.]
Me: Yeah. I actually bought a short skirt.
Sis: Short? You mean it comes up to your knees?
Me: Uh, yeah. Well, that’s short to me. My skirts usually go to my ankles.

I forget that short to your average 25-year-old is something different than it is to me.

* I finally got The D into the child and adolescent psychology department after all these months. We went in for the evaluation Wednesday. The woman who did the evaluation and I are both supposed to process everything over the week, so we can get back together on Thursday to put together a treatment plan. I like that approach. Thinking about things is a good idea. So is praying about it. I’m glad I have time to sit with it.

He has all the criteria for Oppositional Defiant Disorder, shows signs of depression, and is hyperactive and impulsive, but without the attention deficit and inability to concentrate that is normally present in ADHD kids.

In other words, no kidding. I didn’t learn anything new, except what treatment options are available. My hope is that we can get into a parenting training program so we can learn more effective behavioral therapy techniques.

That’s about it. I’m hoping things calm down around here soon, so I can get regular blogging time.

Have a great weekend!