Summer Progress!

So... the swim team lasted about half of the season, destined to fail after a few practices being cancelled for lightening and one very dreary swim meet in 68 degrees and drizzle. Hamslice continued to swim, but the pressure of the team was probably a little too much for him this year. We will try again next year.

Here's the good news: Hamslice has been in camps all summer with ONLY ONE PHONE CALL FOR BEHAVIOR! He has had 1 week of Minecraft, 1 week of Astronomy, and 1 week of Video Game Programming camp. I realized this yesterday and my jaw almost hit the floor. It's some kind of a record for sure.

He ASKED to go to Camp Puh-Tok which is a less structured, more socially oriented camp, which really surprised me. There is a lot about him  that seems normal about him this summer (or "Neural Typical" for all you special needs moms out there).

This summer we went camping as a family to two different camping areas, he has met horses, we have hiked in the woods and fields around the house...lots of sensory experiences. He's starting to understand that there are big things to fear and freak out about, but that most of them are not that big.

We are heading down the chute toward 3rd grade. There are lots of things afoot that could make this challenging, but I am optimistic!

First Swim Meet!

I thought it was time that Hamslice join a team of some kind, after his outright shunning of soccer, nature explorers, gym class, and all other social clubs.

I settled on swimming because Hey... you always need to know how to swim.

We have had Hamslice in the "learn to swim" program for about a year, and he was getting pretty good. I then probably skipped a couple of steps by putting him right into a "fun/competitive" swimming program. The goal is fun, but it is a bit competitive.

Hamslice has risen to the occasion beautifully. In real life he can't swim 25 yards without stopping, but put him in a race, and here you go - 25 (ish) yards right off the bat.

After the swim meet, Hamslice then proceeded to learn how to jump off the diving board, swim to the bottom of the pool, and run/jump off the side of the pool in ONE DAY. So... something is working...

Here is a video of Hamslice's first competitive swim:

 here.

DAS BOOT - 2 years in photos

Okay everyone, I have finally created a photo book out of all of the pictures we took of the house during construction. I am surprised all over again how big of a deal this was. Upon reviewing this book, it seems that Shutterfly has scrambled up my pictures in the "view full screen" version to keep this from being actually that interesting, but you can at least see some of the messy piles of debris during the demo process.

Click here to view this photo book larger

Click here to create your own Shutterfly photo book.

Progress!

Dare I say it...I think we are going to be all right.

Since my last post, Hamslice has blossomed into a really great kid. He has finally figured out the benefits to being well behaved, and is motivated to be BETTER than the kids around him. Gone is his idea that the funnest thing is to be the worst kid in the class.

The turning point was in April (ish) after he threw a particularly ripe tantrum about how his Egg Mc Muffin was put together with the ham lopsided. We had to turn the car around and go home, which underscored our eventual discussion about how he is now too old to have any more tantrums, and that he needed to find another way.

And he HAS.

No more tantrums at all. Let me say that again... AT ALL. It feels so good to be able to say that about him. NO MORE TANTRUMS AT ALL. YAHOOOOO

Plus, he has been working with a writing tutor who has done amazing things with his handwriting. We are no longer worrying that we will need to create an IEP or 504 plan. He is solidly in the pack of his classmates, and I think he's going to make it.

I'll drink to that!

Coasting (for now)

So Hamslice's little spurt of maturity turned out to be a pretty big set of connections made all at once, and his behavior has been a lot better. It seems like the issue this year could have been one of several things:

1. Maybe the teachers spend the first half of the year complaining about everyone's kids in order to push the parents and students to achieve as much as possible
2. Maybe Hamslice was immature at the beginning of the year, moreso than the others, but just needed time. 
3. Maybe everyone is crazy except for Hambone, Hamslice and Me. 

At any rate, we are really enjoying this little vacation from constant criticism. Today Hamslice and I drew pictures and told jokes. I can't remember really the last time we did that -- I've been spending so much energy assessing and comparing to syndromes and spectrums that we've missed each other a bit.

In our play time, I have noticed that his thoughts are disorganized, so we will work on that together as a normal mom and a normal kid.  If everybody will just stop yelling at us, great things could happen.

Today we are happy.

of course it's not that easy.

So it seemed like we were making great progress with the headphones  until we went to our teacher conference.  Hamslice's teachers said that they saw no difference from the headphones or medication. They said get rid of the headphones and try more drugs. And of course they said this right in front of Hamslice.

Now he won't wear his headphones and says they don't work anyway. He can't unhear his teachers' comments.

I have discontinued  the drugs because they were making him sick.

But, on the bright side, in their very next breath the teachers said he has been maturing and that seems to be fixing a lot of his issues.

So... were they freaking out and demanding  drugs just because he was immature? Why do drugs have to be the answer to everything?

Cautious Optimism

Sooooooo, could it be that the answer is a $150 pair of head phones? We started using them on Friday and THAT AFTERNOON we got a nice note on one of Hamslice's assignments. We tried them Sunday at church school and got a GLOWING review of his attention and behavior. (This from the same people who told us he needed to go into the Special Ed classroom the week before.)

Is it Misophonia? Hyperacusis? Could it be this easy?

Hamslice has admitted that the head phones help him "a lot" and he voluntarily takes them to school. He is eager to behave correctly with them so they don't get taken away. These are signs to me that they are important and helpful. So far this is the best result for him.

Today is day 2 in school with them, I am eager to hear how it goes (no pun intended). I have set an appointment for Thursday to review all of this with his teachers.

Fingers crossed everybody!

So... the problem is not ADHD

We have had our little Hamslice on medication for more than two weeks and it has not been effective. His teachers have actually said that his behavior is worse ON the medication than au naturale. Here's what it looks like:

1.  Hamslice takes a pill
2.  20 minutes later he is lying on the floor with overwhelming fatigue
3.  He is ornery all day because the fatigue doesn't ease up until the med wears off. 

His pediatrician says this is not a normal reaction to the meds, and he prescribed a second stimulant brand. Same result. And an interesting side note is this: his concentration is not any better on medication.

Our friends and family who are now as out of ideas as we are have helpfully recommended the "dye free food diet" and "gluten free living" to us. How are they supposed to know that was our first line of defense when all of this descended on us two years ago? Oh, and they forgot lactose free living, we tried that too. Oh, and probiotics. And chewing gum. And mint. And Vitamin D supplements. and Occupational therapy with skin brushing. And swinging. And trampoline exercises. And a rigorous fitness plan. And talk therapy. And bite plates. And sensory stimulation using velcro and various textured ribbons.

My gut says that Hamslice may have some of the same problems I had in early school years, where my hearing was a huge problem for me. I would spend hours in class being tortured by the sound of the other students eating white bread and cheese and apples and blinking and chewing gum. Other days the sound of my own heartbeat would be so loud in my head that I couldn't concentrate. My peers were such a cause of agony that I didn't want to be around them. The teacher's voice sounded like a bass drum in my ears.

It hit home for me over Presidents' Day when I took Hamslice to see the Sponge Bob Square Pants movie with his friend J. After the movie we went to lunch at Chick Fil-A and they sat side by side. J was perky and excited by the movie, Hamslice looked like he had been punched in the face fifty times. The movie was bright and VERY loud.

Aha.

Next step is to try noise cancelling headphones to see if we can ease up the sound and give him a little peace in the classroom. His teachers are now magically more compliant than they were two weeks ago, so we are able to try some new things.

Stay tuned...

Behavior Update

So those of you who really know us are aware that along with all of the hilarity of Hamslice comes the behavior issue as well. Here's how it has been playing out this year...

Right away in the school year his teachers really came down on us about behavior, but it was a 360 degree "your kid is bad" approach, which served only to make us defensive. We spent a good deal of time arguing with the administration that no, indeed he is not totally bad and can you be more specific in his badness so we can address something measurable.

They asked us to go to his pediatrician and get ADHD medication. So I had them fill out the paperwork to get a prescription, and they went completely OVERBOARD and marked him as SEVERE in all categories. This made me really mad. 

This went on until Christmas Break. When Hamslice returned from break, his teachers sent home notes thanking us for his much improved behavior, and we were able to remove all of his behavior accommodations. However, because we had all been sick over the break, we didn't actually PUT him on medication, so now their credibility was shot with me.

Fast forward two months and I have been hearing from Hamslice that he is unhappy and that he wishes he could just control his behavior a little more so he would be more successful in class. We discussed this with his therapist and she mentioned that we could medicate just to control his emotional impulsiveness (aka tendency toward acting like a baby and falling to pieces at every little thing) which sounds like a good plan to us.

We spoke also with a few of our trusted friends who suggested that we test run a stimulant by giving Hamslice coffee and seeing if that does anything.

This weekend we gave him a mocha coffee and for three beautiful hours he acted his age. Hambone and I were able to take a deep breath and relax for just these hours. After the coffee wore off, we were back to business as usual.

I believe we have an answer. We talk to the pediatrician on Thursday to get started.

Sing it, Hamslice

We have entered the era of butt jokes, where everything somehow devolves to a joke about buns, butts, or but cracks. It's a pretty hilarious time that my 2nd grade self has been waiting for for years.

Knock knock

Who's there
Dog
Dog who
Dog butt.

This morning Hamslice was singing to himself, which means he uses his Vienna Boys Choir voice (which is a real treat that he only shares with himself) to sing an adaptation of the song "tight pants".

"Everybody's talkin' 'bout my butt cheeks, my butt cheeks, I've got my but cheeks on..."

Rock on, Hamslice.

Domestic Jester

As many of you know, we've been fighting the flu over most of Christmas vacation this year. First me, then Hambone, then Hamslice, then me again. The net result is a disorienting feeling of floating through days as the house descends to shambles.

Enter today, when I woke up with the stark realization that the Cub Scouts were coming over for their meeting tonight. I surveyed over a month of cleaning to that has not been done, a bored 7-year old, and 15 construction workers building a bathroom in the basement.

Oh, and I needed to bake a snack for tonight and buy craft supplies.

So I battened down the hatches and cleaned, organized, shopped and baked my buns off until about 2:30, when I realized to my amazement that the house was "decent" and I had 20 cute cupcakes made with confetti and snowmen on top.

I was working very hard at patting myself on the back, when I though "Hey, let's fit some fun into this day!" So I asked Hamslice if he wanted to go to Red Zone. Of course he did. However, laser tag was totally overcrowded and we wound up dragging an overwhelmed Hamslice out of there by an ankle and a wrist as he screamed and writhed about how something or another was unfair. He made himself so upset that he threw up right in the middle of the lobby.

We arrived home to "talk it out" and do some hugging with just enough time to get the table set for cub scouts.

At that moment I realized that the dog had eaten 13 of our 20 cupcakes while we were gone.

Cue the Calliope music.

How Wishes Come True, According to Hamslice

Yesterday during a long car ride, I told Hamslice a story where the hero of the story was the Fairy with the White Gossamer Wings. All of my stories have this same fairy as the hero, and Hamslice has had it "up to here" with the Fairy with the White Gossamer Wings. He actually shouts "Nooooo!" when I say her name.

Hamslice said to me "I don't believe in Fairies. Fairies are stupid."

I looked at him, slightly wounded and said, "Well if you don't have Fairies, how do your wishes come true?"

He looks at me and said, "I don't need Fairies. I've got Santa Claus and God."

Touche Hamslice.

The Pluses and Minuses of Creativity

Hamslice has begun developing the neatest sense of humor and a interesting creative approach to problem solving. He is adding onto stories to create punch lines, and bringing the whole plot line to absurdity, which I enjoy immensely. Hambone rolls his eyes, but I suspect he gets it too.

But sometimes his curiosity and problem solving method go too far. On our trip to Michigan last week, Hamslice read a book called "Python Vs. Alligator... who would win" and it turned out that the Python can eat an alligator while the alligator doesn't like the taste of python.

This led to lots of discussion about what a python would look like with an alligator inside, and how long it would take to digest. Then there was a graphic and uncomfortable discussion about how it may or may not poop out the bones.

I thought that he was actually interested in python digestion, (which he wasn't but I'll get to that later) so I told him the story about the lady who had a python as a pet, and how one day the python stretched out from her head to her feet and just laid there next to her, which was unusual. She called the vet and the vet said the python was measuring her to see if he was big enough to eat her yet.

Hamslice's eyes about fell out of his head. I said that the python could eat a human just like it could eat an alligator. Then we talked about how the stomach of the python would dissolve the bones of her skull and then her brains and eyeballs would be just floating around in the snake's stomach. He was laughing at the time, but 3am the next morning told a different story. Lots of lights went on in his room that night.

It turns out he was only interested in how a python would eat an ALLIGATOR, and not anything else.

We're still learning. Always learning.

The Funniest Guy in the Room

I remember my Mom telling me over and over when I was a kid... it's not really the best thing to try being the funniest kid in the room. It wasn't until I was an adult that I realized the wisdom in that statement. The funniest guy always goes a little too far just to get a laugh, while the second funniest guy in the room is the real comedian.

Fast forward to Hamslice in the second grade. This week Wednesday his best buddy J (the second funniest guy in the room) pulled Hamslice aside in the lunch room and said "Look what word I know..." and he wrote it on his napkin.

Ladies and gentlemen, this was the "F" word. Not a lovely F word like "Fabulous" or "Frankincense"  but the queen mother of all "F" words. And J wrote not just the F word, he also added its toady companion word "You."

Hamslice looked at the words on the napkin and decided (as the funniest guy in the room) that his required response was to read it as loudly and as many times in a row as he could. He then started pointing at people while shouting it, so several of the kids at school got a big "F... YOU" at lunch. Happy Wednesday, everyone.

And I will say that the call I received from the principal was not the most jovial conversation I've ever had.

Remember. Be the second funniest guy in the room. In this case there was a pretty stiff penalty for him as well, but he will still live this down before Hamslice.

Life in the Country

People have asked me several times in the last few months, "What's it like for a hard boiled city gal to move out to the country?" with the followup question "Do you hate it?"

And I just start laughing. We have never been happier than we are with this decision to move out into the wild. Here are things we don't miss about the city:

• listening to drunk people shout their way home from the bars
• cleaning up the flower pots that drunk people knocked over on their way home from the bars
• smelling the pee in every alley from drunk people on their way home from the bars
• panhandlers on *EVERY* corner
• that guy with the persian rug over his shoulders shouting at everyone that HE IS THE CHIEF
• um... let's see... drunk people ringing our doorbell at midnight, insisting that they live in our house
• rats
• rats
• rats
• the smell of the neighbors cigarette smoke wafting through our walls
• noise
• traffic
• ravens fans
• produce from the grocery store that just *isn't quite right*
• city water

seriously that should be enough to live in a permanent state of ecstasy, here are the new 'problems' we have in the country:

• traffic jams of deer in the driveway
• too many choices of excellent grocery stores with fresh seafood, miles-long organic food sections and amazing produce
• we sometimes can't find hamslice because he is outside playing
• the neighbors are so friendly that we don't know when or if we are offending them
• the school is proactive and teaching at lightening speed
• we love everyone we have met here so far (we can't identify any jerks)

and so on.

So you can see now how I will miss the city, but .. um... not really. Buh Bye.

Oh the Lies. Karma has Caught Me At Last

When I was about 7 years old, I told the biggest gossip in Dad's church that my Mom drank alcohol to such excess that she would start hiccuping and slurring her words. I thought it was hilarious. Subsequently Mom had a rough couple of months, trying to explain that she was not, in reality, a raging alcoholic.

Apparently this is a genetic trait. My dear angelic (cough cough) Hamslice has been telling whoppers about me at school. The first whopper entailed me punching the kids of our friends whenever they came over to our house. The newest one is that I refuse to feed him.

These fibs have led to some rather awkward conversations with Hamslice's school administration. Most of them come off like that fictional court interrogation where the attorney asks "So, Mrs. Johnson, when did you stop beating your child."

*sigh*

I know somewhere up there Mom is laughing her ass off.

Let the Re-evaluations begin

So we had our group meeting at school today. Teacher, Vice principal, Psychologist, Occupational Therapist, Student Liaison and Student Teacher. And me and Hambone. The meeting was much more productive than other similar meetings we have had, and ultimately we are optimistic.

The upshot is that we will begin evaluations for Hamslice within the MD public school system so his results will be normalized across the state. The evaluation is for fine motor and sensory issues, which will get to the root of what's really happening with his SPD. The OT at the school sort of poo pooed our other OT, after we had started poo pooing the SPD treatment we had received. The school's OT was more in line with our understanding of how to diagnose and manage SPD than the old OT. We liked that.

But it was the same kind of gang-up that we've grown accustomed to, where the group has papers to toss at us and a series of episodes that happened in class to blindside us with. We were ready with our papers to toss back at them and our questions right back. We are on to them.

His teacher was less than thrilled that Hamslice was trilling his lips and making noises during class time. She said his drawing and handwriting was juvenile. She also was trying to get a handle on his organizational system, which right now consists of having items scattered about every nook and cranny in the school. Pencils everywhere, papers everywhere. Aie yie yie. And she said he had just had a little spaz out THAT VERY DAY.

However, since the first day of school, Hamslice has had only two really bad episodes so Hambone and I were thinking this was a win for us.

Someday we will have a meeting where only good things are said about Hamslice. Someday.

Back to School, Back to Square One

This week was back to school for Hamslice. We had all hoped against hope that our new school, located in suburban utopia, would be some sort of smiling bubble zone that would embrace Hamslice whole heartedly that this friendliness would erase all of his [former] issues.

So, it was a bit of a wake up call when he was already punching kids by 1:30 pm on Day One. I suppose that the big move to the county was a way of Hambone and I drifting off into blissful denial that we still have a little guy with a very different brain.

To be fair to all involved, I did mention Hamslice's sensory issues on "meet your teacher" day, which was the day before school started. I talked to the teacher three separate times in the hopes she wouldn't forget. I also spoke to the music teacher and anyone else I could find.

Interestingly, they all did seem to forget my conversations (it was a pretty busy day, so I will give them the benefit of the doubt) and that led to a pretty bad set-up for Hamslice right off the bat. For instance, his classroom teacher forgot to let Hamslice bring "soft bunny" into class to provide a sensory break as needed. Instead she sat him in front of the window, where there were contractors jackhammering all day. It was so loud in the classroom that the teacher had to use a microphone to be heard over the noise.

Hamslice went right from that environment to music, to the cafeteria, and then to recess. Three humungously loud situations in a row. By the end of recess he was swinging fists.

So the teacher notified me by email, and I responded with a very professional, clinical sounding email that basically said, what did you expect after all that noise and tactile deprivation? I told her that Soft Bunny was coming again the next for Hamslice, and she would need to start using it. She wrote back and said the principal and vice principal disallowed Soft Bunny (nobody had even looked at it) and that he would receive a stress ball instead.  At this point I let it go. They will get to enjoy whatever consequences they create there.

After school, the vice principal pulled me aside and said we would need to have a conference about Hamslice and his special conditions. On Tuesday afternoon I get to face another gang up of Teacher, Vice Principal, Principal, Social Worker, Student Liaison and I would not at all be surprised to see the goddamn Janitor there. We will have been in school less than a week on Tuesday.

So now I am rereading all those vicious documents from the therapists from two years ago trying to develop a plan for my school negotiations. I am not entirely sure what I will ask for yet, but I will go in unafraid. And I will advocate for my son like the best lawyer in town. And he will thrive, if I have to have meetings with everyone in order for that to happen.

On a positive note, perhaps getting in early with the powers that be is a good thing. Maybe we can get out in front of it this year before everyone jumps to their own conclusions about him. The school's reputation is for responsiveness and accommodation, so maybe this is just that reputation playing out. Maybe my shell-shock is showing through.

More next week...

The House -- Before & After

I have seen that a lot of web sites are following the house progress, so I am posting some before/after photos. Please feel free to use the photos but do not share the URL of this blog. We are still moving in, so there is clutter here and there in the pictures. I'll update this later on when we are all set for prime time.

Kitchen Before

Kitchen After

3rd floor bedroom Before

3rd fl. bedroom After

House side After

House side Before

Foyer stairs Before

Foyer stairs After

Dining Room Before

Dining Room After

House front Before

After

The Big Move. Holy Moley

So the big news is that we now live in the country, and have divested ourselves of the city entirely. The last of our stuff arrived today, and we settle on the sale of the Federal Hill house on Friday or Monday.

Are we happy? Yes, we are thrilled. Did we have an organized and stress free move? Not on your life.

Here's how it went down:  I had carefully started boxing items in the house as I had time and was able to locate boxes. Therefore my Christmas decorations, old X-Box games and family photo albums were well labeled and organized for the move.

As the date of the move grew closer, it because increasingly unclear which date EXACTLY we would move, so we had a lot of trouble trying to figure out when to hire the movers.

One Friday night, Hambone said, "Let's try sleeping over night just to see how it is once." So we each packed a polite little bag with one pair of underpants, PJs and clothes for the next day.

On that Saturday, Hamslice woke up and declared that he was NOT GOING BACK TO FEDERAL HILL EVER AGAIN. And he was serious. When we went back to the city that evening he wouldn't get out of the truck. The city was dead to him.

Hambone looked at me, and I at him, as we slowly started unrolling big black trash bags. We then commenced feverishly packing everything we could put our hands on. We must have looked like we were running from the law we were packing so fast. Randomized bags of stuff started appearing in the kitchen. For example take these bags:

• Pens and extension cords as well as three board games and a tea kettle
• 5 blazers, a bag of dogfood and three frying pans
• Shoe shine kit, all of our spatulas, a book on child birth and three pillows

The house had these random bags leaning against the walls throughout the house. There are nearly 50 of them. Our glamorous moving company idea was reduced to Hambone sending "the guys" who are general laborers. Because they are not professional movers, even more chaos was added into the mix. No labels on any containers, giant piles of mismatched items heaped on the floor, lawn furniture in the living room, aie yie yie.

At one point, Hambone even enlisted our maid to pack stuff.

So that was the move. The other news is that the house is not quite done. For example, the light switches are all set to work from a computerized lighting control. However that computer system doesn't work yet, so no  light switches work. We also have intermittent HVAC on the second floor, where the HVAC guy says it's all set, but then the next day the thing is shut off at the safety valve.

Meanwhile we are trying to keep the Fed Hill house in "like new" condition, but one of "the guys" unplugged the storage freezer in the garage with 4 pounds of meat in it. Now the garage smells like the bowels of hell.

And now that the house is "done" Hambone is starting work on a massive patio and 5 car garage. So this has been a lot of hammering and concrete pouring and stuff.

But we are on the way out, back to a semblance of normalcy that we can see "just over the horizon" which I will say is a far cry better than "out there somewhere."