Why Me Syndrome....

The past couple of weeks have been insane.  My husband and I traveled to our very last wedding.  You would think from this blog that I am a complete jetsetter, but we have had a summer filled with family events, and have been lucky enough to be able to enjoy them sans children (thank god for grandparents).  Of course the day before I left for my latest adventure (Glouchester, Massachusetts is gorgeous, for those of you who have never been), I picked the kids up from carpool and their teacher seemed very unhappy.  She told me Jake was having trouble controlling himself in class.  I asked if he was following the lead of some other children in class, but she said he was instigating.  Hard to believe.  Jake tends to be a follower, and there are some pretty awful kids in that room, but what could I say.  One emergency call to his head therapist, one email from his teacher detailing his indiscretions, and one flight to Massachusetts later, and I had Jill going to check on him while I lay at a beach house with twelve people and one shower!  Needless to say, I didn't even have time to warm my beach chair before I was fielding phone calls and emails from teachers and therapists alike.  Two out of three days of my vacation were spent trying to sort out what was going wrong in the boys' class.  Jacob is no angel, but after encountering indignation from all the therapists (GOD BLESS GOOD THERAPISTS) who swore there was noooooo way that was the same kid they worked with, it came to light that Jake had been given an inch in class and was taking twenty miles.  Our school is a little loose with discipline.  Without discipline, Jake is a wild man.  Add to that plenty of friends to get into trouble with, and you have a recipe for quite a pain in the ass.

Needless to say, I have been home for three days, and I am still dealing with it.  Jake has been getting better, but I have a feeling he would have to be perfect to get any credit at this point.  I should be thrilled.  He is being mischievious, but typical for an almost four-year-old.  It is just frustrating to know that he is capable of behaving, but is choosing not to.  It is also frustrating to wonder how much of it he maybe can't control.  I like to think he can, but I often ponder whether I traded one set of issues for another.  Will he now be labeled ADHD because the medicines that pulled him out of the cloud he was living in also make him hyper?  Maybe it isn't the medicines at all.  Maybe this is just what his problems morphed into.  I could go on all day.  I am filled with questions that have no answers. 

I decided it was time to tour another school.  Pre-K is next year, and Jake needs more structure.  He also needs to be around better children.  We have met some real winners at our current preschool, and Jake doesn't need the influence.  I went along with a friend to see a private school in our area.  Holy cow!  It is amazing what $14,000 will buy you in terms of early childhood education.  The school was brand new and high tech.  The children were so well behaved that it was like they were pumping drugs through the air.  I immediately thought that there would be no better place for my quiet kiddo, Dylan.  He would excel in this intellectual playground.  But then I thought about Jake.  The woman explained that there was a screening process to get in.  They only take average to above average children, and they tend not to want behavior issues.  No wonder the classrooms were so Stepford.  Not that my husband and I were looking to spend $28,000 on Pre-K, but it made me sad that a child as smart as Jake might not even be able to get into a school as incredible as this.  Walking with my friend (who also has twins), I knew she did not have the same concerns.  She didn't have to wonder whether her fabulous kids would be well-behaved enough to be accepted.  She didn't have to worry what the school nurse or classroom teacher would think about the medicines Jake would have to take before each meal and snack.  "Why me?" I wondered.  Why do I have to kill myself thinking about these things?  It affected the way I reacted to the boys when I picked them up.  Their teacher didn't walk them out, but Jake quickly admitted to getting put into time out during lunch.  I laid into him, more so than I would have on any other day.  I was still thinking "why me?", and I let it change the way I treated him.

Ever since I had the boys I have had to deal with one issue or another.  Stomach issues, immune issues, speech delays, behavioral issues, etc...  Clearly that is just part of being a parent, but I have had more than my fair share.  Strangely a psychic at a birthday party once told me that Jake would get past all of this crap and would become a CEO.  I keep the paper she wrote that on under my pillow.  On days like these I rub it a little and gain strength from believing it is true.  I may say "why me", but I also know that God only gives us what we can handle.  He must think I am one tough lady!  I guess I have to prove him right! 

Superwoman Vs. The Dentist

It has been a few days, and those days have been crazy as per usual.  On Monday morning, I woke up not feeling very well.  I was incredibly tired, dizzy, and if it wasn't for the fact that I dragged myself downstairs for a little bit to eat and drink, I probably would have been blacked out on the floor of my bathroom.  Call an ambulance...yeah right!  Go to the doctor...not happening!  As the room spun around me, what do you think I did?  If you answered made lunches, packed my kids backpacks, and started breakfast, you would be correct.  Even though I felt completely ill, the only thing I could think about was what would happen if someone else had to take care of my kids and I hadn't set everything up for them.  Jake takes a lot of his medicine in the morning.  Add to that the fact that my husband has never packed lunch for them, and it was water play day and they needed a change of clothes on top of everything else, and you have a recipe for one neurotic mom who needs to make sure things are done correctly.  It is amazing.  We take care of our children so well, but we don't take the time to take care of ourselves at all.  I am blaming my illness on the fact that I run around all day, definitely do not keep myself hydrated enough (I am guessing diet soda doesn't count), and don't sleep well to boot.  My diet is far, far, far from healthy.  I will try to make it to the doctor someday, but in that moment, I just had to play superwoman.  I had to drag myself up, do everything I could to make sure it was done right, wake my kids, give them breakfast, get them ready, and even take them to school.  Only then did I give myself permission to rest.  If I had asked my husband to help, he would have, but instead I played martyr.  It is something I have to stop doing.  Every once in a while, I have to recover from the insanity that is my life, and the non-stop joyride of thoughts that consume my brain.  I need to lay in bed, watch TV, and not think about things for a while.  It is ok to be sick and to turn the reigns over to someone else.  That is what family (and my big, fat notebook of instructions on how to care for my children) are there for.  Someday I am sure I will learn.

Speaking of taking better care of my children than myself, and also of the non-stop joyride of thoughts that consume my brain, today was the boys' first trip to the dentist.  In true superwoman fashion, I scoured every magazine my city publishes looking for the most kidtastic dentist I could find.  Jake's first haircut was something of a nightmare (let's just say we tipped the hairstylist $20 on a $25 haircut to make up for all the screaming).  I was having flashbacks and it wasn't pretty.  We chose a jungle themed office with DVDs and video games galore.  I dragged my husband out of work to accompany me.  There was no way I was doing this alone.  When we arrived, we were told that they would be taking the boys back without us.  Well, at least I wouldn't hear the chaos.  I sat in the waiting room barely breathing, heart pounding out of my chest, waiting to hear what had happened (or at least to catch Jakey as they tossed him out the door).  When the cleanings were done, they called us in to speak to the dentist.  Both children had behaved like perfect angels.  Ok, maybe Jake tried to bite the dentist's finger once or twice, but that was the worst of it, and that wasn't so bad.  I had survived the dentist, and now I could be at ease (at least for the next few hours).  I always expect the worst, but Jake surprises me sometimes.  Thank god he has a supermom, but even if I was just slightly above average, he would probably be ok.  Maybe Superwoman can hang up her cape every once in a while and learn to relax!  There is always tomorrow!  

Another Day, Another Change in Dosage...

Those of you who are just meeting me now should know that I don't normally behave like this.  Reading these posts would make you think I change Jake's medicines everyday.  The truth of the matter is that Jake's medicines and dosages had remained unchanged for almost a year before the experimental break we took from the Liquid Carnosine Plus and the Behavior Balance Liquid.  Since then we have been up and down a little more than usual, trying to find our way back to the behavior we had come to know and love (mostly).


As I said previously, Jake is doing really well.  Most people would never know there had ever been any doubt or worry about our sweet little boy.  I, being his mother, am a little more critical.  I see things that most people don't see, and I make myself nuts on his behalf (I can't wait to hold it over his head when he grows up).  :)


The things that make me itch to switch things up are the following: 

• The Flapping and Jumping- when Jake gets excited he mostly jumps, sometimes flaps, and sometimes just paces back and forth talking to himself.  When he does these things it is like he is not in control of his body.  You can see him struggle to get it together, and although he has gotten much better at getting a grip on it, it almost looks to me like he is fighting off a demon possession.  On days when it worse than others (and for some reason it is usually worse in the afternoon), it makes me desperate to figure out a way to stop it.
• The Messy Bowel Movements-  for a kid who is on digestive enzymes and a probiotic, you would think all we feed him is liquid.  We went through a phase (right when we started potty training) where his bowel movements were perfectly normal (thank god, because that first accident in his underpants would have traumatized me otherwise).  When we broke from his medicines for a little bit, things went south pretty fast.  Bringing the Behavior Balance Liquid back on board didn't help, but for some reason bringing in the Liquid Carnosine Plus improved matters a little bit (which is strange, since it is filled with stuff for the brain and not the bowels).  Right now, let's say that everything is just ok...not great, not awful...just ok.  I am always wondering how to make that better because I guess I equate healthy bowels with healthy behavior (especially since we are pretty sure Jake's issues are related to food sensitivities, hence the digestive enzymes, which were the first things to really work on him).
• The Drooling-  as I said, mystery solved, but I had to sacrifice half an ML of Liquid Carnosine Plus to improve that situation.  I am hoping that won't affect his behavior, but for god knows what reason, it may affect his poop.  Unreal how these things are all tied together!

Anyway, I guess if this is the worst of it, I should be thankful.  This, and the occasional fit of ridiculous silliness, should not have me pulling my hair out.  It does of course, but what can I do, it comes with being his mom.  Meanwhile his flapping may drive me nuts, but now I see kids who flap everywhere.  I am so hyper-aware of it!  There is actually a boy in his class who does it almost constantly, and I know this is wrong, but it makes me dance a little on the inside when I see it.  I am glad it makes Jake stand out less, and I am glad that I am probably not the only mom who wants to help her baby boy be still when he does it.

So now we are back up to three and a half MLs of Claritin before bed, and back down to one and a half MLs of Liquid Carnosine Plus in the morning.  He was doing well at these doses for a couple of weeks, and if it ain't broke, don't fix it!

Oh, and one more thing....the parking incident yesterday will be costing my insurance company $1380 plus five days of car rental for the woman whose car I hit!  And I thought supplements were expensive!!!

TGIF....or not!

Did you ever have one of those days?  I am in the middle of one!  Let's see...I was awoken by my house alarm seemingly resetting itself at 4:30 am.  It stopped, my husband and I went back to sleep, and then it did it again at 5:00.  Bleary eyed I crawled out of bed at 6:30 and managed to get the boys to school (lecturing them the whole way there about how to behave, and praying they would listen).  In the parking lot, as I was backing out, I hit the car next to me (the spaces are very narrow, and I have a big car).  I tried to adjust myself, but only managed to make it worse, dragging my bumper along the length of the car and leaving a HUGE scratch.  I left the scene because I thought it was my friend's car that I had hit.  I called her immediately, only to find out it wasn't her car after all!  Thankfully she left a note for me.  Sadly, this had happened to the owner of the car before, and she was none too happy about it.  After dealing with that, the kids came out to carpool.  Dylan had wet his pants.  This is a child with the vocabulary of a fifth grader, but god forbid he say "I have to go potty"!  On top of that, a friend of mine let me know that the class the boys are in is insane.  The teacher has very little control.  That doesn't bode well for Jake.  He can follow directions like a champ, but if he sees someone causing trouble, he loves to be right there with them, and god knows there is plenty of trouble in that group of kids for him to jump in on.  When Jake got in the car and I asked him how he had behaved today, he let me know that he had been fooling around with his friends.  Gee...thanks Jacob!  


So now I am exhausted.  I have to email their teacher to see how they were (as if I didn't know) because I may send Jake's behavioral therapist back in for a day to check on him.  I will clearly also have her spy for me to see if the room is in chaos, or if today was just a rough day.  


Meanwhile, I am second guessing medicine again, but I have managed to solve a mystery.  Jake used to drool A LOT.  When we took him off of the Behavior Balance Liquid and the Liquid Carnosine plus, it stopped.  Clearly it was one of the two, but I still wasn't sure which one.  Jake went back on the Behavior Balance Liquid first, but there was no drooling.  Then I added the Liquid Carnosine Plus in again at a lower dose, but still no drooling.  I upped the dose two days ago, and voila, drool city.  Lots of jumping and flapping too.  I hate to bump it down again (he had been doing really well at this dose previously, and I was hoping it would make his bowel movements more firm...gross...I know), but it might be worth lowering the dose.  If it will calm him down and stop the waterworks, I may need to go for it.

Three Rough Days

Jake is in preschool without any assistance.  He used to have an amazing behavioral therapist who spent two hours, three days a week at school with him.  That was a wonderful, but expensive luxury.  I always knew exactly how he had behaved, and I knew she would stay on top of him if he couldn't make the right choices on his own.  You would think I would have been thrilled when I was told he didn't need her anymore, but no, not me.  I loved having someone to guide him in the right direction, and report to me just how much guidance he needed (or didn't, as the case may be).  So here we are, support free, save for the OT who sees him twice a week for a half hour.

Of course during this transition I also made the mistake of playing with his medicine.  I forgot to give him his Liquid Carnosine and Behavior Balance after one long morning, and my husband thought it would be a good time to see if he could go without them and still be ok.  He was, for a couple of weeks, but then his jumping and flapping got worse (a symptom I cannot seem to make a dent in, although it is better some days than others, even if there are no changes in anything else).  He also started having diarrhea again (an issue he has had since his other symptoms started, but that had gotten much better).  Needless to say, he was slowly put back on.  I started with just the Behavior Balance Liquid, and a couple of weeks ago added back the Liquid Carnosine at a smaller dose.  Then, just as I was doing that, I went out of town for a wedding.  It was a six day trip that was a much needed vacation, but couldn't have come at a worse time.

He had already been in school for two weeks and was doing pretty well for the most part.  I came back from the wedding in time to take him straight to school for the first day of week three.  I knew he hadn't been perfect while I was gone, but I had high hopes that it was just because I was out of town.  Well, so much for that.  For the past three days he has been a wild animal in class.  The teacher makes it sound like he is hyper all the time.  Today, apparently, he was running around and throwing things.  This may be typical three-year-old behavior, but it sets me into panic mode.  I start making myself crazy and second guessing all the medicines and doses.  This morning, in response to the first two days of chaos, I put the Liquid Carnosine back up to where it was (two MLs instead of the one and a half MLs I have been giving him for the past couple of weeks).  Last night, I brought his Children's Claritin dose down to three MLs as opposed to the three and a half MLs he normally gets.  Clearly, since we are on rough day number three, none of it helped.  Not only was he still misbehaving in class, but he was ultra-sensitive, and has been rubbing his nose all day.  To top it all off, where I thought taking down the Claritin would soothe the jumping and flapping that has been cropping up pretty badly in the afternoons and evenings, today he was doing it when he got home from school!  This is where managing this on my own becomes a nightmare.  When he has bad days, I feel like it is my fault.  I work so hard to make sure he is at his best, that getting a bad report from his teacher is like a punch to the stomach.  On the other hand, I know I am responsible for bringing him as far as I have, but sometimes that is hard to keep in mind.

What Led me Here

In December 2005 I welcomed my twin boys.  Dylan did everything first, but Jake always seemed to catch up.  He was a happy kid who had a huge smile in every picture taken of him.  Shortly after the boys had their first birthday, Jake began to withdraw.  He had been saying a few words, but those seemed to disappear.  He had tantrums and never seemed to want to be loved or held, or even be around people.  His days were filled with frustration from him and for me.  When the boys were eighteen months old (and Dylan was speaking in complete sentences while Jake remained silent), we took Jake to a developmental pediatrician.  She felt he showed signs of PDD and would most likely be high functioning autistic.  That was unacceptable to me.  He had been a bright and happy baby, and I was determined to get that baby back.  After tons of research, and a little more Jenny McCarthy than I care to admit, I settled on a regiment of natural supplements that includes digestive enzymes at every meal and snack, Coromega, Liquid Carnosine Plus, Behavior Balance DMG Liquid, Nutrimax liquid vitamins, Primal Defense Kids, and a little Children's Claritin thrown in for good measure.  It is a lot to think about on a daily basis, and although we still have our ups and downs, Jake is now three and a half and doing pretty well.  He is cheerful, social, and playful.  He and his brother are best friends, and he is an absolute goofball.  I still tweak his medicines every once in a while (which can be hard as I haven't found a doctor who knows enough to guide me in what I should be adjusting or giving him), but I wanted to put up this blog to see what other parents are doing in my situation, and what or who has helped them.