ups and downs

Ups

-We are having some success with medication (do I still need to give the usual speech about how I never imagined putting my child on meds like this. . .?). He takes a few but the one that has helped is Strattera. The neurologist said that it only seems to help about 50% of her patients who try it. It helps Sam mellow out a bit. Before Strattera he was so overstimulated and uncomfortable in his own skin then he was jumping up and down constantly, flapping wildly, vocalizing in a high pitched scream and running back and forth like a wild man. His behaviors are still difficult but the absolute frantic mode in which he used to operate has been brought down a notch. He is also sleeping better. Most of the time if he wakes up, I can take him to the bathroom and then put him back to bed. He still has 4 am mornings sometimes though.

-Sam will likely get a significant increase in his home support hours from the district at his next IEP meeting. I sent in a couple of carefully worded letters and documented, through notes and videos, Sam's dangerous behaviors.

-the baby is smiling and "chatting" with me every chance she gets.

downs

-Sam continues to obsessively destroy our books. He empties the shelves multple times a day and throws the books around the house. He has no alternate interests so diverting him is impossible. He sometimes take a break from throwing the books to chew them. The behaviorists are getting on my nerves because they keep offering suggestions that don't work. They say make him pick them up. We have been dealing with throwing for years and we have tried that. It doesn't work. It has NO effect on whether he will throw again. In the classroom they have determined that making him "pick up" doesn't work so why do the same group of people keep telling me to do that at home?

-Sam has done a few things lately that have hurt Maya. He has knocked her off a chair, pinched her arm until he left a mark, yanked her arms really hard and made her cry- to list a few. His concept of "other" is limited so he doesn't understand he might hurt her.

- I am feeling the effects of fatigue from the past few months. I cannot remember that last time I had more than 3-4 hours of sleep. It was hard to sleep during the 3rd trimester but with the addtion of the broken arm it became nearly impossible. Now the arm is getting better but I have a nursing baby who does not sleep through the night. Often both of the older children need to go to the bathroom during the night and they both need help. I went back to work when the baby was just about 7weeks old. It is too much. I feel stupid saying that considering what is going on in the world but I am just barely functioning. The combination of nursing all night, getting up at 5:15 to get all the lunches ready, get dressed, nurse again and get the girls out the door by 7, then teaching ( and trying not to leak milk in front of the students and trying to find time to pump), then coming home to manage Sam and various therapies and the house and to worry over Mark's massive financial issues that never seem to improve - too much. I am forgetting things, dropping things and by the time I put the kids to bed my vision is blurry. I am hoping that summer break brings some relief.