The Stigma

I haven't said much about it on the blog because I'm fully aware of the stigma.  Before it was my own child, I used to think, "Why can't those parents control their child better than that?"  I was judgemental.  Now it's me.

I have decided, in an effort to help family and friends understand what's going on, I should include this on my blog.  After all, that's why this blog was started almost 6 years ago.

David started out with some developmental delays.  He was late walking and late talking.  He banged his head a lot.  Lots of people suggested a certain disorder without coming right out & saying it.  We resisted.  He did not have the hallmark signs of that.  We did speech therapy and slowly he started talking and suddenly he started walking.

By the age of 5, I was beginning to realize that once again, there was something different.  David just didn't seem to function the same as other kids his age.  Although extremely smart, he did not do well in a group setting like Sunday school and our home school co-op classes.

We home schooled Kindergarten and again he proved very smart.  When I discovered he was left handed, we made some adjustments and fine motor skills improved.  We still didn't want to label him, so "off the books" we had my sister-in-law test him for ADHD, although she was skeptical.  But we had seen more, and the test showed a high likelihood that he had the disorder.

We changed our diet, avoiding artificial colors, artificial flavors, and certain preservatives.  We joined the Feingold Association and learned a lot about all natural & whole foods.  I need to re-read all of their information again and make sure I haven't let anything slip back into our diet, too.  We tried several homeopathic remedies to help with the ADHD.

In the spring of this year, things started getting worse again.  By summer, we finally decided it was time to talk to the pediatrician about it and consider using medication.  We did another test which showed an even stronger likelihood of ADHD and ODD.   The day we went to the doctor with our test results in hand, I was in tears.  It had gotten that bad.  It is not just a problem with attention-span and hyperactivity.  It's much more complex.

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, is a developmental disorder of self-control.  It consists of problems with attention span, impulse control and activity level.  But, as you will discover here, it is much more.  These problems are reflected in impairment in a child's will, or capacity, to control his own behavior relative to the passage of time - to keep future goals and consequences in mind.  It is not, as other books will tell you, just a matter of being inattentive and overactive.  It is not just a temporary state that will be outgrown, a trying but normal phase of childhood.  It is not caused by parental failure to discipline or control the child, and is not a sign of some sort of inherent "badness" in the child.  ADHD is real - a real disorder, a real problem, and often a real obstacle.  It can be heartbreaking and nerve-wracking.

Quote from the book, Taking Charge of ADHD: The Complete, Authoritative Guide for Parents (Revised Edition) by Russell A. Barkley, PhD, also referenced below.

The first week, we started on a low dose of a stimulant medication in the morning and saw an improvement in David's behavior for 6 hours after taking it.  The next week, we added a low dose of a non-stimulant medication in the afternoon, which has now been increased twice.  He does better most of the day with random episodes of anger and defiance.  Sitting through an almost 2-hour church service today was a stretch of his capacity, though. (The same could be said of adults also, but at least we have the ability to control how we act about it!)


I am reading this book to help me understand ADHD and how to handle him because the "normal stuff" just doesn't work with him.  Taking Charge of ADHD: The Complete, Authoritative Guide for Parents (Revised Edition) has been a huge eye-opener and help to me in the last few weeks.  We have implemented a token system for rewards and consequences, which seems to be working with him better than other discipline we've tried.  We'll also be trying some other ideas from the book.

Here's something I read today that I wanted to share about the nature of ADHD.  I'm on the chapter about the possible causes.  Remember that I mentioned before that it's not just a problem with attention-span and hyperactivity.  A study in Denmark had the following findings:

...ADHD children had less blood flow to the frontal area (of the brain), particularly in the caudate nucleus - an important structure in the pathway between the most frontal portion of the brain and the structures in the middle of the brain known as the limbic system.  The caudate nucleus is made up of several bundles of nerve fibers, one region of which is known as the straitum.  This region is important in inhibiting behavior and sustaining attention.  The limbic system, to which it is connected is responsible for a variety of human activities, chief among which are controlling emotions, motivation, and memory.

Other studies have shown lower brain activity in the frontal area of the brain in cases of ADHD across the board - in children, adolescents, and adults.

I hope that by starting to share some of our journey here, more people will be able to understand what it's really like and not just have the judgemental attitude I held for so long.

Dancing again!

After the sonogram yesterday, we headed out in search of shoes!  Elizabeth is starting her little dance class on Monday and still needed some ballet shoes, and David has outgrown everything but his flip flops!  We made good use of the Payless BOGO sale!

Of course, when we got home, Elizabeth had to try on her ballet slippers again and try them out.  Prepare to be amazed by the cuteness....  : )

Shoes alone, would not have been appropriate - she had to put together an ensemble!  She's watching the Baby Ballet DVD that I got from Amazon using my Swagbucks!  : )

Hopefully these videos will work; I was having some problems uploading them...

Drumroll please.....

Something about this reminds me of Rebekah already!

In the last few weeks, I've boxed up some boy clothes that David has outgrown.  I wasn't sure if I needed to cart them up to the attic or to sell/Goodwill them.  Had the same dilemma with the clothes Rebekah is outgrowing.  Now we know.

The boy clothes will be needing a new home and the baby girl stuff is going back into the attic for a few more months.

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

Elizabeth & Aunt Jana at Chris & Kendall's Wedding

The Grass is Always Greener

Apparently the grass is greener on the other side of the tire, too!

Stupid Goat, as we really do call her, was totally and completely stuck. Her little horns would catch every time she tried to pull her head out. I flipped the tire up and tried to help her, although she was fighting against me the whole time. The spiritual parallels are great, aren't they? I am so thankful we have such a patient God!

August ONE

One of the blogs I enjoy reading has started taking pictures of her kids on the first day of the month. I like that idea. I don't know if I will remember every month, but I did today.

David had a rough day today. We hope to get this medication thing figured out... soon. He will be starting First Grade this month.

Elizabeth had a happy day today, as she does most days. She asked this evening if she could start school... right now!

Rebekah is officially walking, though she doesn't consider herself too good to crawl if she wants to get there really fast. She will be 16 months old this week and she reminded me of Grandma today with her straight hair and baby gap between her teeth.

Twins!!!

I know how fast the human brain works. : ) So let me say right off the bat - this post has nothing to do with my upcoming sonogram.

A couple of day ago, I collected this jumbo sized egg!!! That's a typical egg on the left. I was suspicious of what might be inside, so I made sure to crack it first and I was right...

Double yolks! Twins!!

There are the twins in the upper right, slightly smaller than the other yolks from the smaller eggs.

They were thoroughly enjoyed!

The Graby Baby

Last week, I thought Rebekah looked so cute when she climbed up in the chair at Dad's desk and put her hands in the right places. We put a password on the computer so she wouldn't really do anything and let her have fun.

Today, the office door was closed and she was in the living room. While I was reheating pancakes, she managed to get into the office and completely clean off Dad's desk. His paperwork trays, his books, even his desk drawer - all scattered about the floor.

Then we went shopping for a gate wide enough to span the double doors into the office. She was not thrilled.

She was crying about not being able to get in here:

Then she decided maybe she could have fun with it after all.

So far, the gate is working... Now if I could just keep her out of the Legos and the cabinets, and off the table & chairs (which I have to do at least once every 30 minutes she's awake). This is one of the reasons I haven't been blogging much lately!

Getting Ready for First Grade!

I think I just about have it all together... and I'm anxious to start! Seems like I hear that a lot for my homeschooling friends who have younger children. The ones with the teenagers, however, would like to stretch summer out just a little bit longer!

Last year, we used Sonlight Kindergarten and really loved it. I would have been happy to use it again, but I thought since we are still new to homeschooling maybe I should see what else is available.

This year I used What Your First Grader Needs to Know and Sonlight's catalog to assemble my pieces. We will be using:

• Leading Little Ones to God - Suggested in Sonlight 1, for Bible/Devotions. I'll also be getting our memory verses out of the lessons.
• Handwriting Without Tears: My Printing Book
• Math-U-See: Alpha - Some of this we covered with Singapore Math last year, but this will be our first time using manipulatives.
• Continuing to use starfall.com, to finish sections 3 & 4. Then I am considering Explode the Code Online.
• Reading lots of the books that are used in Sonlight 1 and that were recommended in What Your First Grader Needs to Know, most of which will be borrowed from the library. (Those are the ones that we own already.)
• Beginning Spanish lessons from homeschoolshare.com with a little pronunciation help from our tutor, my best friend & former Spanish teacher.
  
• Art & Music - hands-on art & listening to/learning some new songs, playing with & making some instruments
• Apologia's Discovering Creation with Astronomy for science. That book arrived in the mail today & David spent about an hour pouring over it, asking questions about the pictures. I can hardly wait to get into that one, too!
• We're trying History Pockets: Ancient Civilizations & will probably add more books to go along with that. After that we'll do some Geography lessons.
  

Sounds like a lot (to me!), but I've made a schedule and broken our day into 2 school blocks. We'll try the new schedule for a while & see how it works and change it up if necessary.

Elizabeth will also be adding to a preschool notebook again this year and she is already looking forward to her school work!

Homemade Grape Jelly

Well, it took me all week, but I finally got it done! Isn't the color gorgeous?!?!

I picked mustang grapes off Grana's driveway fence last Saturday. Sunday, I started cooking them into juice. My pan wasn't big enough for all of them, so Monday I did another batch. I was working in the evening when it wasn't so hot. Then I started straining it to get out as much pulp as possible. Tuesday I got all set up to start the jelly. Still straining the juice, pans ready to go with my first 5 cups of juice, when I realized my bag of sugar only had about 2 cups in it. One batch takes 7 cups of sugar. Planned on getting some sugar when we went to half price burger night with Grandpa, but forgot my wallet. Wednesday, finally got the sugar and Wednesday night set to work on those beautiful jars! That's 2 batches of jelly and 1 batch of juice concentrate. We're also drinking some of the juice this week in my berry juice blend - grape, blueberry, pomegranate, cranberry.

Meanwhile, Rebekah feels that it's her job to take everything out of the cabinets and drawers and put it back somewhere else. Looks like fun, doesn't it? Now where did she hide those cabinet locks I need to install...

(BTW - She is the first child I've had who pulls everything out of the cabinets!)