A Smeddling Kiss

In Which We Love the Big Apple and Things are Generally Swell.

Sometimes, no news *is* good news. The last month has not been unproblematic, thanks to the Annual Bronchitis, but has overall been pretty **** skippy.

Peanut has been having a good spell, an even keel, a righteous time. It has been... more than pleasant. We attribute this to his stellar teaching staff and the current drug combination of non-stimulant ADHD meds (2 mg Intuniv to ward off the OCD and tics) and short-acting stimulant ADHD meds (2.5 mg Focalin to get him through the beginning of the school day but wear off early enough to cause no insomnia.) Knock on wood, it's a good regimen. It won't last forever, but for now it's terrific.

We just spent 3 nights in New York city, courtesy of April vacation from school. We enjoyed the American Museum of Natural History, FAO Schwartz, Central Park, Times Square, several restaurants and a Broadway show ("Anything Goes.") It was just us, the city... and FOUR HUNDRED THOUSAND BILLION KAJILLION other families. Helllllllooooo, spring break!

We are home now, after an easy 4.5 hours drive home. And no, I'm actually NOT being facetious for once - the kids were great on this trip. There were small meltdowns and such, but for the most part they were amazing. When we walked into Toys R Us in Times Square and saw the line for the indoor ferris wheel filled with hundreds of cranky families, we led Peanut through the store to see everything and then told him it wasn't going to happen. He was unhappy, we talked about it, and then... POOF! We negotiated an acceptable settlement (candy) and we were done. And Pepper? She just grimaced and went along with it. I might not love the eye rolling, but I love the maturity that brings the innate understanding that she will get a chance to do what she wants to do, if at all possible. 

It sounds like such a normal thing, doesn't it? And yet the past 7+ years have been spent strategically avoiding situations that might trigger a meltdown. It was so hard. I can type that and read it and FEEL it, but I don't know if I can express it in a way that a casual reader will understand the import of that sentence.

It was SO HARD. And I'll be honest - it was one child that was hard, for the most part, and his needs have shaped this family.  I'm not foolish enough to think that it is all going to be easy from this point on.

But I have share this with anyone who still pokes around on this blog: it is so much better.

In Which I Try to Catch Up

So.

Yeah.

Hmmm.

Not sure where to begin, after so long away from the keyboard.

The holidays were good, and tough, and then blessedly over.

December was hard for Peanut.  After discussing the possibility for over 6 months, we decided to try a SSRI medication to try to alleviate some of his anxiety. We ended up trying two different medications, and unfortunately he could not tolerate them. And by "couldn't tolerate," I mean became activated within a day of the first dosing.

On the first day of the first 1/2 tablet of the lowest dosage of the first medication, he perked up. On the second day he was in a good mood and couldn't sleep until after midnight. By the third day, he was not-quite manic and didn't get to sleep until 2 a.m., and so we stopped the medicine.  

He crashed coming off that medication - was sad and depressed and angry and it was awful to see, and so we tried him on a different medicine with an oral solution that we could micro-dose him with. It seemed promising, and we kept him on a teeny tiny dose for 2 weeks. (The standard dose is 5 ml and we were giving him 10 - 20% of that.)

I found myself keeping copious notes: "12/11/10: .8ml, itchy skin, mostly happy, some frustrated tears. Very talkative, hyper physically in the evening. Gave extra melatonin as first dose seemed to have little effect. Slept 11:15 - 7:45."

We dropped the dosage: "12/14/10: .4 ml, tired, lots of stop/start sentences, distracted. Bad day at school, cranky, disrespectful to teacher. Slept 10 - 8."

We upped the dosage: 12/16/10: 8 ml. Better day - cranky at times but quick recovery. Fresh mouth and quick to offend but also very affectionate and giggly. Slept 9:45 - 6:45."

Christmas approached. Snowstorms and snow days and school parties and holiday activities, yadda yadda yadda. Moods are elevated and nothing is normal with the Big Day hanging over us. Christmas Eve arrived, and we were all set for the dramatic morning reveal and the big dinner with relatives.

The four of us were sitting around in the living room, watching tv and reading. Out of nowhere, Peanut casually said, "I don't know why, but sometimes? I look all calm on the outside, but inside I'm thinking about killing myself." 

Pepper was sitting next to him and looked at me for reassurance, and in the meantime, Dr. V. had been reading the paper and was tuned out and had missed it. You know how, in dreams, you sometimes fall for a sickeningly long time and then THUD! You wake up and you are in your bed and fine? That's what it felt like, except the swirly anxiety is still in me, a month and a half later. I feel like that all the time now. It's awful.

Peanut and I talked about it for a few minutes, but then he was sick of the subject and wanted to go play on the Wii, like we'd been talking about what to eat for dinner instead of his disturbing visions of stabbing himself.  It is one thing to understand that suicidal ideation is a known side effect of SSRI medication. It is another thing to have to calmly talk to your 8 year old about what he is seeing in his head when all you want to do is scream and cry at the wrongness of it.

Fast forward to now. He is off all medications except his non-stimulant ADHD medication. He is not the happiest kid on the block, but neither has he been thinking about harming himself. Those thoughts have receded, and while I miss the cheerful, sparkly boy we saw while on the medication, it isn't an option for him. We have started meeting weekly with a new therapist. School reports are the same - not real happy at school but no major outbursts, either. Life moves on.

Pepper has been pretty good through all of this. She has her own issues, but they are more mainstream and tweenish. She got braces last month, which she hates. She loves playing basketball but dislikes her team and her coach and especially all the losing. I keep telling her that life moves on and I struggle with being kind when I say she needs to get over it. I mouth platitudes like, "Each day that the braces are on is a day closer to getting them off," but the truth is that she pushes all my buttons with her negative attitude and it is a struggle to stay positive around her sometimes. I get fed up too easily and snap back, and that adds to the swirly anxiety in my head and makes us both unhappy.

She tried out for a big play and got called back, which I kept trying to tell her was great in and of itself. There were over 120 kids who tried out and only 18 got called back. Unfortunately, she then proceeded to stand up on stage at call backs looking like she had eaten something awful because she was so nervous. As soon as she finished singing, she turned to me in the audience and shook her head sorrowfully, and I thought, "Good God, child! FAKE IT! You are supposed to be acting up there - ACT HAPPY! Act like a kid the director wants to be around for the next 4 months!"

But, alas, she has No Filter, and my big fake smile from the audience was not enough to get my message across. Lots of drama when she didn't get cast, but she seems over it now. She's snippy and teary and by turns sweet and sour. I think we are okay, though. I hope so.

In the meantime, life goes on. We took a little family trip to NH this past weekend and stayed at a place with an indoor water park, so it was a mostly happy time. Peanut's fear of water miraculously went away when confronted by this:

There was, of course, the traditional First Ski Lesson Trauma, where a child falls getting off the magic carpet lift and other beginners crash into them and then they flail around on the ground crying, "I WANT TO GO HOME! I HATE SKIING!" and all the other parents smile because they are relieved it isn't their kid acting like that this time. Whatever. 

Now it is February, which is like the Monday of the year. Time to get back into the swing of things, buckle down, and focus on what lies ahead. But first, more coffee.

(Reading back through this feels like I plucked just 2 or 3 colorful fish out of an aquarium teeming with life to share with you, but I hope to show you more of my fish soon.)

(I'm not trying to coin a euphemism, there - I just mean I hope to blog more regularly.)

(Wow, I am really out of practice with this blogging stuff.)

In Which I Am Happy, Busy, Crazy, Etc.

Summer so far has been feast or famine.  Either too little stimulation for the kids or too much for all of us, although it's been enjoyable.  Last weekend we had our first party of the summer where dozens of people crowded onto to the newly reinforced deck... and no one died! Yay, us!

It's a little embarrassing to drive up to your own house 3 days after a party and realize that there are still juice boxes and water bottles littering the yard because the dozen kids you had running around like lunatics in the dark just dropped EVERYTHING where they felt like it, but whatevs. It's summer, you know?

Today is a typical example - Peanut is still in his underwear and probably won't put on clothing until tomorrow. Pepper is draped across the couch moaning that she doesn't feel well, and when I suggest that a break in the "Harry Potter" movie marathon she's been glued to might be in order? Well, she reacts exactly as if I have just poked her with a pointy stick.

One of the unexpected pleasures of the 4th of July holiday was having my nephew come stay with us for the weekend.  He is 16, has Asperger's Syndrome, and is taking summer classes at Harvard. Differential Equations and some other mathematical gobbledygook class, for which he will receive full college credit. Which he hopes to transfer to MIT, because that is where he would like to go, 'cause the boy? S.M.A.R.T. The best thing about the weekend was how relaxed and happy he seemed. He'll never be a terribly social animal, but he seemed to enjoy himself with all of our other party guests and it was nice to see him so non-stressed. Usually I only get to see him a few days a year when we visit family in PA, so being able to sit and talk was great.

The kids have been taking little day camps here and there, but we aren't heavily scheduled for the rest of the month. It feels nice, now that the 4th is over, to just wake up and say to the kids, "What should we do today?" So far, we've been out to eat several times, played with the sprinkler, built a model of the solar system, painted with food-colored ice cubes, built a million LEGO contraptions, and read several of the Lemony Snicket books. So far, so good.

In Which My Son Proposes to Me Again.

"Happy Day Before the Day Before the Day Before Mother's Day!"

"Why, thank you. Every day is really Mother's Day for me, you know."

"I want to marry you! Then I'd be your step-son!"

"Nope, that's not how it works."

"Well, what do you call it, then?"

"Illegal, sweetie." 

Getting Kinky in Our Nation's Capitol

We took the kids down to DC for a few days last week.  Pepper has been working on a research paper about Abraham Lincoln all year and Peanut is crazy obsessed about all sorts of facts and figures about US history. We figured they were finally old enough to remember some of the national treasures they would be exposed to. What we didn't count on them being exposed to was the casual bedroom kink that is apparently the norm in our nation's capital.

Let me first explain that the handcuffs were NOT MY IDEA. In fact, when I reunited with my little nuclear unit after they'd spent the morning at the Spy Museum without me, I was slightly appalled at the items Their Father approved for purchase at the gift shop. I would have okayed a spy camera, or periscope pen, or some such non-weaponry gadget, but handcuffs? My first thought when the kids excitedly pulled out their matching pairs was, "Oh, dear Lord. That is SUCH a DAD purchase." Of course it's a sweeping generalization, but there are just some things moms would think twice about purchasing, and I dare say dual sets of handcuffs, despite the safety levers supposedly preventing them from truly locking, would be such an item.  

In the 10 seconds it took for the kids to open up the boxes and demonstrate for me their new souvenirs, I wondered how long it would take for the EMTs to cut Peanut loose from the Metro train handrail when he accidentally jammed the lock on those suckers. Would we cause a giant commuting nightmare? "Orange line train service was interrupted today thanks to a freak accident...." The image of Pepper's tear-streaked face peeking out from behind a serious and concerned accentless field reporter flashed through my brain, and I pictured the pub stool sitters watching the news segment on the plasmas lined up in the bar shaking their heads and debating the parental fitness of those who would purchase such things for their cherubs.

I rolled my eyes at Dr. V., signed dramatically, and confiscated the keys immediately. Then we headed off to yet another museum, and back at the hotel that night I was proven correct in my assessment that the cheap things were a DAD purchase after I had to jam a fork into one pair to release the "non-locking" lever which had - DUHHH!!!! - become stuck.

We spent our last day out in the suburbs with wonderful old friends who we don't get to see nearly often enough. The children got along well, the dinner was terrific, and it was a wonderful wrap-up to our 5-night trip. When we got back to the hotel, the room had been tidied up by housekeeping.  (I should mention that we like to stay in hotels with kitchenettes (due to the food allergies) and multiple bedrooms when not too exorbitantly expensive, and I'd found us a sweet deal at a Residence Inn.  We had two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a pull-out sofa in the living room and a full kitchen, and it was awesome to have so much space for a fairly long visit.)

I mention the layout because I distinctly remembered piling all the various toys and gift shop crapola on a coffee table in the living room, including at least one set of the handcuffs, so when I stepped into the master bedroom, I burst into laughter at the sight of one shiny set of handcuffs carefully arranged on each nightstand. 

Thank you, housekeeping, for confirming my suspicion about the special kind of people our nation's capital attracts!