Day 4

Last night Joey went to be fairly decent. 4mg of melatonin, NO SODA, and he was asleep by 8pm. Only issue was his choice to sleep with mom on the couch and mom wasn't quite ready for bed at 7:30pm. Little brother Jon wanted to sleep with mom too so I managed to get both of them to settle down in the Living Room, turned off the lights and told them I'd join them later. By 8pm they were both snoring away :)

Both slept until about 6am so that was great too!!! Joey's all ready for school, an apple and half a bagel for breakfast and off we go! I hope he's as good at school today as he was at home yesterday afternoon seeing as there's no meds to help him.

Still have to decide if I want to give my intelligent child who chooses to not show his intelligence appropriately, a break from school by not deciding to send him to summer school OR send him for the whole thing which is 2hrs of Math (which he excels in so it would be fun and a good learning experience) and 2hrs of Reading (which he can use the help in though he's at an appropriate reading level for moving forward to 1st grade it's just the lowest you can be to move forward in this school). The kid has gone to school pretty much non-stop since the summer he turned 3yrs old.

Joshua my 5yr old passed his Kindergarten screening with flying colors. Getting ready for Kindergarten summer school is usually for kids who aren't quite 'there' yet but he's a really super shy kid so this might be a great help in transitioning him to the classroom and environment. Contemplating sending him just to get him out of the house!

Think Think Think!!!

The only person available at Children's today was the nurse practitioner and she was not comfortable doing anything so we're on hold with meds until the pediatrician comes back from vacation next week. Our family meeting is just 10 days away!!!!  On a good note he had a good day at school today, no phone calls at least!!

Day 3

NO MEDS TODAY!


Joey slept great last night with 4mg Melatonin in him. He would have slept later than he did if his brothers hadn't woken him (everyone) too early this morning (4am!!)


So far today, not quite 11:30am, and he's my normal Joey again. Motor mouth isn't running, he's not hopping all over the house or running all over the place. He's also not paying attention or listening well or keeping to the rules. The boundaries I placed outside are not being followed at all while they all were great with them Saturday and Sunday. The boys police each other but they follow Joey closely so if he wanders they will too.


Daddy didn't feed them breakfast (I tried to sleep in) and early lunch he had a cheese/mayo sandwich. But if you ask him he'll say he didn't have lunch! I just cleaned up lunch but he didn't have any, Oiy!


Well it's 7:20pm and he's had a very very good afternoon today. I get the feeling that all the hyperness from the past couple days wore him out. But, he also seemed to be trying hard to be good. While the morning was rough all afternoon was GREAT. He succeeded until the evening. He was back to his normal of wanting what he wants when he wants it and how he wants it or crying, temper tantrum and/or outright defiance pursues come 6pm.  


He ate a little better for dinner but not by much. Not much of an appetite I guess. I don't blame him, I don't have much of an appetite in 90 degree weather either. 


I really enjoyed him today though. He did so well following the rules. He was looking for constant validation of his good behavior too. He was often asking that he and Jack (his baby brother) were the best kids at the store or in the car etc... right?  So cute. 


Tomorrow I'll be calling the child developmental pediatrician for a new med...

Day 2

Last night was hell ROUGH. He didn't fall asleep until after midnight, a huge bowl of popcorn and cup of soda. I decided to try the soda as his mommy (me) and daddy are both reversely affected by caffeine, it relaxes us. I remember as a child not being able to fall asleep, going to the kitchen and pouring myself a little cup of Diet Pepsi. I'd go upstairs and fall right to sleep!  I don't know if it was coincidence for Joey or what but it worked. Diet Coke and 6mg of melatonin!!


He was bright eyed and bushy tailed at 6am this morning. I finally got up and gave him his dose of meds, in applesauce, at 7:20am. He ate some cereal and left over popcorn and before 8am was roaring to go outside to his friends house! He's now vacuuming the spilled left over popcorn off the couch and ottoman and watching Super Mario Bros on Netflix...


It's 9am and I got him to sit down and work on a Grade 1 workbook. He was printing some words when I noticed he wasn't writing his /u/ properly so he then did the /u/ sheet, finished the other sheet and asked if he could color. We found a rhyming sheet with -at and -et words and he did GREAT. He's reading much better than usual and worked those sheets with Joshua playing Wii and daddy picking up and vacuuming the house!! Attention is much better but now that he's taking a break he's demanding what he wants to do and throwing a temper tantrum when he can't have it. 


Around 11:30am he was helping me with the dishes when he stated that his heart hurt! I stayed calm and had him go lay down on my bed. I don't have a blood pressure cuff small enough for kids and don't know normal numbers anyway. I placed my hand over his heart and could feel everything going on, too many bumps/beats to count a pulse. I don't know if this is normal or not so best option I have is to take him up to the firestation which is 2 blocks from the house and have one of the paramedics check his pressure. Fireman Jeremy was happy to help out. Joey's pulse was 88 and his BP was 99/70 PERFECT. I don't know why his heart hurt but I know that it wasn't his pressure or rate. Maybe an irregular rate was occurring?  I will mention this to the pediatrician when I call. He also mentioned to me, and I don't recall if I wrote this yet or not, but that his head was hurting him yesterday. Like his whole brain was hurting. I'll be mentioning that as well though today he says his head is not hurting.


12:30pm I took him and his little brother Jon to the grocery store, he did a GREAT job.  Jonny wasn't so great and not interested in going to the next store so I took him and the groceries home and then Joey and I went to Michaels for some paint and stickers etc for finishing up his raingutter regatta for Tiger Scouts. The race is a week from today. He did an excellent job shopping with him but to be fair, shopping has never been an issue with him. We came home, had a late lunch and he is now in the little 12'x30" pool in our backyard. The biggest issues I have now is he is major motor mouth with no stopping and quite a bit more active in spite of his ability to concentrate better for longer periods. I'm pretty sure this isn't the right med for him but I'm more positive now than ever that he does indeed have ADHD!


He had some cereal for breakfast, not much. A hot dog on a bun, pickles and some chips/dip for lunch. He asked for two hot dogs but only ate one. He can have the other for dinner or he can have the grilled chicken I have marinating.

He didn't eat dinner, too busy playing outside with his friend. I'm so proud of him for being where he was supposed to be instead if two blocks over! He came home when I told him to. Got ready for bed. 4mg of melatonin and about 5oz of diet coke and he's sound asleep by 9pm!!!


Now the question is, knowing this is not the exact med for him, do I give it again tomorrow or give him nothing????

All about Joey

Joey was a trouble maker from 22 weeks gestation on. First he starts out by having an anterior placenta so I couldn't feel him move and kick like a "normal" pregnancy. Oh how difficult that was when he was my first successful pregnancy after 2 miscarriages. The Lovenox injections daily were working but why that darn placenta had to attach in that fashion I'll never know.

I was in nursing school and so stressed out about if I'd ever bring home a healthy baby that I was failing miserably, or so I thought. I couldn't take a test to save my life but I did so well I ended up getting a "B". I was however done with school. Couldn't take the stress of it all so I'll concentrate on my pregnancy and this little guy and go back l-a-t-e-r.

I kept working but WOW did I work with a bunch of selfish jerks. I usually couldn't get help with heavy lifting and I'm a go-getter so I'd do it myself. Ended up with an irritable uterus and a little spotting just to drive me nuts and take me to Labor and Delivery a couple times for observation.  Then at 30 weeks a growth ultrasound showed Joey was much smaller than they wanted to see so I'm out of work for the duration and on modified bedrest. I have to lay down twice a day on my left side for 2 hours to give him the optimum blood flow and do kick counts. Three times a week I went into the doctor for 2 non-stress tests and a biophysical profile with growth check.

I bought some preemie clothes for my soon to be "lucky to be 5pounds" baby boy... I went in on June 13, 2005 in the evening to be induced and I'll spare you the very long labor process but finally at 5:21pm on June 15, 2005 Joey came screaming into the world and into my arms. He was 6lbs 13oz and perfectly healthy.

He was physically advanced. He rolled late but was sitting unassisted at 3 months, crawled, scooted, walked the furniture and walked unassisted all earlier than "normal" As soon as he found his footing he was climbing to heights I'd have preferred he not reach! He was always into stuff and destructive (should have been my first sign).

He was late to talk. At about 18 months I started to worry that he didn't have the vocabulary he should have. He knew a couple words (never ma-ma, da-da, ball etc...), it would be strange words, but he kept it to a 5 word max. He'd learn a new word and one of his other words would be lost keeping it to 5 words only. So I talked to his pediatrician and he suggested we get an eval from Early Intervention. He started speech therapy just shy of his 2nd Birthday.

ST was only one hour every other week and didn't do a whole lot for him. He picked up a few things but to be honest I don't know if it was really the ST that did it or just was his time to pick it up. Anyway, just before his 3rd birthday he had his first IEP evaluation to determine services he'd get with the public school system.  While he was talking his articulation was horrible. So many sounds he didn't bother to say and instead used /d/ and /t/ in their place. His was like 25% to known people in a known context! They gave him ESY (extended school year) and he got like 6 week of transition classes over the summer. He transitioned into the classroom well and I was very thankful for that. He loved getting to ride the bus there and home again. School was going to be easy for this kid, no crying and screaming for mommy!!

September he started out in his Early Childhood classroom at our home school (Forest Park). He again transitioned well and behaved fairly well also. After a few rough patches and some quirks with his teacher he figured it all out and did well. Now I don't recall him doing ESY that following summer, probably a huge mistake. The following school year he was doing wonderfully. His vocabulary was finally age appropriate but his articulation and intelligibility was atrocious. He moved to a Speech impact class at Whittier and oh did he love this class room. It was taught by a ST who was also an elementary teacher. He was in more of a preschool classroom with a curriculum which focused on each child's speech needs. I really LOVED this teacher, she was awesome. He did great with her and by the end of the school year his articulation was a little better, his vocabulary was much better. However, I was able to get him accepted into a charter school in our system (it's a lottery process) and doing their kindergarten screening he was way behind so they recommended summer school, Getting ready for Kindergarten. Again his transition was wonderful. September he started Kindergarten with the WRONG teacher! She didn't know when she made all of her name plaques that we call him Joey when his legal name is James. He knew that James was a part of his name (we often call him Joey James) but he didn't take well to everything saying James and unknown people calling him James too. It was extremely stressful on him. He had an unnoticed and un-diagnosed (mild case) of PICA which this stress exacerbated. He was eating his clothes, plastic, crayons, glue, paper etc... After many requests by me and even a talk with the principal she finally in November changed his name plates to Joey. Too little too late. At October parent teacher conferences she says to me, "is THAT still a problem?"  Duh!!! OMG I wanted to slap the crap out of her!!

His speech therapist was wonderful, she immediately decided that 60mins a week was not enough and asked me if she could change his IEP to reflect 75mins a week instead. I could have kissed that woman! Of course it's OK!!

With his first report  progress card I knew I shouldn't have put him into Kindergarten as a young 5yr old. My friend Nikki who is an elementary teacher with a son the same age as mine told me it was not usually a good idea. Even as a teacher with a child excelling in academics, she was not putting her child in until he had a year more of maturity and growth. I should have listened to her! At the time I figured it was a good idea to get that education in there. How can more education hurt him right? I was WRONG!!

It was evident he was way too young, the maturity was NOT there. I wrote on the return envelope that I wanted a meeting with everyone who has contact with him, the school specialists, minus his special's teachers (gym, music, art). Apparently they don't actually read those envelopes (in spite of there being a line on there "if you want to set up a meeting to discuss or have comments about this report please write it on the back...") so it took until January until I finally got that meeting set up for February! By that time I was 99% sure I wanted him to repeat Kindergarten. The SIT meetings (student intervention something or the other) were for me to hear the experts (teacher, principal, special ed teacher, school psychologist) tell me why he should NOT repeat. At the same time I set up evaluations for him at Children's Hospital Child Development Center. I wanted to make sure we weren't missing anything, that there wasn't any ADD/ADHD or Autism spectrum, sensory, hearing etc...

The Psychiatrist was at first concerned about his attention but the speech pathologist and pediatrician thought it was much more normal little boy behavior.

To be continued...

Day 1

9:00am, Joey has his first dose of Metadate CD 10mg.


It's later than I wanted but my hubby let me sleep in. For some reason when I was ready to fall asleep last night, my 3 youngest decided it was time to get up! Yes at 4am I'm still up and kids are waking up.


Anyway, since this is the first day and I want to make sure that I keep track of how well these meds work I figured why not blog it. I write it down on a piece of paper and the kids will have it lost in no time flat.


So far, 9:20am and I don't see anything. This is a long acting, slow release, I hope it kicks in well within an hour so I can give it to him at 7am and he's ready to go come 8am and time for school to start.


It's a little after noon and he's more hyper than usual. He usually can watch TV 'quietly' but he's constantly up and down and he is literally bouncing when he walks and jumping when he's standing. I hope tomorrow is more 'normal' though I've got about 5 more hours of hyper child.


Around 3:20p I think he was coming down off the meds. I had a very weepy sensitive little boy who was NOT happy. That lasted about an hour the he seemed more normal but slightly calmer. He is wanting mommy attention. He's being very loving/clingy yet playing outside and following the rules! Following the rules is not normal at all. He's checking in regularly and patiently helping with dinner. He ate a decent dinner for him. He ate 1 1/2 Italian sausages. He's annoyingly talkative. LOTS to say and seeking validation for what he's saying.

It's now almost 8:30pm, 4mg of melatonin are in and have been nearly an hour and not a yawn in sight! He is NOT tired at all. 


He did tell me a little while ago that when we laid down earlier for a nap he had a headache :(  Like his whole brain hurt. I don't like that side effect at all.


On a side note I increased his melatonin last night. He was getting usually 2mg but has had 3mg without much difference. So 4mg last night worked GREAT. He did get up early in the evening to move to the couch but slept well after that.


Some history as to why we got to this point to follow...