Splat Goes Life.

Sometimes I really hate when my kids say that. In this case, I just jinxed myself. Yesterday, I was thinking to myself while cleaning that maybe this is the school year when my kiddo is going to make a real turn-around. He has had his really rough moments- locking his teacher out of her classroom, slamming the door in her face, calling her an "Onion Head"... the usual things we've grown accustomed to. :( But then there have been really great moments, like him being a real leader in a group of students. There have been instances of other boys (some of them new friends) coming up to him to ask about a particular game that is popular among their age group. Moments when the teacher pulled Jack out of class to tell him just how impressed she is with him. Jack made up with the boy he didn't like, he has had a better experience (so far) with the bus driver.. his number one enemy here is himself. Yesterday, he left his classroom because he was getting upset. This is t...

So, our summer was.. decent, for the most part. We kept Jack on the same medication and dosage that he'd been on since before school started. As expected, there wasn't any reason to change it. In fact, I wanted to lower it, but whatever.. There were only a few incidents that I would consider "blow ups", one of them having to do with a discussion on behavior this coming school year. I think another had to do with a problem at a neighbor's house, and then another probably was just an off week for him I half expected our summer to be taken up with boys running in and out of my house all day long. First off, thank God that's not what happened. Second, I feel bad for Jack because I imagine that's how he expected it to go, too. One boy apparently told the others "let's get Jack to make fun of himself". Of course Jack didn't want to play with him after that. Another boy was just too damn bossy, and Jack told him as much. He never came ba...

I wasn't sure how things would end up by summer vacation.. they weren't good, but at least we got through it. Jack ended the year with 1's on all "characteristics of a successful learner". (A 3 is the best). I think he may have gotten a 2 for organization, but that's probably a stretch. The teacher didn't actually see much of him this last "quarter", because Jack spent most of his time in the Intervention room. We're due to go back to the University clinic on the 20th, and Jack's dad and I are pretty certain this Elavil is worthless. We have zero interest in him continuing on it, given the fact that his behavior is ALWAYS (95%+ of the time) worse at school. He doesn't care to learn, doesn't care to make friends, doesn't care to be nice. He would rather live in a dream world, where his stuffed friend Pika is actually alive and his bestest buddy. The fact that we're seeing a specialist (that we're thankfully not payi...

Like when you go to a Summer Resources night for parents of kids with Special Needs, and have a moment with the Special Ed director- who seems to have different information than I do. She mentioned that Jack had a really challenging time when a male Sub came in for the Intervention Specialist. Now, the IS doesn't tell me about every little thing that happens (unlike last year, when the teacher actually counted every single time Jack said a rude phrase to her- whatever it was, it was like 26 times). I get bits and pieces some days, more details other days.. then the behavior chart at the end of the week. (Which isn't nearly as interesting as the actual detailed account of every little thing he's doing, every day- I've seen that once, and boy was it enlightening!!). So I didn't know that Jack said something rude about the sub never coming back. In front of every one. In fact, my understanding was that Jack liked not having the usual IS there, and the IS herself ...

Not really.. but my mom would have if she were me, and I were my son. One of the neighborhood moms came by the other day to basically say she was glad I finally "let Jack out". She says half-jokingly that I should have done that 4 years ago, so the boys could get to know each other. The trouble is (partly) that I don't necessarily care for how boys play these day. I'm not into the roughhousing, the toy guns, etc. "Boys will be boys", but maybe I don't want my boy to be just like everyone else? In any case, he's out and quite enjoying himself. Pretty much. She did say that there was an incident one day, where he got tired of them playing the song "Happy" over and over again. He took off his watch, threw it (can't remember if he threw it at them or down to the ground), called them a bunch of losers and said they were all going to "burn in hell". Needless to say, I'm not overly thrilled. She did tell him that he was mor...

My dear.. my darling.. my little angel. Um, not so much. Not today. Not in front of a gym full of kids trying to pay attention to their guest- an author of children's books. This was the day when my son decided to pitch a fit about being asked to put his water away. We were last at the psychiatrist's office about a month ago. I was fine with leaving Jack on 40mg of Elavil, but since his blood levels were "low", she wanted to try him at the next dose. Not a small jump up, mind you. No, we went from 40 to 75. We had blood work done a week later, but I'm not sure what the results were. Really, I was afraid to call her and say "gee, this really isn't doing jack sh*t", and for her to bump it up much higher in return. (So where would this leave us after summer break? He'd need to be on a higher dose by then!) His Intervention Specialist has made it clear that while Jack has had no further incidents including physical aggression (which means actua...

Jack has just been bumped up the Level One waiver list, due to his behavior this year. I'm told by his Service Coordinator that she has never worked on a case that the County approved without having Behavior Home Support already in place (and she has mentioned it to us, but frankly, I'm not interested in that right now). This seems to be a special case, considering the fact that Jack has already been accepted as a patient at the university's Dual Diagnosis clinic. This means a number of things for Jack, though he probably wont get the waiver until July. I'm not really familiar with the County waivers. I know of the Level One, and then the I-O waiver. Knowing what they cover is a different matter, though I am currently interested in setting Jack up with either an aide over the summer (preferably a male in his college years), or a summer camp. The waiver would pay up to a certain amount for either, among other things. In the meantime, I have at least the annual pool...