The last 2 weeks have been steadily worse. We are at times back to as bad as it was before. Every day is back to an experience in venom and ugliness. We tried to figure out what had changed and deal with those issues. The only two real issues were Faith and Superman starting school with her (and Faith getting into trouble her first day of school that really sent Grace in a tailspin worrying what everyone was thinking of her, having a sister who did what she did) and sleep. It seems that the mornings she wakes up on her own before us she has much worse days than when she sleeps well and we have to wake her.
Anyway, Faith has not gotten into any more trouble (to our knowledge) and we have been trying all kinds of things for sleep.
Bunny Trail: I bought a special melatonin and other stuff spray that is supposed to help with sleep. Grace will even ask for it since it seems to help her. I am using it on JJ too. It seems to help him sleep through the night, although not necessarily fall asleep any faster. I decided to try it on myself as well since I am sleeping worse with the stress of Grace's backtracking and JJ now in our room every night (on his own cot - but that story is too long to go into here). Anyway, I was waking in the morning wondering if I had actually even slept at all. But with this spray I seem to be sleeping more soundly and feeling more rested when I do use it. I am happy with it so far:)
So...
After trying on our own to figure out what is going on and not being able to fix it we contacted the APRN. She increased the dose of the medication as we clearly are not at therapeutic levels yet. Her first increased dose will be tonight.
Praying it works!
Now that we know that it can be better, it is both a blessing to know that medication can help significantly and a fear experience that the situation could go back to where it was.
I CANNOT live the way that it was. The kids were all getting anxious again. The stress levels in the house were getting worse. Even Superman was finally just looking at her and telling her to knock it off - usually he will just take her verbal abuse. It is hard to think that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and see it fade to darkness again. I was starting to lose the fragile connection I was developing with Faith again. So now I keep her up after Grace has gone to bed and spend time watching a favorite show together. Faith doesn't talk (she will write to me, but not talk about anything real) so snuggling and watching our show together will hopefully help to bridge the gap. That is also when JJ started having trouble sleeping again (and he got sick) and he was coming to our room again every night claiming he was having nightmares. (Hence our getting the cot - he is now too big to be in our bed!) I only got the spray I referred to above since she has gotten worse so I hope that when he transitions back to his room again the spray will help him sleep through the night in there ;)
BUT - we have hope that it will be better. The medication helped once, hopefully it will help again. I am a bit afraid that we will have to increase the meds every month, but I was assured that we would not have to do that;)
Wednesday, January 17, 2018
Wednesday, January 3, 2018
The next big change in our family...
Grace continues to do very well. We have had some situations where I have worried that things were going to explode like they used to, but even the 2 worst of those incidents she calmed down within 15 minutes and the rest of the day was not overshadowed by it. It has, by far, been the most relaxing and enjoyable 3 weeks of our family's life out of the past decade. I feel like I am beating a dead horse when I keep saying that it is so utterly and completely different than it ever was before.
Beautiful makes comments that it feels like we are a family again. She was 9 when Grace came and remembers what life was like..."before." Buddy asks "is this was a real family is like?" He was 6 when she came and doesn't remember much of what it was like "before." He has been adamant that he will not have children given how difficult things are in our home. However, I have caught him saying "when I have kids" a couple of times in the last couple of weeks...and I am sure to give him a hard time about it lol!
Even the times when all 10 of us have been here together, with a newborn fussy baby in the mix, it is nothing like it was. NOTHING. As scary as it is to consider the future, I am just focusing and relishing that today is good.
Things are so good that my husband took the 4 youngest, BY HIMSELF, to Star Wars and shopping. I had 7 hours (SEVEN HOURS!!!) to myself to clean. I got some closets deep cleaned and threw away a lot of junk. I have more closets to do but I feel like I can finally do some of these projects without a crisis every 90 seconds that requires my visual supervision.
In short it doesn't feel like I still have a house of toddlers anymore.
We have also been doing a bunch of family activities that we would have never considered before. Before Christmas we went out as a family to a movie (we went to A LOT of movies this vacation lol!), shopping, pizza, and Christmas lights. Another time we left the youngest 3 with a babysitter while we took Buddy and Superman to a movie.
Can I just bunny trail for a moment and say that the freedom we feel to actually leave her with a babysitter and not dread and feel guilt for the burden we are placing on a baby sitter is mind blowing. To leave and not have to worry every second that she is making someone else's life miserable? Peaceful:)
Anyway, I have been working about half of my normal work schedule these two weeks. Yesterday my husband brought the girls with him and dropped me at work, then went to get some shopping done. After they picked me up we went out to eat. At a sit down restaurant. Getting done at 7 o'clock which we used to think of as the witching hour. The hour that if Grace wasn't in bed by then the world ended. Yet, she was giggling, fun, and had zero behavior problems.
I don't wake up in the morning dreading my first exposure to her of the day that used to involve a major conflict in the first 15 minutes. I don't dread bedtime anymore that used to be an hour of locked horns battling.
We just have...peace.
My whole body feels relaxed. The house feels relaxed. Everyone in the family gets along so much better. Calmer. More respectful and quicker to forgive slights and think the best of one another. Of course it is not perfect, but compared to what we have been living for a decade? Pretty close to perfection.
The girls even get along and are...get this...allowed to actually play together unsupervised. Without over the top conflict. Now the conflict is normal 11 year old girl conflict.
Even JJ is better. I think he has only acted out to the point of having to be restrained once since her med change - and that was in the first few days. He has had a few tempter tantrums, but after taking away video games and physically guiding him to his bedroom to calm down he does calm down and re-engages well. I had worried that he has DMDD too, but at this point I think that he just watched Grace's behavior and thought that was how he was supposed to act to get what he wanted. I would say that his acting out is at about 30% of what it was. And he used to be able to throw a temper tantrum just as vicious as Grace could...
We are all trying to figure out the "new normal" and learn to respond to the actual situation and not what we fear the situation will evolve into. It takes a bit but by this time we are doing a pretty good job of it.
I cannot stress enough that if any of you have a child who has behavior like we have dealt with, please talk to your primary care practitioner or contact a mental health professional. Do not live with what we have lived with if you don't have to! For your sake, and for your child's sake.
Anyway, in my original post about the realities of the situation with both of our younger daughters. While things have been so much better with Grace, things really came to a head with Faith. So, after a lot of prayer and years of struggling with what to do with her increasingly rebellious behavior, we decided to have her switch schools.
It is something we said we would never do, for many reasons, but starting tomorrow she (and for ease for our family, Superman), will be starting at the local public school. We don't know how it will go but feel that it is the next necessary step in getting her the help that she needs - or hold her accountable for her behavior. Whichever the situation warrants...
And, next Monday? Next Monday Buddy starts college.
So, now we have one child graduated, married, with a precious 7 week old.
One child in college (he officially graduates high school in May, but his home school time is done and he will be taking a full credit load at the college).
3 children at the public school - in the same grade no less! There are 2 sections of their grade. Superman and Grace will be in one section and Faith is in a different section. We asked them to please keep the girls separated and they were gracious to do so. Superman was thankful to be in Grace's class. I was a little surprised given...well...the last 10 years and that he has always been Faith's protector. But he just said that he was tired of being Faith's keeper. I am sad for him. He wants to believe the best in everyone and is always the first to give up what he wants for someone else. It kills him that his sister makes poor choices that hurt others and herself. Anyway, I am thankful for how they are split up.
And...1 child still home schooled. In 1st grade. Uff Da...we have a lot of years of school ahead of us lol!
Beautiful makes comments that it feels like we are a family again. She was 9 when Grace came and remembers what life was like..."before." Buddy asks "is this was a real family is like?" He was 6 when she came and doesn't remember much of what it was like "before." He has been adamant that he will not have children given how difficult things are in our home. However, I have caught him saying "when I have kids" a couple of times in the last couple of weeks...and I am sure to give him a hard time about it lol!
Even the times when all 10 of us have been here together, with a newborn fussy baby in the mix, it is nothing like it was. NOTHING. As scary as it is to consider the future, I am just focusing and relishing that today is good.
Things are so good that my husband took the 4 youngest, BY HIMSELF, to Star Wars and shopping. I had 7 hours (SEVEN HOURS!!!) to myself to clean. I got some closets deep cleaned and threw away a lot of junk. I have more closets to do but I feel like I can finally do some of these projects without a crisis every 90 seconds that requires my visual supervision.
In short it doesn't feel like I still have a house of toddlers anymore.
We have also been doing a bunch of family activities that we would have never considered before. Before Christmas we went out as a family to a movie (we went to A LOT of movies this vacation lol!), shopping, pizza, and Christmas lights. Another time we left the youngest 3 with a babysitter while we took Buddy and Superman to a movie.
Can I just bunny trail for a moment and say that the freedom we feel to actually leave her with a babysitter and not dread and feel guilt for the burden we are placing on a baby sitter is mind blowing. To leave and not have to worry every second that she is making someone else's life miserable? Peaceful:)
Anyway, I have been working about half of my normal work schedule these two weeks. Yesterday my husband brought the girls with him and dropped me at work, then went to get some shopping done. After they picked me up we went out to eat. At a sit down restaurant. Getting done at 7 o'clock which we used to think of as the witching hour. The hour that if Grace wasn't in bed by then the world ended. Yet, she was giggling, fun, and had zero behavior problems.
I don't wake up in the morning dreading my first exposure to her of the day that used to involve a major conflict in the first 15 minutes. I don't dread bedtime anymore that used to be an hour of locked horns battling.
We just have...peace.
My whole body feels relaxed. The house feels relaxed. Everyone in the family gets along so much better. Calmer. More respectful and quicker to forgive slights and think the best of one another. Of course it is not perfect, but compared to what we have been living for a decade? Pretty close to perfection.
The girls even get along and are...get this...allowed to actually play together unsupervised. Without over the top conflict. Now the conflict is normal 11 year old girl conflict.
Even JJ is better. I think he has only acted out to the point of having to be restrained once since her med change - and that was in the first few days. He has had a few tempter tantrums, but after taking away video games and physically guiding him to his bedroom to calm down he does calm down and re-engages well. I had worried that he has DMDD too, but at this point I think that he just watched Grace's behavior and thought that was how he was supposed to act to get what he wanted. I would say that his acting out is at about 30% of what it was. And he used to be able to throw a temper tantrum just as vicious as Grace could...
We are all trying to figure out the "new normal" and learn to respond to the actual situation and not what we fear the situation will evolve into. It takes a bit but by this time we are doing a pretty good job of it.
I cannot stress enough that if any of you have a child who has behavior like we have dealt with, please talk to your primary care practitioner or contact a mental health professional. Do not live with what we have lived with if you don't have to! For your sake, and for your child's sake.
Anyway, in my original post about the realities of the situation with both of our younger daughters. While things have been so much better with Grace, things really came to a head with Faith. So, after a lot of prayer and years of struggling with what to do with her increasingly rebellious behavior, we decided to have her switch schools.
It is something we said we would never do, for many reasons, but starting tomorrow she (and for ease for our family, Superman), will be starting at the local public school. We don't know how it will go but feel that it is the next necessary step in getting her the help that she needs - or hold her accountable for her behavior. Whichever the situation warrants...
And, next Monday? Next Monday Buddy starts college.
So, now we have one child graduated, married, with a precious 7 week old.
One child in college (he officially graduates high school in May, but his home school time is done and he will be taking a full credit load at the college).
3 children at the public school - in the same grade no less! There are 2 sections of their grade. Superman and Grace will be in one section and Faith is in a different section. We asked them to please keep the girls separated and they were gracious to do so. Superman was thankful to be in Grace's class. I was a little surprised given...well...the last 10 years and that he has always been Faith's protector. But he just said that he was tired of being Faith's keeper. I am sad for him. He wants to believe the best in everyone and is always the first to give up what he wants for someone else. It kills him that his sister makes poor choices that hurt others and herself. Anyway, I am thankful for how they are split up.
And...1 child still home schooled. In 1st grade. Uff Da...we have a lot of years of school ahead of us lol!
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