Is my eyesight accurate???

Came in today from my shrink appt (a must have for most NIDS moms) only to find my 3 kids, all home from school due to a Maryland 'snow day' (forecast: snow all day; accumulation: 1 inch; therefore, CANCEL SCHOOL!!), playing Wii together. While this my be a commonplace occurance in other families, it's still shocking for me at times. They were laughing, joking, challenging each other and working together to defeat a common electronic foe. I faught getting the stupid Wii - just another soul sucking electronic gadget as far as I'm concerned. While I still regret giving in, I was surprised to see my older 2 getting along like they used to in their younger years......

Al and Kelsie are only 15 months apart. Al was a very, very easy infant and baby. I was rather bored staying home with him alone and thought it'd be more interesting with another child. Ergo, Kelsie's arrival not long after. When Kelsie was 10 months old she said her first word - 'bear'. I distinctly remember looking at her and telling her she was not allowed to talk since her brother wasn't talking yet. I was only half joking. Since then she's been leaps and bounds ahead of him socially and creatively. This has been an amazing thing and contributed greatly to his recovery. When they were toddlers and preschoolers, Kelsie would decide what they would play (house, airplane, store, etc), tell Al what they were doing, what to say, where to stand, what prop to use. Al would 'build' whatever they were doing - including the wiring and plumbing for the house if that was their game, the wiring for an airplane, etc. He was Mr. Concrete Reality and she was his imagination for dialogue and acting. Who needed social stories with Kelsie around? Then NIDS struck her around age 4, and we started her on the protocol. It worked fantastically until we started the SSRIs. Then the temper, PMS and Kelsie's fiery red-head personality all conspired to make her absolutely unmanageable. We found a dr on the east coast to do a neurospect, only to find out that her blood flow was way, way too much (what Dr. Amen terms 'Ring of Fire ADD'). We took her off the SSRIs, put her on antiseizure meds. This calmed everything down, the PMS eventually subsided to once a month, and she's controlling and chanelling her red-head tendencies. NIDS gave us back a bright eyed child, but also a difficult one to live with. I searched for more answers, found what she needed, and made the switch. We also switched to Dr. Russell at this point since I was veering away from the straight Goldberg NIDS protocol (and Dr. Russell was within driving distance....).

My perspective? Way more stress than I ever want to go through again anytime soon. Goldberg's approach was working.....but I wanted perfection. It's hard to try something new, hard to go against what a dr recommends. After so many doctors misdiagnosing Al I decided I knew more than they did about my children, and took over as coordinator of their health care and recovery. Incredibly arrogant of me, and I'm not an arrogant person. It's amazing what one can do when there's no other choice. I love my children and want the best for them. I have grown tremendously because of them and the things I've had to do to recover them. What's Pooh Bear's saying? "You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think". I'm very tired of being all those things, but I'm not at the end yet. Days like today make me remember why I need to hold on for a little bit longer - my kids are fantastic and deserve me giving them 150%. Today was a good day.