Clearly, I have issues

Ok - so the plan to post every day sucks. I'm just not good with schedules - or at least not good with sticking to one.

Follow up on my last post: Al will not have to repeat the entire year, but maybe a course or 2. Not as bad as we originally thought, so I'm happy about that. He just finished a 2 day, overnight playdate with his best friend. What a delightful sentence that many of you with autistic children can appreciate much better than those with neurotypical children. He earned this priviledge by attending school on time, every day this week. Quite a feat for my Alexander.

My post today, along with being an apology for not posting more often, is about Kelsie. She is my other 'issue'. Due to the impending divorce, we are trying to sell our house. It's been 10 months now, and man has it been long. Our first house sold in 24 hours and our second one in 3 weeks. This just sucks. Kelsie, however, had a way to make it entertaining.......to everyone but her momma at least.

It started out innocent enough. Centralized Showing called for a 1-2:30 showing on Wednesday. I said 'sure'. Only to then discover the kids had a 1/2 day off from school, I had a 2pm conference for Audrey, and Kelsie was babysitting 3 kids from 1:15-3:15 (ages 5th and 3rd grade and 4yrs). I read Kelsie what I thought was the 'riot act' - emphasizing how this was a second showing and they were ready to put in a contract on the house and that she was to keep the littler kids in 1 room with the door open and be polite to the people touring the house. Somehow this got translated to........hide under the basement stairs (all 5 of them), keep the closet door open (how they got under the stairs) make giggling and other ghost noises, then be quiet when the realtor and potential buyers called out 'hello' and 'is anyone there'. How she got the 4 year old ADHD poster child to keep quiet is way, way beyond my understanding. I guess she's just a good babysitter. Anyway, the best is yet to come. Kelsie decided to call the home phone from her cell phone, knowing full well that by leaving a message the people in the house would hear it being left on the machine. She convinced the 5th grader to say something about is the house still haunted. Well, that was the piece de resistance, the creme de la creme. The buyer's realtor later called my realtor, absolutely convinced my house was haunted and asking if it were true. Urg.

Several damage-control phone calls later my realtor managed to convince the buyer's realtor of the hilarity of the situation and they put a contract in on my house anyway. Every adult I tell this story to pees themselves laughing over it. At some point I'll get there - but right now all I see is juvenile hall in Kelsie's future.

I used to see juvenile hall in Kelsie's future for other reasons. What a temper that child had! One particular incident had her picking up a kitchen chair and throwing it into the family room (nearly hitting the french doors, which were thankfully open). Another one involved a minor incident which she needed to sit in time out for 3 minutes (she was in 3rd grade). Following the rules of time out, every time she got up we started the clock over again. The 3 minute time out ended up being 4 hours long, and she still didn't sit for 3 minutes straight. I was so frustrated that I brought her out to the car for a ride to the police station, lecturing her the whole way about juvie hall and what was to become of her if she didn't learn to listen to adults in charge. Kinda over the top, but I was at my wits end. Then we went and did a neurospect scan only to discover her blood flow was way, way too much and she had what Dr. Amen called Ring of Fire ADD. Taking her off Prozac and putting her on Neurontin was the best thing we could have ever done for her. She's off the Neurontin now, but it made a huge difference in her life. While I can't say her temper is gone, she's more amenable to listening to adults. And when she chooses not to (like Wednesday) she takes her punishments much better. I couldn't decide how to make her punishment fit her disobeying this time, so I took the easy route (for me) and am having her do all my chores this weekend. Kinda fun not having to do them, and she's getting a greater appreciation of what I do around here, and the time it takes me.

The contract did come in and my chores are being done by Kelsie. I suppose I may be able to relax a little and chuckle over the creativity of her prank. And remember, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.......I can totally see myself doing something like that at her age - only she's way, way more creative. Hee!

Repeat

Al just turned 15 and is a freshman in high school. Looks like he'll be one again next year. One of his problems since he was 4 was a distinct dislike of school. He started preschool in a program at a local high school. He had his own 'teacher' (a senior in the early childhood program). At this point I didn't know he had autism, just that his language wasn't typical and his clinginess wasn't normal either. He spent much of that program curled up on the floor biting his shirt while his 'teacher' rubbed his back. His second preschool experience was a little better, but there was one day when they asked him to hang up his own jacket and he refused. They told him when he hung it up he could join the rest of the class. He spent 2 1/2 hours in the coat room, standing there. Was I upset? Of course. More testing and off he went to the special ed preschool. He didn't fare much better there, hated it in fact. I should mention that the vast majority of the time, at all his preschools, I needed to carry him in and plop him in the classroom. This continued into kindergarden and first grade. Then we moved from Illinois to Maryland. I continued to carry him in to school many, many days. The behaviorists and teachers all assured me that if I was consistent and sent the message to him that going to school was not an option he would eventually get it. Well, by winter break of 5th grade I finally gave up. At that time he was just too big for me to get him into the car (and by this point it would take 3 staff members to get him from my car into school). He would just go limp - dead weight. Once at school he would 'snap out of it' within a couple of hours. 6th grade went well until the end when he got hit with adrenal fatigue. He went on Home and Hospital (county provided home teacher), but by the middle of 7th grade I got fed up with the incompetence of the teacher. I decided to home school Al, and did so through 8th grade. His health improved, so we placed him in high school. He's always been in general ed with extra academic help. When Al is at school he does very well, except for his serious aversion to writing and his inability to read faster than a 2nd grade fluency. The biggest problem is his attendence - he's there only 50% of the time. It's hard to keep up and pass high school classes that way. The fatigue is still unfortunately an issue. The rest? I have no idea. But I can no longer get him where he needs to go and he needs to internalize the necessity of pushing himself through his fatigue to do the things he needs to do. I sincerely hope he learns this lesson in the next few years.