Psychiatrist day

The kids see their psychiatrist every couple of months to check in on how they are doing.  He manages all the ADHD meds and the anxiety meds and I love that he is so involved in their care.  Back in our last state, meds were only checked up on every 6-12 months unless I requested a review.  While doses rarely change, I like that Dr. C spends an hour or two with all of them every few months so he's gotten to know them and he talks things over with them, even if its yet another monologue on the joys of video games ( ;) ) so when issues do arise, he can actually  help us with it because he knows our family dynamic and what types of suggestions may work with us.

We talked a lot about the Busy Little B's OCD tendencies.  I don't say that lightly--when he was younger and going through testing for autism, OCD came up a lot.  They said he was too young for a diagnosis but that it was definitely something we'd need to watch and it would not be surprising if he got the diagnosis later on.  Some of his rigidity/obsessions is starting to interfere with daily life, especially at school, but it isn't causing things to come to a full stop.  At the moment we can work around these things and Dr C says some of the medications that help with OCD have side effects that we don't want to mess with unless we have to so we keep watching, keep doing therapy, keep working with the school to find ways to get his work done without disturbing his set-in-stone points.  At home I work with him on calm ways to work with his "rules" so he can solve the problem but if they try to challenge him on them at school, its a bit of a disaster.  I think they've decided to leave the working on those to me and his therapist because last conversation we had about it, they were just working his "rules" into their day so he would continue to work on his schoolwork instead of obsessing :p

We are officially homeschooling

I filed the paperwork a few weeks ago.  Iz is sad she doesn't get to be with her teacher anymore but we just don't feel it is a safe environment for her (and her psychiatrist agrees.  He is not at all happy with how the school handled the situation and their "plan" going forward.  He wanted to get her moved to one of the therapeutic day schools but our local district won't consider it until she has multiple incidents over a long stretch of time.  I'm not willing to wait for many bad things to happen to get her moved).  But she has improved so much mentally and emotionally since she has starting staying home!  We worked so hard to get her into a school program and it is so disappointing it has ended this way.  But I have my girl back--sure, she still has moments of anxiety and struggle but its so much better than the last few months as her mental and emotional health nose dived.

She is doing awesome with schoolwork.  She loves to do "school" and we signed up for an online program the Super Kid used to use to practice his math skills on.  Iz does math and language arts through this website and she is going through the modules so quick :p  She's in kindergarten but some of her math skills are in the third grade level.  She says she likes that the math at home is harder than school because its more fun to do.  She is impatiently waiting for me to get off the computer so she can do school :p

At the moment, we are being very relaxed because its winter break and the boys are all home but once they go back to school, Iz and I will make school more structured.  There's a local homeschool group that does field trips and playdates for socialization so we are watching the calendar for things age appropriate for her--she is looking forward to making new friends who do school at home like her ;)

Our second set of NMES is over!

Last week we finished our second round of NMES therapies!  Three times a week, forty-five minutes a session, for a total of 24 sessions.  That's a lot of driving and a big chunk of time out of every week that we now get back :)

Baby W was much more cooperative this time--he still dislikes having the electrodes on his neck but he didn't fight them as much and almost all his sessions went the full amount of time.  I think it helped that they got better food this time :p  He had more things that were like he gets at home (fresh fruit, cheese, meat, etc) instead of all the snack-type processed foods he likes in small quantities while he waits for the "real" food to get done ;)

Iz did better this time, too--she really struggled to make it through his therapies the first time around and some pretty severe behavior problems cropped up.  This set, though, she still struggled a little but she was calmer about it and never reached the point where they had to kick her out.  And our last few sessions have been really really good--she has been calm and focused and occupied herself fairly well.  I think that is in large part due to her officially starting to see the boys' psychiatrist.  She had a sudden and severe escalation in anxiety that was manifesting as extreme aggression.  When the Developmental Pediatrician fought to get her in preschool, he hoped it would help temper her anxiety but also said it was possible it would not get better and we would need to look at medications to help her function.  The psychiatrist (who knows her pretty well as he spends a good chunk of time with her every few months when she goes to her brothers' appointments with them) has been keeping track of her as well and he said its very clear to him that she has ADHD like her brothers (my, did we ever hit the genetic lottery in this family.....) as well as the anxiety.  She started a low dose of Focalin and wow, what a difference.  She sat down with a book and spent a good half an hour going over the words with me and memorizing them and identifying the words and letters she could remember.  Before, she couldn't even sit still to listen to a story.  I remember when S started ADHD meds--it actually helped lower his anxiety levels because he wasn't so nervous about doing well in school.  Be nice if that was true for Iz, too!  Right now, she spends half  her day at school (and she's only there for half a day) trapped in her own  head, unable to get past the anxiousness.  She LOVES school but its so so hard for her right now--I'd be so happy if she could actually enjoy it and get something out of it.  She's a smart kid (above average when tested for intelligence) but her abilities are low because she's not able to fully participate.