I am so far behind in my updates and for good reason.
Our house now has a three year old (+5 months) and two 16
month olds. I stupidly volunteered to be assistant coach of Adam’s soccer team…
and discovered that he loves practices, never wants to leave… but is
overwhelmed in the games and so far this season has only played a total of 5
minutes… and even scored a goal. So between soccer practice Thursdays, Swim
Lessons on Wednesdays, Soccer games for him on Saturdays, Soccer games for me
on Sundays, trying to take pictures and start a photography business, and
regular work, I am constantly working after I leave work and right up until
bed.
Claire has been sicker than anyone… has constant colds,
conjunctivitis, sinus infections, and we did a lot of testing of her immunity,
and those came back negative. So then we had to take her back and do MORE blood
tests for allergy testing to see if that is causing inflammation. We haven’t
gotten the results back on that yet.
Because we have met our out of pocket
maximum for this year already, we are going to go ahead and get everything
checked out. It’s looking like Adam has asthma-like symptoms, but the inhaler
was only taking care of about 80% of his symptoms, and they assumed allergies.
So I went ahead and got allergy testing on him… and everything came back
negative. He’s not allergic to a damn thing. At least not that they tested for.
I, however, am allergic to everything and start allergy shots tomorrow. Colin
is the healthy one now, but I would have never believed it after last year. He
has done incredibly after getting his adenoids out in May.
Even at 16 months, Claire still only has 8 teeth. Colin has
6 ½. It doesn’t stop them from anything though. Everyone’s favorite food is
spaghetti at the moment… but not with meat sauce. I created a special recipe
that is popular and less messy. Mom-success moment of the year. Whole wheat
spaghetti with olive oil, garlic salt, pepper, and parmesan. Sometimes I throw
in a can of chicken. Or peas, or tomatoes. Claire can’t eat enough – I think
she eats 5 full meals a day and sleeps a ton. Tomorrow she’ll wake up and be 5’4”.
We got them “shoe cubbies” and every day they know when they
get dressed to go pick out their shoes. They run over to their cubby and bring
them over. Colin picks the same sneakers every time. Claire chooses carefully
and gets very upset if she is denied her choice, or if she didn’t get to pick
and you picked wrong. I’m going to have to hide her white shoes, her favorites,
because they are two small and she is traumatized when she can’t wear them.
Colin loves his siblings and is such a sweet little love.
His favorite games of the moment are: “Find Adam’s Toys and Take them to Him,”
and “Steal Claire’s Pacie Out of Her Mouth and Make her Chase.” Claire likes
the second game too… at first. She thinks it’s funny when he takes her pacie.
Then it’s cute that he runs off, looking over his shoulder and grinning and
squealing… then he gets too far away, and she’s no longer amused. They tackle
each other and laugh hysterically. Yesterday, Claire and Colin were in
different rooms. I picked up Adam, then Claire, and then we went to get Colin.
He ran up to me, gave me a hug, and strolled right past Claire and out of the
room. She turned, shocked, and shrieked her “HOW DARE YOU?!” scream. She chased
after him and got right up in his face and stared him down until he gave her a
hug too. I don’t blame her… Colin gives the best hugs. He’s famous for his “surprise
hugs.”
Adam has been practicing his pronouns and perfecting his
adverbs. He correctly says “him,” and “her” and is obsessed with getting it
right. He hugged me the other day and said, “hold me tightLY!” I was so proud of
his good grammar. Then yesterday in the car I asked him if he was interested in
dinner. He said, “not Quitely.” I asked, “you mean, ‘not quite?’” “No. Quitely.”
It was too cute to correct.
Adam was struggling with school after transitioning to the
preschool class. He was hitting friends when he got crowded, yelling,
frustrated, and he was visibly anxious again, all the time, and has developed a
very real fear of fire. I don’t know if the school had a fire drill or what,
but he walks into every building now looking for the fire alarms and fire
extinguishers. I’m starting to believe he’s remembering bits and pieces of a
past life. There were insinuations that
he was over-active, and I believed he was bored, even though he’s in a class
with kids who are older than him. I knew he was bored. He craves constant
stimulation. Then the bullying started. He told me one day, very calmly, that
he was going to punch me in the face. I was shocked, but knew it wasn’t in
anger but that someone told him that. I was able to get out of him that a
friend told him he would punch him in the face, then hit him in the eye and
chased him around the room with a spider to scare him. I talked to the school,
and they said they would get on it. That afternoon I walked down the hall to
pick him up and I heard him yell “no,” or “stop.” Then I heard the afternoon
teacher to tell him not to hit. I took the next 4 steps to the door and walked
in to find 4-5 kids hitting him, repeatedly, as he was pressed up against the
wall and crying, not fighting back. The afternoon teacher turned to look at him
and said, “guys, stop.” They didn’t, and she was standing right next to the mob
and didn’t move. I walked in and said, “HEY, HEY, HEY! STOP.” They turned and
looked at me, one kid claimed “Adam hit me first.” I told him I didn’t care. I
was furious. The school took action, to their credit, and the bullying stopped,
but Adam began only worrying over whether he was liked… how he could be liked…
why didn’t someone like him… did MOM like him? Did anyone like him? He made
friends with one amazingly smart and sweet boy and they bonded, and he changed
after that and started to get along better with the group.
But there was only so much his teacher was able to do. After
talking to her, she was able to get him to feel more comfortable and get him
the attention he needed, but something was still very off, and even Adam wasn’t
sure why.
After talking to our pediatrician, we decided to have an
educational evaluation done. It turns out, and I’m sure I never doubted it for
a moment, that he is gifted. In some
areas he’s operating at the 5 year old level. (And if you ask him how old he
is, he swears he’s 5 – I guess you’re as old as you feel, right?). He sat
through a 3 hour evaluation with just a brief 20 minute break, which was pretty
good for his age and they said he’s no more active than any other three year
old. He has no learning disabilities… but after that assessment, another to
check on his fine motor and phone calls with two different occupational
therapists, it turns out that he most likely has a sensory processing disorder.
This also didn’t surprise me. He can’t get enough touch… he leads with his
head, has to crash into everything and sometimes doesn’t know how much is too
much. He can hear and see everything
and it’s distracting. The clock tick, a very soft purr from the refrigerator…
sometimes if the light is just off he gets upset and begs to turn them all off.
When he’s learning, he wants to focus but everything is a distraction. He has
taught himself to keep some of it out, but he’s an independent learner. He
loves his friends on the playground but doesn’t want to always sit on the floor
with everyone and read a book. Every expert we talked to looked at him, at his
scores, and his personality and said, “without a doubt, he needs to be in a
Montessori.”
So it kind of put everything together for me. He is advanced,
so he gets bored. He wants to do something to learn and he wants to learn fast…
I’ve started teaching him to read at home. He’s also in a school that is
bright, colorful, exciting, which probably doesn’t help his SPD. They have a
traditional curriculum, so they have to stand in line next to each other, learn
at the same rate, and stay close to their age group and it may also be an
assault on his senses some days. There is nothing wrong with his school, and we
do like his teacher… we had just transitioned him in June and change is SO hard
on him. I was hesitant to do it. But then the universe threw in another kink
when we realized: We simply can’t afford to keep paying the tuition for all
three of them there at their current school. Sometimes it feels like some decisions
are just made for you.
We picked a Montessori we could afford that is cheaper than
what we are paying now (RARE). It is not big, fancy, or new, but it is set up
to appease Adam’s senses and he’ll be placed in a class with 3-6 year olds and
be given the opportunity to learn at his own pace. He starts next week. The
twins will stay where they are and if all goes well, they will start on
December 1, when they are old enough (this Montessori only accepts ages 18
months to 6 years).
So now that we’re all caught up, you will see a barrage of
blog updates with pictures that I need to catch up on and stories to tell. Hold on tightly.
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