Life as a Ham: Difficult but Positive Transitions

In the last two weeks since updating about Adam's school, we have gone through some major changes. Adam was bitten on May 15, the next day came home with deep scratches on his neck, and then the next week he fell and hit his head. His teacher gave me an incident report, but no one called me during the day to tell me he had injured his head.

So when I picked him up on that Thursday and knew nothing about an injury, I immediately noticed that he was scared to come to me as if I would be mad at him. I begged him to come to me four times before he finally stood up from the table and walked with his head bent down to me, and crawled up into my arms and put his head on my shoulder. I asked him what was wrong, and his teacher proceeded to tell me that he had another incident report, and this time a knot on his head because he had been climbing a bookshelf. She says she asked him to get down, and she said he went back again and again and fell. She made it very clear that she believed it was not her fault and she told him I would be mad at him, insinuating that it was his fault. I said nothing, signed the incident report, and left with all three kids. In the car when I asked Adam what happened, he was very upset that she had iced his head and then "put him in time out for a long time," in which his friends got to do lots of things and he had to sit by the door. I was furious. I should have been called. It could have been prevented. It is not his fault he fell.

Later, in my email to the director when I withdrew the children, I stated this as my reaction: " [she] tried to insinuate [it] was Adam’s fault because he didn't listen when she told him to stop climbing the bookshelf, and he kept doing it. In my opinion, it is the job of the teacher to stop a child from putting themselves in danger physically if they are not in a position to listen. He is barely 3, not 6. It also demonstrates yet another incident where the attention to my child or the class in general is lacking, and I suspect he was bored and not given something productive to do with his time...")

To be clear, we are on Adam always to listen and obey, and he is a climber, but with appropriate supervision has never hurt himself this badly. He climbs on everything and he has hit his head many times before just on sheer percentages, but he is very agile and I have trouble understanding how he got a bump that bad from climbing a two foot tall bookshelf. What in the world was he doing that he could flip himself over and land on his head that hard? The more that I think about it, the more I wish I had requested to see the security tapes.

Since the new teacher started teaching his class full time, he has had some serious health issues. We have gone through a myriad of possible causes, noting that the symptoms suggest anything from a very mild concussion to severe emotional distress, causing debilitating stomach cramping, no appetite and vomiting. It's especially worse after eating and drinking, if he can get anything down, and after playing actively.

In the next 10 days that followed that bump on the head, Adam's stomach pain worsened. He couldn't eat, he was constantly complaining of pain, and whenever we begged him to tell us what he thought caused it, he would not have an answer or he would say, "the car did it." He spent one night vomiting all night and on the next day, Wednesday, I took him to the doctor. They ran some tests and did the preliminary "minor" precautions... acid reflux medication, giving up milk for two weeks in case of a temporary lactose intolerance, probiotics, juice and OTC meds for possible constipation, urine test to check for UTIs, and stool culture to test for parasites. Next steps, if none of those worked, would be blood tests to check for white blood cell count and viruses like mono, which in my mind, I still haven't ruled out.

On Wednesday evening, Adam had a very severe episode of stomach cramping and when I asked him what happened to make his tummy hurt, he said there was a car in his belly. A "blue car," that he swallowed, "at school." Given everything that had happened so far, it didn't seem impossible, and since his condition was only worsening, we immediately went to the ER for X-rays and and ultrasound by the biggest jerk of an ultrasound technician who almost had a car shoved down his throat by a very angry mother who was just trying to calm down her upset, screaming, and in pain three year old who did not want to lie still and have the "too-hot" gel on him (which was too hot for him when it first touched his skin and scared him). I have never been so close to punching a man in my life.

But at any rate, they found nothing. Good news, but still no answers. The other tests came back negative a few days ago. We still don't have any idea what caused or is causing the pain.

As far as the school is concerned, I've talked to some other parents of children in the class, not in a lot of detail, but just to make sense of the situation, and they are not seeing the same things that we were. I have signed several incident reports since starting daycare, as it's the nature of the beast... but never with this frequency or lack of real reason for the incident. Almost two months ago Adam came home with scratches all over his face because apparently a large plastic dinosaur on the playground had "bucked" him off and he landed on his face. But it made sense to me that he was climbing on the playground and how it couldn't have been prevented. He has been bitten more times than I can count but I know the difference between a normal bite that was resolved in time because of proper supervision, and one that was not.

I don't know what the real difference was between the transition for the other kids in his class and the one for Adam, but the results were unacceptable and severe for us. Adam had been sent home with 3 incident reports in only 8 days of school, and had come home with new phrases that really made me uncomfortable, like "you're making me angry," and "we don't talk about it." He also complained that his friends were hurting him and when we dropped him off every morning AND picked him up every night we were met with uncontrollable tears (as if he would never be okay again, and scared), and then we started seeing behavioral problems at home with hitting, not listening, and in general being very angry and uncomfortable in his world.

The next day after the knot on his head, Adam stayed home with me. The twins went to their class because I needed to focus on Adam and because despite the troubles elsewhere in the school that we were having, I had always felt the twins were well taken care of in their room with their teachers. But I set in motion the decision to leave immediately, and went to give Adam a tour of his new school, which we had decided would be the place to go if things did not improve. I had actually been keeping my options open anyway, so when it came down to it, we were prepared and knew where to go. Our decision of a new school was not a rash one and had been one of at least 15 in the area that I had toured and tried out over the last 4 months.

I withdrew the twins in the afternoon that Friday (May 31), didn't say a word to the director when we left because I had done enough talking about how much Adam was struggling, how often he was getting hurt, and we couldn't wait for more empty promises that he would eventually be moved up to a class that would be a better fit instruction and education-wise. When I got home, I sent an email to tell them we were done.

Immediately, the behavior issues let up. He spent a few days at home with us and with the twins, watched TV and played on the iPad, and we talked about a lot of things.

Watching Despicable Me on Saturday Morning

Playing "school" with the twins... he is pretending to be "Ms. Jenny," and told Colin it was okay to be sad but "mommy and daddy" would come back soon.

The emotional distress is subsiding. His stomach pain is starting to be less intense and is becoming less frequent. Our current theory is that he has acid reflux (and always has since birth and was on pretty heavy acid reflux medication as a baby. It had let up and disappeared after about 12 months old... except that he has never had any interest in acidic foods like spaghetti or pizza). And after talking to our pediatrician again, we believe it is the combination of the reflux and the intense psychological/emotional distress is causing it to be more severe than ever. Yesterday when we drove by the old school Adam said to Shannon, "school makes me sick," and our pediatrician noted that it was an incredible association for him to make at his age, and that it is a good clue into what is causing him to feel so bad.

He actually walks into his new school now, eagerly, even barely knowing where he is or who he is with, and is nervous, hesitant, but in general excited to go to school. When I ask if he's ready for school, he makes sure I mean his "NEW school, NOT his old school." And if I say his new school, he's agreeable immediately. He even made friends the first day, and when I ask who his friends are, he says, "Jake and Jackson." The twins are thriving and happy as well, although they are growing up way, way too fast.