Catching up

Where does the time go? I swear I just wrote a blog post yesterday but it's really been nearly 3 weeks. I feel very neglectful. I need to do a blog-a-day challenge or something. Though I think I'd need a list of topics so I don't sit staring at the white square all night.

Anyway, onto an actual topic.

Today sucked. Part of it was my own fault because I forgot to take my Paxil 2 days in a row. Bad, bad, bad idea. By this afternoon my head was spinning. Definitely not a drug to stop taking cold turkey. I always take it first thing in the morning and the last two mornings were very hectic and I forgot. I need to set a remind on my phone.

However, the rest of it was not really my fault. Charlotte is trying to kill me and Robbie...well.. Robbie's just 3.

Charlotte is now sitting up quite well. You can't just sit her down and wander off because if she gets too excited, she will topple, but for the most part, she's a sitter. At her 6 month check up last week (YES. SIX MONTHS.) her doctor said she was advanced in gross motor skills. Holy shit. That's a new experience. But because she is sitting well, she could no longer sleep in the rock-n-play. It's angled just enough that sometimes she can sit herself up in it. That's not safe. So, I've been transitioning her to the cosleeper. Yeah, that's not going so well.

She went from sleeping from 8am-10pm eating maybe 3-4 times total to going to be at 8 and then being up 6-8 times before 7. And most nights one of those times is up for HOURS. Last night she went to bed at 8 and slept until 11. I thought maybe we would have a good night. But then she was up at 11 until after 2am. And again at 5 and at 6 and up for the day at 7:30. I am one tired momma.

Then I had Robbie's parent teacher conference this morning. That was not fun, either. The short version is that Robbie is a pain the ass with delayed writing skills. It was seriously an hour about how stubborn and willful he is. At various points during the meeting, I had to assure her that 1) He does not have a hearing impairment 2) He is not having absence seizures 3) He does not have O.D.D. and 4) he does not have autism. Yes, he's been tested for most of those, and ODD (oppositional defiance disorder) is way out of line. Even she agreed that he doesn't disobey to be hateful. He just tunes out things he doesn't want to hear.

If you call him for dinner and he's playing and doesn't want to come, he will stare off into space like he doesn't hear you. You can go right up to him and talk and it's like he sees through you. You can wave your hand, snap your fingers and get nothing. I worried about absence seizures, too. But.. if you say a magic word, he's right with you. You say "want some chocolate?" and suddenly he can hear JUST FINE. He's just that stubborn and convincing.

Apparently he also doesn't like to participate in group activities. He prefers to play alone a lot of the times. If he's in the right mood, he will play with the others, but still tends to parallel play rather than play along with his classmates. He is also bossy. If she tells the class to quiet down, he turns around and starts yelling "Everyone needs to be quiet!"

He doesn't stay on tasks he doesn't like. He doesn't like to write, so she has to stay on him to spend time in the writing center. He can't really draw an R, so she's concerned about his fine motor skills. We talked about a few things to help with that. (scissors, play-doh, etc.)


The only good thing she had to say is that he is very smart. He knows all his letters, numbers, letter sounds, shapes, colors etc. Of course, that came with the caveat that he's starting to refuse to answer her questions when she asks him to prove that. (refusing to count, etc.) So even that wasn't ALL good. All in all, it was a crappy meeting. I got in the car and cried.

I declined her offer to have an OT evaluate him. I have no interest in starting therapy again. I really don't think he would qualify anyway, and even if he did, it would likely be a very short amount of time each week and not worth the trouble. And frankly, therapy sucked. Hell, I purposely didn't ask for a copy of today's meeting notes because I don't want to see it all in writing.

I think Robbie is amazing. Yes, he is stubborn. And sure, we see some of that at home. But he responds well to a time-out, and is overall a happy, energetic, intelligent, affectionate kid. He does great in one-on-one situations, or maybe one-on-two. He just doesn't do well in groups. I think he's an introvert. (Which I told her and she said "Hold on, I want to write that down." like it was some sort of amazing thing I came up.) It hurts when someone clearly doesn't like your kid very much.

So, I spent most of the afternoon moping and feeling sorry for both myself and Robbie. Of course, by the afternoon, I had worked myself out of sadness and into anger. I honestly think she's being too harsh. After speaking with some people with more experience in his age range and going through some developmental milestones, I think she was being overly critical. And it was unneccesssary.


I'm not sure how I plan to handle it. I don't want to be one of those parents who thinks their little angel can do no wrong. I KNOW she is right about some of it. He IS stubborn and obstinate. Sometimes I want to throttle him, too. But he's not mean. He doesn't hit, he doesn't bite, he doesn't scratch. He'll occasionally defend himself by pushing instead of using words, but it's not even like he just goes over to push someone for the pure joy of it. And he's well liked. One of the other teachers told me that the kids fight over who gets to play with him. When I brought that up she said "well, kids are forgiving." That was just mean.


He is only with this teacher for 2 hours a day, fortunately. But she's the only preschool teacher there, so if I want him to have preschool, it's with this teacher. Period.

I'm still mulling over my options. Feel free to weigh in.

The afternoon was okay but hectic. A little shopping with Charlotte and then getting Robbie from school.
He didn't nap today and decided to live up to his teacher's expectations and was terrible tonight. There were tears at dinner because apparently I gave him the wrong butter for his bread. I finally figured out (after taking him to the fridge and demanding he show me) that he wanted one of those Papa Johns dipping sauces. Which was fine, and he took but after about 2 bites, again insisted he had the wrong butter.

I ended up giving him a bath and putting him to bed early. He wasn't happy about it but we got through it. And then just before I put him down, the stoma (the hole in his stomach) exploded. I don't even know how else to say it. A ball of infection came out. It smells horrible and was just plain disgusting. Robbie insisted that nothing hurts. He has to fever or anything, so I don't know. But it's 2 days until it's been out for a year (!) and now this happens? That's not so good.

So of course, more things to worry about.


All in all, it was not Robbie's day. I don't really know what to think about the teacher situation. I don't want to be the parent that thinks the teacher is out to get him and my kid does not wrong. (Believe me, I know he can be a pain.) But I also felt like it was unneccessarily negative. Fortunately there's only a week of school left and then he's free for the summer with teacher who seem to enjoy him (or at least, they fake it a lot better.) But then there's preschool next year, too. Same teacher.

I don't know. My head is all jumbled and parenting is damned difficult.

--Trish