Extracurricular

There's a few things I have learned about this homeschooling thang.  There are a variety of homeschool moms out there (and dads!)--the ones who just wing it, the ones who use a hardcore schedule and curriculum, and the ones who sort of piece it together.  I've also discovered that most of us have a weird obsession desire to know what everyone else is doing.

Believe it or not, I got burned out on the scheduled curriculum.  I know that seems odd for me, but it didn't work for the kids.  And this is one case where it's not really about me, now is it?

I've decided to take it easy on my pre-k dude until March.  Liv and I really needed to get into a routine, and to be honest, I haven't entirely figured out how to school both my high strung children at the same time.  He's very up to speed with letters, numbers, adding, writing his name, etc.  I'd like to get him into some phonic work.  For now, he tags along with us, and we include him during science experiments or out loud readings.  Olivia reads to him a lot.  I'm cutting myself some slack right now, and he's still learning stuff.

Once a week, Colin does gymnastics and a Zumba class.  This month we've also been doing a two hour pottery class for parent and child--this has been so much fun for all three of us!  That's our art for now.  In the future, we'll pop in and paint a little piece of pottery, but now that Liv's self esteem is up I think she'll be ready to sign up for a pottery class by herself and then a watercolor class after that one.  I also think I may have talked her into Irish Dancing Classes--I would like her to take a physical activity class.  She gets occupational therapy weekly (about to step that up to twice a week), and she's outside scootering and running all the time.  I still think it would be helpful to do something in a class setting to get her adjusting to being in a room with other kids again.

We're spacing ourselves out here to take advantage of a variety of programs.  There are also ice skating lessons, music lessons, kung fu or its many derivatives, gymnastics, and other dancing classes.  And there's t-ball, peewee soccer, and peewee flag football--which Colin is begging to go to but I don't think Mama can handle it.  (He WILL be the one who never grabs the flag and just tackles the other kid.)  I refuse to over schedule, but these are all fun and easy to get to from our new home, and I think we'll get to most of them before our time here is up.

Friday I'll get into the nitty gritty details of what work I force and entice my first grader to use.  (Lollipops and gummy bears are perfectly good bribes too.)

Cruddy picture with my finger in the shot.  This is a tea set that Liv painted at pottery class during an impromptu tea party yesterday with vanilla wafers and ice water.  YUM.

I'm behind already

I meant to publish a post about our homeschool curriculum a few days ago, but somehow we've been so busy sightseeing with family in town that I've completely gotten off track.  I'm frankly too tired to even write about it.

So, short story--here's what we've done--
tour of Hickam (this is me driving them around the base and pretending to know what I'm talking about--"see the bullet holes from December 7th!" when it's probably just bird poop)
tour of Ford's Island (USS Utah and USS Missouri)
Dole Pineapple Plantation
North Shore with sea turtles on the beach as well as coming in from a swim (awesome!!!!)
lunch at North Shore
USS Arizona Memorial
Bellows Air Force Station Beach (one of the best ever)
Diamond Head hike

This is all since Friday.  I'd like to post photos, but for now enjoy my husband's blog posts here, here, here, and here.

Homeschool the Olivia Way

You may recall our failed homeschool experiment when we first arrived in Hawaii.  You know, back when I was crazy?  And as a typical type A personality, I had created this ridiculous schedule.  And I was struggling to make having my kids around all the time fit in with my time.  Didn't work.

So, you know the story--we started at the local elementary school, which we did for 7 weeks before they took a month long break (it's called year round school, and while the premise is great, the actual practice stinks).  And then we moved.  In the middle of this break, we were doing intensive consults with Olivia's psychiatrist.  This is also when we found out that her worries about school were not just big, they were monumental.

I timidly asked if homeschool was a good idea.  He wholeheartedly agreed, IF I could do it without driving myself crazy again.  Through a rash of small coincidences (some might say miracles--I would definitely agree that it all came together with a little Godly intervention), we found way to outsource.

Our plan is to let her medication kick in, continue homeschool for the rest of the school year, and the real key to our success--we work with a teacher.  An honest to God teacher whose speciality is reading and who worked at a very expensive private school here on the island that caters to children with dyslexia and other sensory issues.  She totally gets Olivia.  She understands when she wiggles and can't wear her shoes.  She's expensive, but it's cheaper than the private school, and it allows one on one attention.

Our schedule goes like this--three mornings a week, Olivia goes to Mrs. K's to have a 90 minute session where they cover reading, handwriting, and a bit of math.  Then we come home or go to the playground and together complete a little more reading, a little more handwriting, math, science, history, and geography.  Depends on the day, but these are the things she likes to do most.  I can relax because I know that her reading foundation is solid, and I don't get freaked out because I'm afraid I'm letting her fall behind in reading skills, therefore freaking her out and making her tense and frustrated.

I'll discuss our curriculum more tomorrow.  And how my own time is fitting in with this system. But for now, I have to tell you that I'm loving our solution.  Can you believe I could ever say that?  Can you believe my eye doesn't twitch anymore when I've been with just my two children for twelve straight hours?  We're doing it.  We're killing it.  We are rocking it.  We've come a long way, baby.

Part 2.1

To continue from yesterday and catch you up--

Olivia was diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder, oppositional defiance disorder (no wonder homeschool sucked!), Tourette's Syndrome, severe anxiety, sensory processing disorder, and perhaps needed Asperger's testing.  Her anxiety about school was approaching a phobia level.  She was one upset little dudette.  There could be more, there could be less--I seriously doubt that this will be her final diagnosis.  None of these really upset us--we knew there were some things about her that were quite Aspie-ish.  We knew she was defiant (I just didn't think we at a "disorder" level yet).  

See why I quit blogging?

Now here's where it gets dicey.  I've decided to share our decision to put our daughter on medication for only one reason--to help other people.  I get so many hits on my posts about sensory processing disorder, and these other moms are so desperate for information and real world situations.  We get a lot of disapproval for choosing the drug, but I'm going to go out and say that if you've tried everything else, if you've researched thoroughly, then medication is worth a try too.

I had done my research.  So when the child psych said we needed to treat her as ADHD and give her a stimulant (that is what Ritalin is), I nodded and I said politely disagreed.  I can see why people would confuse her fidgeting with an attention problem, I can see that she has trouble being still, and I can see that her attention span is unfocused sometimes.  But, to me, those are all traced to a sensory issue (an uncomfortable chair, needed to feel the pressure of the floor under her feet, or having a child sitting too close to her and lightly brushing her arm).  Those are all fixable with an accommodating teacher.  I said we have to treat the anxiety.

And he listened to me.  He warned us that anti-anxiety treatment might take a high dosage to get at the tics, and even higher to really get into the obsessions.  (She weighs 42 lbs at age 7, and she is the pickiest eater I've ever run across. Her obsessions could easily become anorexia or bulimia related as she gets older--obviously, these are things we want to conquer now.)

We started the medicine.  We kept up the weekly occupational therapy.  We kept up the diet and vitamin changes.  We moved so that she could see her father more and because there was a chance of a different school system.  We also have central a/c in this base house, which was probably impacting her sensory issues and making her even more irritable.  We see the child psych almost every week.  We changed her school situation (yet another post yet to come).

After only 4 weeks, her tics have stopped.  After 2 1/2 years of tics.  I haven't heard her say she hated me in over 2 weeks, when I used to get that yelled at me multiple times a day.  I used to be told how stupid I was, how horrible my cooking was, and what a mean mom I was.  Every day, all day long.

Now that it has kicked in, her child psych thinks we don't have to do Asperger's testing.  (Her sorting and pattern habit appears to simply be an obsession.)  He is surprised at her positive reaction to such a low dose, and he didn't think we would even have any luck with the tics at that low dose.  She is a different child.  I actually like her now.  She is delightful, she is funny, and she is happy.  She even said that she was glad to take "her vitamin" because she felt so much better.  I didn't ask her that--she volunteered that one night.  She is cuddly.  Her balance is improving at her OT.  She is thriving in her new school situation.  

The doctor tells me every time he sees me, "You were right."  He didn't think we needed to treat her anxiety, but he listened and he accepted it, and hey, Mom was right!

So, to sum up, things are going well.  Things are going super.  Things are more right than they have ever been for our whole family.  In just 45 days, we went from being horribly unhappy and at our wits' end to feeling much more in control and much more content.  

And tomorrow, I'll be telling you about first grade!

Part Two

So to continue from my last post, the other major problem we were having was our family...specifically, our daughter.  Although we are under weekly occupational therapy, there was much more going on with her than just sensory processing disorder.  Our entire family was being impacted by her actions and attitude, and I am just going to say it loud...I didn't like her much.  She was truly abusive towards me and her brother, and her father too when he was available for punishment.  It was uncontrollable.  It was unlivable.  We knew things had to change when her little brother began copying her negative behavior.

We began trying to get psychological help.  We use a special kind of military insurance where we are able to pick our own civilian providers.  We've been doing this for 6 years, no problems.  It's been wonderful.  But here, in Hawaii (written with a growl), the providers do a horrible job of updating the system.  So I would call one doctor, get a phone call back 48 hours later that they were no longer taking new patients, or even better, they were no longer practicing.  After a few weeks of this, I got a referral to a pediatric neurologist...who gave us an appointment in April 2012.  This was in September 2011.  We needed much more help, much more quickly.

So, we arranged for us to be seen at the most comprehensive military facility on the island, which just happens to be Tripler Army Medical Center.  They have an entire child psychiatric wing.  They got us an appointment within one week.  And do you know what the doctor said to me during the phone consult?  "I can help you."

I don't think anyone has ever said that before.  Getting to Tripler isn't so bad.  Parking is...well, words just can't describe it.  I suppose it's similar to finding a parking spot in New York City, without the cabbies to yell at you.  But once you're there, I can only say wonderful things about this department.

During all these months, I had been trying to research my child and determine what we could best do to help her.  A year before, the neurologist wanted to put her on medication for severe anxiety. I thought he was wrong.  I thought we owed it to her to try other natural means to help, like changing her sleeping arrangements, starting occupational therapy, adjusting her diet.  And we did all those things.  Some helped.  But her tics were increasing until she cried because her head jerking wouldn't let her sleep at night.  The other kids teased her.  She would beg me to stop the tics.  And I couldn't.  So I kept reading and googling.

Until I found that for some children the treatment of anxiety can lessen the tics.  It all started to make sense to me, and I decided that by NOT trying the medication when we had tried everything else, I might be causing more damage than the drugs might do.  There were risks, but I finally decided that if she were diabetic, I wouldn't hesitate to give her the insulin she needed.  Why would I deny her what might fix her?

So when I marched into psychiatric that day, I told them I wasn't messing around.  We needed this drug for these reasons and this is why--our family is falling apart.  It is either me or this kid, but one of us has to leave.  I think the sign of a good doctor is that he questioned me on the need for meds.  It took three appointments to get the doctor to talk about medication and agree that we were at that point.

To be continued tomorrow....but know that we are all four still living together!

The kids at Bishop Museum yesterday

2012--My return to the blog!

About 4 months ago, I pretty much disappeared from the blogosphere.  I think it would be fair to say that was fairly obvious that I was spiraling downward.  I promised to stop saying “I hate Hawaii” (see how I slipped that in there?).  And then when things seemed overwhelming, blogging became just one more difficult chore that I couldn’t deal with any longer.  Refresh your memory here.

But now, I’m back.  Our situation is much better.  So there are essentially two big parts to our family’s story from 2011.  This is part one.

2011 began with us knowing that we were bound for the Pacific.  Cautiously excited.  We were still living in our rental home in California, which we had rented for a 2 year lease.  This worked out well for us.  The house wasn’t exactly perfect, but it was nice and had tons of space.  We liked our safe neighborhood, and Olivia’s elementary school was a quiet, country school.  We had a great preschool for Colin.  It was a 30 minute commute for the husband, but there was no traffic so it was virtually a stress free drive.  Except for dodging hippy hitchhikers and deer.  I never really settled in, and I can’t say I loved it, but it was not bad.

But we had one real estate hellish event.  We had what we liked to call the  unrental cabin, that really well thought out “investment property” that never turned a freakin’ dime.  In fact, it cost us thousands of dimes.  It had been for sale for 2 years.  I know, nothing in terms of today’s economy, but it was looming over us for a long time.  And then, miraculously, in April we sold it.  At a loss.  In fact, we pretty much paid people to buy it from us.  But it was OVER.  We closed on the deal as we were meeting with the medical officers to determine if Olivia could actually move to Hawaii.  Then we were in limbo for 2 weeks waiting to see if all our plans were going to fall apart.  And then, we got cleared.  And then we got orders like 20 days before we were supposed to fly.  And then we didn’t get our flights scheduled until 7 days before we flew.  

Stress?  Nahhhhh.  I haven’t had fingernails since May 1st.

From there, you know the story.  We moved into a rental home that was beautiful, with a pool and a golf course view.  We were going to homeschool, so who cares how crappy the public school down the street is?  I mean, I am Superwoman, on my 5th move in 8 years.  I am awesome.  I can do this.  Then the movers misplaced our household goods.  On the west coast.  While we are in Hawaii.

Oh.  Turns out that when I live without my shiz for 9 weeks, I lose my everloving mind.  Everything fell apart.  The husband was stressed with the job.  He was stressed with the commute because he has to go to three different offices around the island (which with Hawaii traffic would just simply cause Jesus to curse).  He didn’t like the rental house.  And when Olivia began first grade at the local public school, it was bad.  Just bad.  

So in September, against my wishes, my husband went to the base housing office to say “Hey. We screwed up.  Any chance you can give us a house?”  Now, we know people wait months and months, living out of their cars and hotel rooms, to get housing. 

And guess what?  They had a house.  A stand alone historic house that was built in the 1930s and just refurbished.  Tiny, but it was still our house without anyone attached to us.  And historic--how cool is that?

So we summoned up our courage and asked our landlords if we could move out.  We told them the school situation was not working out, and the commute was proving to be much harder on the husband than anticipated.  We needed to be close to at least one of his offices to get more family time, the chance for a better school, and less work stress.

They said yes.  They didn’t have to--but they were gracious.  We promised we would take care of showings, and that they wouldn’t lose a dime in the process.  We would take care of things until we found a new tenant.  And things began really well.  In the first weekend, we had two showings, and one application to rent the house.  We were thrilled.  We signed for the historic home and set up the movers.

And then...the new applicants backed out.  I got scared.  I quit blogging.  I quit everything.  It ended up taking 4 months to get a new tenant.  We had to pass on the house I wanted.

But things have a way of working out, right?  And in 2012, we are beginning the year living in a brand new townhouse on the base.  It takes my husband 4 minutes to drive to work. 

(I can show you this picture because you can not see the street sign, the house number, or the name on the front.  And there are are guards at the gate.  Come on!  I dare you to try to show up and ask for my autograph!)  Right across the street is the house where we ate supper with friends on our second night on the island in June.  I had no idea that 7 months later, I would live in that “under construction” area across the street from people that went with my husband to Purdue 16 years ago.  We are surrounded by many lovely children around our own children’s age.  There are lots of mommies who also enjoy a glass of wine with their supper.  Mommies that don’t judge me when this happens--

One our third night in the house, Colin was outside in the back yard as I cut up some chicken for supper.  I saw him trying to dig around a newly planted tree.  Knife and fork in hand, I went out to the patio to tell him to stop it.  And then he ran from me.  As the neighbors were looking on, I realized that there I was--chasing my son in the backyard, demanding he come to me, while I held a knife and fork in each hand.  Lovely.  They still let their kids play with mine.

My children are outside for hours and hours.  I miss my privacy a bit--I won’t lie that when I went back to clean the other house, it made me sad to go put my feet in my pool and to know it wasn’t mine anymore.  It was beautiful.

Still.  Life is better.  I have fingernails again--this is a significant sign to me that physically, I'm a bit more right in the head.  (Not too much--I mean, what would if I have to write about if I was completely happy and sane?)  My children are happier.  My husband is happier.    And other things have changed too...but that’s part two.

Ringing in 2012 with a Z Pack

I have had the best of intentions to start blogging again regularly, as I once did.  However, bronchitis has sidelined us this week.  Olivia came down with it a few days ago, and luckily, I took her in to the doctor yesterday who said we a hair shy of pneumonia.  She's on the mend now, but just sick enough to require a steady dose of Netflix movies and to bemoan how mean her brother is to her even when she's sick.

Luckily, we have this--and I love kids getting older because this is 4 days, once a day, and not 10 days twice a day.  Yippee!

And this all leaves me with this.  Hoping against hope that somehow the rest of us escape illness.  So far, so good.

I do have so much to tell you about what's been going on these last few months.  Let's just say that in review, 2011 was a tough year, and I'm thrilled to be moving on to a much brighter 2012.  But I will share that we have moved onto the base, successfully chucked our rental lease, and are homeschooling again (happily!).  And no, I'm on no illegal drugs and my wine usage is still within a normal range.  Can you believe it?  I barely can, and I'm pretty sure my husband thinks I've been replaced by an alien clone.

For a brief glimpse at the year in review from the husband's point of view, you can visit here.