Homework; Sans the Fight - or - Can You BELIEVE It???

This time, on Dr. S's suggestion, I got proactive. I pulled out Princess's new homework while she was out of the room and chopped it up into tiny pieces. When she came in, I said, "your homework hasn't been getting done in time, so sit down and we'll start it now." And I handed her a paper with three math problems. Easy ones. And another. And another. And another. Then the hard one.

The first and last problems were correct. The rest were, er, ridiculous.
Well, hello RAD! I was wondering when you'd show up.

After several more equally ridiculous corrections, I heard her work 53-3 the following way:

"53...52...51..........(catches self almost solving problem correctly).........40."

Which was the answer she had already had. For several "tries."

"Oh! We're playing that game! Oh, thank you for letting me know! I was wondering if you were trying, or if you were playing the Pretending Not to Know game, and now I know! Ok, so we need to handle this differently, then. So here's what you do: while you're Pretending Not to Know how to do that math problem, please pretend to ask me to check it. Of course, if you decide to go back to trying, you can ask and I'll check it for you for real. But for the game, please pretend."

"50. It's 50."

"Oh yay! You're trying! Ok, now fix number 16."

"But I don't remember how!"

"Ohhhhhhh, that must be so frustrating! To have your brain suddenly lose something it knew a few minutes ago? I don't know how you can stand that! That must be horrible!"

"But yoooooooou're noooooooooot heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelping meeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

"Why, how can you say that? I'm right here! And I'm reminding you to do it Mrs. C's way! That's help like crazy!"

"But.... (yeah. That again. I'm not going to type it. It's almost as annoying to type as it is to hear)!"

"Ok. I'll help you a different way. I'll put away your homework. There!"

"But...URG!!!!"

"Seriously Princess, you have got an Amazing Helping Mom. In fact, I'm such an Amazing Helping Mom that YOU should give me a high-five."



(OMG! She gave me the high-five! A totally scowling and grumbling high-five! I could barely keep from howling!)



"Oh, and Princess. Here's some more help: put away your pencil so you can find it later. AAAAAH! Can you believe how awesome I am??? YAY MEEEEE!"

She put away her pencil. And asked for an orange. And did not have a snit.
And yay Princess.

Stuck in I Don't Want To

Princess has been raw since her last therapy session. Because the good news is that Princess is having some predictable rages. But the bad news is that Princess is having some predictable rages. At therapy, we discussed one of them. And by "discussed," I mean that Dr. S. and I talked as if Princess was joining in while Princess played with a car looking decidedly uncomfortable.

The predictable situation is this: Sunday morning. We picked it apart down to the catalyst: the God Time Card. Every week, I'm given a paper for each kid that breaks a theme into four days of study, mainly one Bible verse to look up, a four-sentence devotional, and a little word game. They are meant for about a third-grade reading level, so Princess and Peanut can't do it independently. Princess, however, won't even try. Every time I encourage her to work on it there is a bloody battle, culminating in a war Sunday morning.

As Dr. S and I worked through the scenario, we figured out what is happening. Princess has a visual processing disorder. What she sees doesn't necessarily make sense to her. So she looks at the God Time card (or a page of math problems), and immediately tells herself, "I can't do this." Which is followed by, "I am stupid." The daily tantrum works nicely to deflect from the frustration: she's letting us know (CLEARLY!!!) that it's not, of course, that she can't do it,

it's that she won't. She doesn't care to.

She doesn't want to.

But this philosophy has a problem. And the problem is called: My Teacher Will Give Me a Prize If My Paper is Signed. And this problem has a co-problem called: My Mom Won't Sign My Card if I Didn't Do It. And not getting a prize causes Princess copious amounts of anxiety. And copious amounts of anxiety cause our family to have to listen to screaming trapped in a Suburban for 30 minutes every Sunday morning.

So good. Now I'm clear what's going on. Dr. S then talked with Princess, and I was slightly astounded at the conversation. In response to a question, Princess said that she was not good at tap. Strangely, out of all that is difficult for Princess, tap is not one of them. She is excellent at tap, and she's gotten a lot of praise and attention for being excellent at tap. So Dr. S asked her why she thought she wasn't good at tap, and listed some tap components. After a lot of shoulder shrugging, Princess said, "I'm good at all that stuff. I am good at tap." So Dr. S asked her what she was good at in school. Princess said, "I'm good at everything. Reading, math, writing." She listed all the parts of school that are a deep struggle for her. She did the denial thing for a while longer, and then looked down in her lap and mumbled that she gets confused and then frustrated and then angry.

Wait. You might not have noticed that. Let me say it again.

Princes SAID, "I get confused, and frustrated, and angry."

And Mom expels the breath she was holding.

Then, Dr. S talked with her (at her? for her?) about how she looks at a paper, gets confused, and doesn't want to try, but still wants the prize. Princess is seeing the "I don't want to" and the "prize," but is skipping over the "but I have to the get the" part. Dr. S said to her, "you are stuck in 'I don't want to.'"

She is stuck in "I don't want to."
And that is the raw nerve that is still sticking out.

Since, we've had a cycle of bad evenings that lead to bad mornings. We have those a lot, but something's different. I don't want to say it out loud, but it's almost like she's about to let something out.

For one, she's acting more hurt than angry. And she's letting me soothe her.

This morning she wouldn't go out to get the back pack she had left in the car. The back pack that held her lunch box. The lunch box she needed to carry her lunch. She kept putting her shoes on to walk though the house (which the kids are not allowed to do- with all their mud and filth and all) to get the coat that was not there (because it was in her back pack). And she insisted there was no other alternative. And that I was keeping her from getting it. So, by the time we needed to leave, she was irate and high anxiety. Her lunch was still sitting on the counter. Usually this means a bad, bad, bad car ride.

But when I went and got her, I said in mock excitement (but without sarcasm, which is a trick, especially for someone who loves sarcasm as much as I), "Guess what! I know a way to get your coat without wearing your shoes in the house! You won't even BELIEVE how magical it is! I bet you didn't even know you could do it that way!" The whole time, I kept making a big deal about how amazing it was. I sat her down and played baby games with her feet and shoes, having her name the parts, getting real excited whenever we got a shoe on.

Another child would be offended and furious. Princess would usually be irate and furious. But she quieted and softened. She played along. And a few minutes later, she made a plan. She said, "I will not talk in the car, so I don't end up with trouble.

And she did it.

When Animals Eat Their Young

Six months ago I would have pegged Princess's emotional age at 3-4. Now it is decidedly a very young three. Oddly, I think it's a good thing, because this time around I can tell exactly what age she is, instead of guessing at this muddled 4/7 mix and trying to figure out which one to parent. While the new medication she's on hasn't magically eliminated all that is frustrating (my preference), it has made whatever's going on clearer. Or at least less blurry.

Her behavior of choice this past week has been to screw up her face and shout "NO!" or, "I DON'T WANT TO!" and stand and stare at me with her hands on her hips.

The problem is: toddlers are cute. They are cute for one very, very important reason:

so their mothers don't eat them.

When Buddy was seven, I enjoyed his emerging humor, his creative ideas, and his new ability to have a fairly mature conversation. But he was not cute. Cuteness is not necessary to engage parents at age seven.

And so.

Buddy was the easiest toddler and preschooler in existence (he was a horrible baby, but that's another story). If we had stopped with him, I would have thought I was the best parent in the universe, and would have enjoyed many years of mentally criticizing other people's parenting. I will always mourn that loss. I would turn a corner and find him in his time-out spot and have to ask him what he did. He has always been intrinsically motivated and self-disciplined. If he was acting out, all we would have to do was hold up our pointer finger (like, "hey. Wait a minute), and he would stop. We have a movie from our South Dakota trip when he was three. He was having a major car melt-down because we wouldn't give him something he wanted. He was red-faced, crying, and screaming, "MY! FINGER! IS! UUUUUUUUUUUUUP!!!!" With his finger up. In the background you can hear Josh and I rolling and choking with laughter in the front seat. The camera is shaking because I was laughing so hard.

Why? Because he was so! CUTE!!!

Princess is not seven. She is beautiful, but she is not cute. Because at age seven, she shouldn't need to be. But she's not really seven. So finding ways to remain un-annoyed by her behavior, take her into my lap, and rub her back and coo until she gets melty- well, let's just say it's a challenge.

Peanut helped me out yesterday, though. Peanut was looking at a book about dance around the world while Princess was in her tap class. We were discussing where the people in the pictures were from and their skin color. Peanut was comparing skin colors to her own and I was half-listening when she pointed to one and said, "he looks just like Princess."

I looked, and my first thought was, why did she say that- it's the face of a man with darker skin than Princess's? I looked again. It was a page about how to express emotions with your face. The one Peanut pointed to? Disgust.

And it looked exactly like Princess.
Hey. If you can't laugh....

The Toilet is Your Friend. Really. It is

That's right- we are back where we started. All the effort from spring break: pffffbth. Gone. Down the crapper. So to speak.

It's been a slow decline, of course, gaining force as the moving boxes piled up. Why it's suddenly reached it's full point of non-toileting now, two months after moving, I do not know. I don't need to know. I am done. Cooked. Stick a fork in me. Al dente. The toast has popped up. I figure either Princess will use the toilet regularly by the time she's married, or she will find a very understanding husband, but either way I have fully accepted that I. Cannot. Change this. I can't.

And I'm ok with that. The part I'm not ok with, however, is that along with the pe.e come Ye Olde Epic Laundry Battle. Because Princess waits until she is entirely out of pants and/or un.derwear to start a load of laundry. And even that generally involves an argument about whether or not clean pan.ties should be expected to magically appear in her drawer.  Not being able to shut her box doesn't cue her. Taking out the last pair of un.derwear doesn't cue her. Even not having any un.derwear or pants when she needs to change cues her. It's maddening. And I can't even just ignore it, because it's all an excuse to have a major blow-up in which everything it My Fault.

So today, Princess will come home from school exhausted from eight hours of holding pe.e, wet herself, and find no un.derwear in her drawer. And while I'm trying to cook a well-balanced dinner before leaving for gynastics, Princess will spend 45 minutes coming up with thousands of vastly creative ways to produce clean un.derwear, none of which involve starting a load of laundry. Then she will accept a load of laundry must be started. The next 45 minutes will be dedicating to much vocalization and thumping regarding the degree to which the situation is My Fault.

And tomorrow, when the clothing is dry, I will fold it all up and put it away. In the linen closet. To be doled out piece by piece, by me, as needed. Because as much as I hate taking choices away from my children, I hate being coerced into arguing more.

If it's too hard to manage your laundry, that's ok, that's why I'm here.

Trick or Boo

Yes. Jorge is wearing a costume. One boy and three girls and it is the boy who is picky about what he wears. Every year he wants to go trick-or-treating, but every year it's an ordeal to select a costume he doesn't feel "silly" wearing. Last year we settled on Charlie and Lola (semi-obscure children's book) for he and the Cuddle Bear, and of course no one knew what they were. But I struck gold this year- I discovered that Buddy will dress up as anything if Jorge is part of the costume. Our first plan was Jorge as a lobster and Buddy as a chef (carrying Jorge around in a large blanketed pot), but T@rget was out of lobsters. Hence the sheriff and outlaw duo. Jorge's costume is far more hilarious in real life than in the picture. You'll have to trust me. And really, isn't he about the handsomest boy you've ever seen? I'm not supposed to say that, though. I get punched in the leg.

Anyway. The point. The point is Princess, there. Historically costume discussions have been pretty predictable. Every year she's been a princess, a fairy, a dance, a princess-fairy, a fairy-dancer or a princess-dancer. This year started out as no exception, and suddenly she cried out, "NO! I want to be PINKALICOUS!!!"

For those of you that have only boys and/or expose  your children only to high-quality literature, this is Pinkalicious:
















Obviously. What's not to like? Anyway. The point is that this is the first truly creative idea Princess has come up with. So Pinkalicious it was.

But there was an even bigger deal. Trick-or-treating seems to be challenging for a lot of families in our situation, although I don't know that anyone's pinned down exactly why. I've been finding myself lately more in tune to Princess's behavior linking to fear. At one point in our trek Princess, seemingly randomly, yelled at Peanut for "making her shoes come off," and stomped her feet around. However, me and my stealth eye had just noticed a particularly scary-masked, black-hooded figure pass, so I said, "some of those costumes look pretty scary, don't they? It makes a feeling inside you, kind of like "mad." That feeling is called "scared," and if you feel "scared," you can come hold my hand.

And she did.

I'm sure people wondered why my seven-year-old needed her mom to walk her up and could barely mutter "thank-you," before turning and bolting, but I don't care.

She needed her mom to walk her up.

Whirlwinds

Yesterday's weather forecast was full of superlatives: "epic," "historical," "hurricane-strength winds," "20-foot waves," and tornado watches. To all of which I said, "meh."

We live near Lake Michigan, so the forecast is all about "lake-effect" this and "lake-effect" that, and none of it ever happens; it bounces right over us and hits with full fury 20 minutes east. However, a tornado spotted 30 minutes south of us is enough for a Tornado Warning in our county.

So when I heard that the children had to sit in Tornado Drill Mode for two hours yesterday, I knew two of my three school-aged children would come home wigged out. I just wasn't sure which two.

I picked up the kids at the end of the day and said, "well! I heard you had a not-so-much-fun morning." In reply, I got grunts and a couple detailed accounts of said two hours, which may or may not have been accurate (I'm particularly suspicious of the tale of sitting with books on their heads for the full two hours). And then, as if on cue, Buddy began snapping at his sisters. Enter wigged-out child number one. After a bit I said, "hey Buddy. I think maybe the tornado warning was a little scary. So watch your words, because it's not your sisters' faults." And Buddy growled that that wasn't it. In fact, he made it very. clear. that he was not afraid of the tornado. Alrighty, then. The snapping continued, so I reminded him that no matter what was on his mind, he had better guard his words so he could avoid consequences for them.

We got home, we spread out, things were quiet. Then we left for Princess's tap class, during which Peanut does her weekly homework. Except, enter wigged-out child number two. For the entire half-hour, Peanut fussed and flailed around on the floor proclaiming ignorance regarding odd and even numbers while I knitted and dropped occasional nuggets like: "please fuss in your level one voice," and, "would you rather lay down on that bench? It seems like this is just too hard right now," and, "since you say you didn't learn this at school, maybe you could write Mrs. O. instead, and suggest she teach you this again." We went home and had dinner, which Peanut decided would be appropriate to eat by sticking her finger in the middle and slurping the soup off it. I did a lovely impromptu puppet show about manners with her spoon, which she apparently did not appreciate, since she gave me full eye-contact while she stuck her finger back into her soup.

Let's just say she was asleep by 6:45.

The rest of the evening went without incident. It is telling of some of the changes beginning around here that Princess was not one of the two-thirds wigged-out children. But when I tucked Buddy into bed, he tried to make me promise that I would make sure Jorge was safe if there ever was a tornado or fire while Buddy was at school. I told Buddy I couldn't promise that, but he could be sure that I would as far as it was possible, because I love Jorge, too. We were silent for a moment, and I said, "were you worried about Jorge during the tornado warning?"

And he curled up again me and shook a little and said, "no, but I couldn't stop thinking about my sisters. I kept thinking I was hearing their voices, but I couldn't go help them."

We talked for a while about all the provisions in place to make sure our family is safe in an emergency, even when we aren't with them.

But I don't take mental health lightly anymore. Later I got down on my knees and praised God for a child who can feel his feelings and trust me with them. For a child who can give and receive love and feel responsibility for others.

My heart is full.

Two Legs in One Leg Hole

Peanut and the Cuddle Bear started gymnastics two weeks ago. Peanut played soccer last fall (and was excellent, I might add), but when I took her to a gymnastics expo this summer, her face turned pink and her eyes lit up, and she was transfixed as I have never seen. So gymnastics it is.

Normally my policy is "no organized activities before age five." But the Cuddle Bear has become clearly fed up over the years with being dragged constantly to everyone else's activities. Princess's therapist actually suggested I put her in something. I'm not sure why- maybe because the Cuddle Bear was finding more and more clever ways to sneak into the play therapy room? I don't know. So the problem was what to put her in. She can't try soccer until she's 5 1/2, the only ballet class for children that young was at Princess's studio (and if I saw the Big Green Monster at the gymnastics studio, just watch me put someone else in hers), and the other option is "Creative Movement." I have an issue with "Creative Movement," because it cost just as much as everything else, and the Cuddle Bear does enough "Creative Movement" on her own for free.

Fortunately, the gymnastics studio accepts 4-year-olds. There's one on the performance team, even; she looks like a wet noodle. I don't believe that child has any cartilage in her.

After the first session, it became apparent that gymnastics is Peanut's calling. She was focused, she listened to her coach, she memorized every minute muscle detail her coach described. She even stood more maturely. By the next week, she could do a back bend from standing:

Then, on the other end of the spectrum is the Cuddle Bear. The Cuddle Bear spent close to an hour half-heatedly jumping back and forth over a hoop. Why? Because the coach is already onto her and figured out that the Cuddle Bear could do it right if she wanted to.

The Cuddle Bear: "I don't want to do this anymore."
Coach: "Then do it right."
TCB: "I want to do something else."
Coach: "Then do one right."

I think I'm going to like this woman.

The Cuddle Bear- performing a half-hearted hoop-jump:

I don't know what's up with the shorts. I am 87% sure I didn't put them on that way. Apparently pre-cartwheels have the power to shove both your legs through one shorts leg hole.