When therapy "clicks"

Yesterday Daniel had art therapy.

I had called ahead to let the therapist know what was going on, so she was ready when we got there.

She used music and movement and drawing to pull Daniel out and get him to talk, but not in the way that psychologists do. She talked to him about how hard it was for her when her students don't listen and act up in her class, and she talked to him about how it made her feel.

When she asked Daniel if he knew what she was talking about, his eyes lit up and he joined in - telling her how it made him feel like fire when the kids misbehave and how he hits himself and tries to shush them but it doesn't work, it only adds oxygen to the fire.

They used drums to express how it made them feel, and the whole time Daniel talked and talked.

This is significant because he had not been willing to talk with his psychologist.

He spontaneously drew a diagram showing how he would like to feel (relaxed), how he feels most of the time (mildly to moderately anxious) and how he feels during conflicts at school (tense, "on fire" out of control)

He said he's only felt relaxed one or two times in his life.

I'm a fly on the wall during these sessions, listening but not interfering unless he calls me in. Several times yesterday I was near tears listening to him and his eloquent descriptions of how he feels. He holds so much in his brain, absorbing everything and then when it comes back out through his filter it is just amazing.

He got carried away comparing his feelings to those of a giant gaseous planet orbiting too close to it's star. (I think this is what he's talking about, but who knows) Updated to add: Here is the actual link to what he was talking about. Proud parent Howard looked it up so that you would have the "correct" information.

He couldn't simply end with the comparison, he had to fill her in on all of the pertinent minutiae, so that she could properly understand his reference.

Sometimes it's like he has to give you the contents of his brain so that he can have a conversation with you.

At the end, the therapist challenged him to be a little easier on himself for the next few days, and not feel responsible for the behavior of the other children in his class, and gave him a mantra to repeat to himself when he starts to get "wound up". He wouldn't promise her anything, because he can't commit unless he knows he can succeed, but he said he might try.

It was nothing short of beautiful.

And when he climbed into the car, he told me, "I love her."

"Me too" I said.

Me too.

Ode to seven

Seven.

That's how old Daniel is.

OK, well, he's been seven for a few months now, but I'm a little slow in processing these milestones sometimes.

He's reached the age of reason according to the Catholic Church.

I know I kvetch a lot, but right now, at this minute, it's pretty awesome to be the mom of a seven year old.

For instance:

recently we went rock-climbing at one of those indoor rock-climbing emporiums.
We had fun!
All three of us!
And no one cried!
Even when it was hard - really hard.

We scrambled up those walls like monkeys.
Monkeys in harnesses with a guide whose sole job was to make sure we didn't fall and kill ourselves.
Safety-conscious monkeys. (with signed liability waivers)

AND, even though I brought along enough bandages, anti-biotic cream, cold-packs and gauze to make the most seasoned EMT proud - we did not need any of it!

Yay!!!

Oh, and also, seven year olds will sometimes get themselves dressed without your help.

And they might even put away their toys without being threatened.

And they STILL say cute things like:

"Did I ever tell you that you are the most awesome mom ever?"

Yup, I'm really digging Seven.

Everyone's normal at a Grim Reaper Convention

In the midst of all the waiting, waiting, waiting for the lawyers to do their jobs in regards to the new house... life just keeps happening.

I would have preferred to stay home Friday, and obsess about real estate, or maybe even just sleep, but my husband was sick and straddling that line of illness between human and zombie, so it fell on me to take Daniel to the school Halloween extravaganza.

Daniel never really wanted to go to events like this in the past, and when we did go it would inevitably be a short  visit, because he would quickly become overwhelmed and overstimulated.  So I had hopes that  we would leave early.

The school gym looked like a grim reaper convention with a few confused princesses providing dancing entertainment. Apparently, this is a seven-year-olds idea of the PERFECT party. We stayed for the entire party. I had to drag him out the door when the clean-up crew busted out the brooms.

Daniel figured out on his own how to deal with all of the things that usually send him running for the door.

When it got too loud for him, he grabbed my hand and we went into the hallway to chill-out for a little while.

When he started to get anxious that he couldn't find me fast enough, he asked me to "park" myself by one of the doors so that he would always know where I was.

He tried several times to go wandering through the school so he could find a truly quiet place devoid of other people, but every time I guided him back, and he easily went back to running around with his friends.

He was clearly overwhelmed, but every time I suggested that we leave, he held firm and rejoined the other kids.

I'm happy for him, I'm proud that he made it through without a full blown meltdown... but I really wanted to go home and crawl into my own bed. So I kept asking....

"Are you ready to go?"
"No."

"You look tired, shall we go?"
"No."

"It's really loud, huh?"
"Yeah."
"Do you need a break?"
"Uh huh."
"Ok, why don't we leave?"
"No. We can just sit in the hall."

So we sat, until he felt he could deal with the noise and confusion again.

I'm happy for him, and sad that my husband wasn't there to see it, because when you've got a kid who is "different", you rejoice whenever he fits-in with the crowd. And that night, among the scores of skeletons, ghouls and grim reapers, he looked positively normal.

Photo by mstresbabette

I don't want to jinx it but...

Just a quick note to say that it looks as though we are buying a house.

In Montclair of all places.

Really. What better place to gather up all your money into an enormous bonfire in the name of homeownership and property taxes?

I'm so happy, I'm positively numb.

And this....

this is NOT my new house.

But, Ooo Ooo Ooo...

This one isn't my new house either!

And THAT makes me very very happy!

The Federal Government stole an hour away from my dying cat

Ok, first off, how did my computer know about the change in Daylight Savings Time? I always thought  that the automatic change had something to do with the computer's calendar. But clearly, my computer is getting memos on these things. What else is it getting memos about???

I tell you, when I'm old and my only goal in life is to be an embarrassment to my son, I'm going to refuse to observe Daylight Saving Time. I will be late for my appointments half of the year, and when people get upset, I will remind them that the US government does not compel any state (or person, by my reasoning) to participate in DST. (Except that somehow they made Canada and Mexico , and even Indiana, go along with them too.)

Enough of my DST rant.

This morning, just moments ago really, I was lying in bed with my husband, son and the kitten. Remnants of my dreams were still swirling around my head. A richly paneled boat's interior, my father standing by a window saying something inane...and thoughts of Atreus crept in. We ended last night on a sour note. You see, I am now supposed to "encourage him strongly to eat". Which is just another way of saying "force feed".  So I did the best I could and gave him some of the high calorie supplement they gave me at the vet. He was pissed. Angry at me.

So I was lying in bed feeling awful about my cat again. I am an expert in guilt and remorse. I have been training for the Olympic Guilt and Remorse event my whole life.

I decided that I would get up even though it was only six a.m., (no! now it's seven - damn you DST!), and try to find him and apologize for the force feeding "incident".

He was in the living room resting comfortably, purring even. So I thought I'd get him some fresh water and give the other cats some dry food. Well, he actually came over and ate some dry food while I was getting the water! So I gave him some of his fancy prescription food... and he ate it! I feel like hugging someone, but they are all sleeping, still blissfully blanketed by Standard Time.

Crocodile tears

Since Daniel was a baby, he would always cry long and loud over bumps and mishaps that appeared to be quite minor.

This tendency of his only bolstered friends and relatives who believed we were somehow making him this way by coddling him.

We had no idea about Sensory Integration Dysfunction back then, so of course while we comforted him every time he cried, secretly we (OK, I) were thinking about what everyone was telling us and how maybe they were right. In the end we figured that Daniel was just a very sensitive individual (read: crybaby).

By the time he was evaluated, things were already getting better on the "bump and cry" front. A major factor in the progress was a tumble he took from a chair  when he was about three that sent him nose first into the floor with the chair landing on top of him. That was the worst pain he had ever experienced up to that point and it gave him a little perspective as to how bad it could get. After that incident, when he would get hurt he would always say through his tears, "I'm alright, it's not as bad as hitting my nose."

Daniel has continued to get better in this area as he grows older, although he is still much more sensitive than most children.

The other night though, he was in the tub and managed to bash his head on the built-in ceramic soap dish that protrudes from the side of the tub. He started to cry but then said the following to his dad:

"You know sometimes when I get hurt, it doesn't actually hurt. It's just my brain telling me to cry. If I can think that it's just my brain, then I can feel that it doesn't really hurt. That's a good strategy."

I don't know if he came up with this on his own, or if someone planted this idea in his head, but all I can say is Eureka!

Visiting the Isms

It was a lovely - if freezing, President's Day.

We celebrated by taking the train into the city and visiting MOMA.

This is not a trip to take lightly with a kid with sensory issues. But I bought our tickets online so that we wouldn't have to wait in line to buy them. (Very smart if I do say so myself!)

The first hour in the museum was quite nice. I love the enthusiasm he has for all kinds of artwork. Cubism, Impressionism, Fauvism, Abstract Expressionism and Surrealism, we saw them all, (or at least an example or two of each).  But then Daniel got hungry. The gods were smiling on us because he was willing to eat the food that passes for a kid's meal at the frou-frou cafe in the museum.

When we were done with the food, there were alot more people walking around and the low-level hum of talking had become more of a small-airplane drone. We tried to see a few more key paintings, but there were just too many people and the noise level was just too great.

There were several mini-meltdowns but he managed to push through them, and I WILL remember this as a successful trip. (I have a selective memory, so I can do that if I want.)

Let's face facts here, Manhattan is a very difficult place for a child with sensory sensitivities. Everything is too big, too loud, too busy, too bright, too smelly, you name it, it is too TOO much.

And because of this little "trip to the city", I have decided that when I become Queen of the World, (didn't know I was going for that title, did you?), I will abolish all Patterned Floors. Especially in public spaces. All floors will be of a solid, preferably dull color. And not shiny.

This is because it was near impossible to get Daniel out of Penn Station today what with the alternating tan and white squares on the floor of the NJ Transit section. Yes, it looks lovely, but have you ever seen a kid who is hell bent on only walking on tan floor squares when all of Manhattan and half of New Jersey is whizzing by as fast as their little legs can take them?

If you were in Penn Station today - I'm sorry. Daniel probably got right in front of you and made you stop short to avoid hitting him. (And if you are the lady with fox collar coat and red handbag...watch where you're going!)

I would love to take the train down to D.C. and spend a weekend there going to the museums. It sounds like so much fun. But I think we'll do a few more trips to the MOMA first. (And maybe next time we can go on a day when your ears don't fall off your head the moment you step outside because its just that COLD.)

Photo by Jose Ibanez.

Excluded!

Yesterday my husband and I went into the city to finally set up a will. (Excuse me for a sec. I have to make sure I have no readers from Nova Scotia) OK, I'm back. So far so good.

Where was I?

Right. A will. My child is six years old and we are just now getting to this. It was so so scary. Not the meeting - the ride up in the elevator. Very scary. I was pretty sure they were going to yell at us for being so lazy and ass-backwards about a Very Important Grown-up Thing-a-ma-jig.

But they didn't yell. Or even make us feel bad. Huh? If I knew it was going to be so easy, I might have been on board to do it oh, say six years ago.

You know that accident we had? If something had happened to us in that crash, Daniel's future life would have been screwed. Spell it with me people - F**KED. (Sorry, I didn't get to that swear word yet).

It's not just that we didn't have a will and family members would have had to go to court to get custody, or that we hadn't made him a beneficiary of the life insurance, or that we hadn't set up a trust to shelter that money from taxes.

OK, actually it is ALL those things. But there's something more.

There are certain people, (perhaps a whole "lineage"), who I do not want to have guardianship of Daniel. EVER. And those people happen to live closer to us than the people who we do want to have guardianship of Daniel in case my husband and I die.

This is an issue for me. (yes, I know, another issue.)

Daniel is a special kid, and like I told the lawyer yesterday, he's special on both ends of the spectrum.  If he is nurtured and supported I believe he has tremendous potential to be a happy, productive individual. At the same time I think that it would be very easy to screw him up, so that he ends up living in a van down by the river.

The person we have always known that we wanted to be Daniel's guardian would be a nurturing and supportive influence. The other people who would want to be his guardian? Definitely "van down by the river".

But here's the awesome thing about making a will: not only do you get to say exactly who you want to be guardian, but you can also Specifically Exclude certain people from becoming guardians. This way if those certain people tend to be nasty and might want to take this to court, they really wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell.

It was huge for me to say to the lawyer that I didn't want those people to ever have guardianship. And it was equally huge when he said that he could exclude them.

Like crapping your pants and flying to the moon at the same time.

Huge.

(But not actually liberating enough for me to name those excluded people.)

Photo by Daniel L.

Hugs

I didn't say it yesterday, because I wasn't really feeling it, what with the snow day and all, but,

Happy Valentine's Day

(belated)

Today was my first time volunteering in Daniel's classroom.

I have had mixed feelings about this.
On the one hand, I would like to see what the classroom situation is like.
On the other hand, I really don't want to know.

But there I was today. And I had a really nice time. I was able to help out with the Valentine distribution, which was nice. I didn't spend too much time with Daniel, which worked out well. And when it was time for me to go he looked at me and said "Bye!" with a quick hug. Just like we had practiced.

And then as I put on my coat to go, I found him standing next to me fighting back tears, and putting on a brave face. We did our usual good-bye routine (from this book), and he sat back down with his friends.

YES!

Of course, we had discussed my leaving beforehand and I told him that if he couldn't handle me leaving, then I wouldn't be able to come into his classroom next time. So the stakes were high for him.

You know, living with Daniel is like being on a raft in the open ocean. Everything is raw and open to the elements, and when there's a storm you feel like you are in danger of falling off. But when the sea is calm, you have the most beautiful view and you feel like you are in the best place in the world.

I say this because yesterday, we were home alone together and for the first half of the day he cried about everything. I wish I was exaggerating, but I'm not.

Can't find the scissors? Cry.
The Nintendo DS lost its screen protector? Cry.
Don't understand why the Tivo is working "exactly the way it's supposed to"? Cry.
Want a snack but can't figure out what? Cry.

This went on until about 12:30, and then we had a really nice afternoon together.

I have a theory as to why he was so out-of-sorts in the morning. Here goes:
It was because he expected to go to school, and it took him that long to adjust to the fact that he was staying home instead.

I'd like to say that I was a bastion of patience during the morning hours - but that would be lying. I got in his face several times and told him that what he was crying about wasn't worth the effort of tears.

Did it help? No.
Was it an appropriate thing for me to say? No.

But we "wiped the slate clean" several times and played Mario Kart and continued on as best we could.
And today, after seeing him in his classroom, I want to tell him how proud I am of him for being able to keep it together amidst all the chaos of school every day. I know I often talk about how far he's come, but really? It's just huge that he can handle a class that big, that chaotic, with so many things going on at once. I want to make trophies for Daniel and all his teachers.

And when Daniel gets home from school today, I'm going to tell him how proud I am.

Trump card

Heard last night at my house:

Me - "You need to finish putting your toys away."

Daniel - "I said I'll do it later."

Me - "You said that earlier you'd do it later, you need to pick them up."

Daniel - "It's not later, its now."

Me - (Silence)

Daniel - "Its always now, there is no later."

In the six years in which I have been Daniel's mom I have learned, finally, not to argue semantics with him. He would have been happy to discuss string theory or relativity with me all the while NOT picking up his toys. But we had no philosophical discussions last night. Instead I pulled out my mommy trump card and laid it brazenly on the table: 

Me - "Well, then if you aren't going to pick them up, I'll do it, but I'll be putting your toys away in a garbage bag."

Photo by quadrapop.