Going Gluten Free...sort of

Wow, I haven't been here in ages! Sorry for the prolonged absence. I took a hiatus to write a novel back in November, which I did succeed in drafting, and then I was asked to revise my first novel, but I've been sidetracked with the inspiration to write a new one. So, I'll probably be sporadic at best. There hasn't been much new going on either. Gus's teacher had an accident just before Christmas and hasn't been back to school yet, so I think he's missing her. He's been sort of unfocused at school, not doing his individual work. But otherwise, he's pretty much been status quo.

My friend the dietitian came to see him this week and again recommended that we try a gluten free diet for just 2 weeks to see if there's any level of change in his ability to focus and attend to tasks. Since we've tried everything else, we decided to go for it. She left me a couple of cookbooks and I bought a bunch of gluten free food yesterday. Today is the first day of the trial. I'll need to find some Xantham gum soon - many of the recipes call for it. But this morning I made some gluten free pancakes from a mix. I had to tweak the recipe because of the cholesterol issue (the recipe called for eggs) and I used applesauce with low fat milk. They came out surprisingly good!

Gus is aware that there will be some dietary changes and I think he may be fretting about them a bit, but right now, he's pleased. Those pancakes really were good. I'm hopeful.

Checking in...

I am halfway through my novel writing insanity, but it is going well. So I thought I'd pop in and update.

I had a parent/teacher conference today and Gus is doing famously in his academics. He's above grade level in most things and this is wonderful to hear. The bad news is that because of his short attention span, he can't sit still long enough to get tasks done. Or at least without an awful lot of redirection. I think the school is hoping that I will put him on some sort of medication. I just wonder though, will that mean that he'll be pushed to mainstream and then lose the support that he has? If that's the case, I don't think I'd be too happy with that. But that's still a little ways off - we (hopefully) finish up with the genetics testing next week and then I'll schedule an appointment with the other doctor to see where we stand.

On a happier note, we've experimented with tin can phones this afternoon. They didn't work exactly like they were supposed to, but Gus was running his finger along the string and we did get to see the whole principle of sound vibration in action. Fun stuff!!

Tomorrow morning, I am back to writing. I am pleased to say that Gus (the fictional one, not my son) has a girlfriend - he decided it was time - and she's had a marvelous effect on him. :-D

Hope all is well with whoever is reading!!! I should be back in a couple of weeks!

Tidbits and a hiatus

Just a brief update...

• The dentist went much better than expected. Gus tried to run away from the dentist a couple of times because he was afraid of the electric toothbrush, but once the dentist put that away, he actually did rather well! No cavities and he got his teeth cleaned with fairly little drama. Go Gus!!

• Halloween was, in a word, insane. Gus didn't even eat much in the way of candy. He was just so excited for the day, he was going at warp speed. I couldn't figure out why he was so much more hyper than we expected him to be, but then we discovered that he had chocolate at his school party. The good news is that he was only out of control for a day instead of two like he has been in the past. So he's tolerating it better!

• Finally, I will be posting very little during the next month as I write the sequel to my novel for this year's NaNoWriMo. Last year I wrote a story and one of the characters was loosely based on Gus (hence the pseudonym here). This year's story will feature him more prominently and continue the adventure. Wish me luck - I'm already 6000 words into my 50000 word goal. I will return to posting when the story is complete!

Thanks for reading!!

Homework and Mondays

Some days, I'll admit, I don't cope well. Some days the St. Johns Wort doesn't work as well as others; it's cold and my knees complain every time I have to walk up the stairs; the kids are feeling more ornery or less cooperative than usual...any combination of things can make the day a blessed heaven or a hellish pit of screaming and insanity.

I was pretty harsh on Gus today. I feel crappy about it, so no need to beat me up - I've got that covered. It was one of those bad combinations and it went all wrong pretty quickly.

He's usually pretty tired when he comes home from school so I let him have a snack and chill out a bit before starting homework. Today I made an apple pie just to give the kids something fun for a change instead of just fruit. They seemed to appreciate it. Then we went up and got ready for homework.

Now Mondays are usually tough because I have a schedule to keep. I've got the get homework done, kids bathed, dinner cooked and eaten and then off to work. It is not the best day for the type of homework that Gus despises or for his lovely sister to decide this is the day to torture him. We got a nice sized helping of both.

Spelling words. He had to trace them and then write them twice more. And there will be a test on Friday. Not something I can really blow off. The boy hates to write. The boy was tired. The boy didn't want to hear noise, but the girl wanted to do spelling like her brother. The mommy was about to ram her own head through the wall.

Here's the thing: She needs to learn empathy and to not kick people when they're down so to speak, but at the same time, he needs to learn to cope and that he can't expect the world to shut down when he needs quiet. Usually we make her stop, but why does she always have to be quiet? Why shouldn't she be allowed to sing if she's moved to (so what if she sounds horrid - she's four!) or to spell or laugh or whatever. It's her home too and all she was doing was being a four year old. She has the right to exist in her home too without being scolded for making noise. But of course as soon as I ask her to stop or she hears her brother getting upset over whatever she's doing, she becomes compelled to continue.

So, I lost it - on him. I ordered him to stop the crying and to deal with it. I told him that the world is not a quiet place (and I was being none too quiet about it) and that he had to cope with the noise sometimes. I asked him what he would do when he's in a bigger class and people were talking - would he tell everyone to be quiet? Would he cry every time someone spoke in class? And what about how he talks when other people want quiet - like at three in the morning when we're trying to sleep? Oddly, he actually responded to what I was saying in between crying more. I really suck at being a mom sometimes.

Then there was the added issue of trying to finish the damned homework. Usually his teacher wants me to make him form the letters properly and neatly. I gave up on that. The last couple of words were a mess, but at least he did them. I'll write a note. Once I got a grip on myself (which I did fairly quickly - not quick enough, but it was a short outburst) I decided to cut all our losses and just get through the best way we could. We have all week to learn to spell 'bicycles'.

We're all back on good terms and I'm dragging my creaky knees out into the cold to work. And I'll just have to hope that tomorrow will be a better day.

Independence

It was gently suggested to me that I need to make Gus do more things for himself. I know that I should, but when I try to it usually ends up in frustration, annoyance and all-around negativity for both of us. So perhaps I'm a bad parent for taking the easy way out, but I'm trying to fix it. This is what it sounded like this morning as we were waiting for the school bus:

"Okay, now we have to put on socks and sneakers." I hand Gus his socks. "Put your socks on, please." He holds his socks and starts reading a book. I take the book and tell him he can have it when he's done getting ready.

"Put your socks on." He drops them on the stairs and goes for a sticker book.

"Put your socks on." He places a sticker in his sticker book. I take the sticker book and place it away from him on the table.

"Gus, please put your socks on, then you can have the book." He takes the sticker book back and ignores me.

I guide him back to the stairs and hand him the socks. "Put. Your. Socks. On." He picks up a sock and stares off into space. I greatly desire to slam my head into the wall several times.

This is a truncated version of what we went through for each article of clothing this morning. I can have him dressed and ready for school in 10 minutes. It took us about half an hour. I must have repeated myself at least fifty times.

I will try going back to the schedule posted, but with having him do more things on his own and having to break down each step, that will be a lot of little tags for he schedule board. The school aides readily admitted that it would take a lot of redirection (holy cow, what an understatement) but that he was capable of doing things for himself. I know he is and at six and a half, I should really be making him less dependent on me. The question is, am I capable of keeping my head from slamming through the wall every morning?

Good News and Bad News

The Good News:

We finally got to go on Gus's class trip to the apple orchard. We arrived at the school much too early - an hour and fifteen minutes before the bus was actually leaving - so I left Gus to his usual routine and drove around with MM. He wasn't pleased with that; apparently he cried when he realized I'd gone. But he toughed it out, we returned and then there was a bittersweet little moment. He decided he wanted to ride the bus with his classmates instead of coming in the car with us. What could I say? MM's silent tears in the back of the car until she fell asleep pretty much summed it up for the both of us.

The weather was kind of the most part, but even the few times that it rained, no one cared. The kids were all having a blast in the maze, on the hayride, picking apples and finding pumpkins. Then they spent a good hour playing in the playground after feeding the goats. It was quite a nice time.

We got some of the biggest apples I've ever seen and came home to make a delicious apple crisp, which the kids both helped with. So of course they got special desserts that night. Later today we'll carve up the pumpkins.

The Bad News:

Gus was in the bathroom washing his hands when I noticed he was taking an abnormally long time. So I asked what he was doing. I heard some mumbled response about a cavity and wanting to brush his teeth. I was doing MM's hair, so I sent my husband to check up on what Gus was getting into. It's never a good idea to leave him unattended in a bathroom for long; all of the dislodged towel bars and toilet paper holders can attest to that.

"Umm...I think Gus is getting a tooth," hubby says, completely perplexed.

"How can that be?" I asked, "he hasn't lost any yet." But then excitement won out and I rushed Gus into better lighting. "Oooh! Maybe you're losing a tooth!"

He showed me where a bottom incisor is in fact starting to erupt. But, the baby teeth are as firmly planted as ever. Knowing that this could not possibly be a good thing, I did what I always do: ran to the computer. Apparently, it is possible for the adult tooth to 'miss' the root of the baby tooth; and therefore it grows behind or next to the baby tooth instead of reabsorbing the tooth so the baby tooth can fall out. When this happens, the baby tooth may have to be pulled out to make space.

I want to scream, "why can't this kid ever catch a break???" but I won't because he's had many breaks. I hate to put him in situations where he's going to be in pain and freaked out. He's a brave kid, but how much is he supposed to endure? He already has trouble with simple tooth brushing and hates to have a doctor even peek in his mouth with a flashlight. This is why we've never made him go to the dentist. But there's no help for it now. He'll have to go and now (partly because of my own inability to challenge him) his first experience with the dentist may be a negative one. I'm hoping that I'm wrong and that the tooth will miraculously loosen on its own, but we'll have to see the dentist anyway. Given my most recent freakish encounter with the dentist (he thought I had an extra wisdom tooth, which turned out to be more of a third root on the normal wisdom tooth), I'm not feeling too optimistic.

Just a typical Sunday on the farm.

Literally speaking

Gus can be very literal minded, as can all kids, and sometimes he takes it to the most endearing extent. This was a conversation we had yesterday morning:

It was pretty frosty in the house, and we have no pellets to make a fire, so I tried to tell him to go upstairs and get his robe. Of course he ignored me. So, I said, "Okay, now fly upstairs and get your robe so I can help you put it on."

He looked at me, head to the side. "Um...I think I have to walk."

Taking advantage of my momentary ambush, I replied, "No, no! You have to fly up the stairs!"

"It's too far," he whined. Of course it was; that's why I didn't go myself.

"That's why I told you to fly - much faster." So hard to keep a straight face at that point.

"Do I have to pretend to fly on top of an airplane or something?" So literal minded, this one.

"Nah, just..." and here I kind of put one fist up, ala Superman, and mimed bounding into the air. "Whoosh!"

And so he did. He got his robe. He also forgot to come back downstairs, so I had to make a trip up anyway, but who cares. It was fun while it lasted.

Yet, at other times when some children would let their literal mindedness upset them, Gus is just fine.

Our neighbor was putting up a six-foot Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Halloween decoration as the kids ran around it playing. Gus kept poking them, so we joked that if he kept it up, the vampire-Tigger was going to eat him up. Gus laughed at that; the neighbor's four year old started to cry.

"I don't want Tigger to eat him up!" She was really quite inconsolable. This is the same kid who can watch Pirates of the Caribbean without blinking twice.

They really are fascinating beings, children are.