The wurster, the better

This is now the second week Alicia has off until she starts ESY after the 4th of July. Her meds and biofeedback schedule has been adjusted to see if her behaviors can be modified. It has been a stressful couple of weeks especially for me and getting ready to sell my Mom’s house. Alicia is very much like a 3-year old. Yesterday, she decided to do her nails. Unfortunately, she also got her arms and carpet. Last night, she emptied a tude of antibiotic ointment on herself in her bed.

She is very unfocused as everyone points out. And now we have a suggestion to start up biofeedback sessions a couple of times a day, after getting a baseline QEEG.

I still ponder what I’ve read about neuro-reorg and wonder if this could help. Unfortunately, the 3-week window we had is now closing. So, if we do it, it will have to be in August.

We hope to be joining a local CSA for fresh vegetables. More to come about this.

Tabitha will be leaving for France next week for a month. She is ready. I still need to get her a power converter adapter.

It’s been almost a week that I’ve had this cold. It’s really got me down and not feeling much like doing anything. Our water heater also dragged me down last week by breaking. A lot of work getting the water out and drying out the carpets. Luckily my neighbor is a plumber and installed a new water heater that evening. Thanks, Jim. I probably should have called out service company with whom we have a contract, but didn’t even think about that.

I also started helping someone with setting up/designing their forum. He is an interesting guy and I seem to have an affinity for him and what he is doing. Perhaps that’s why I volunteered to help.

We had our last IEP review meeting at Elwyn last week and they know Alicia will be leaving for another placement starting this summer. They were very helpful in the transition and in reinforcing what the school district needs to provide for our daughter (the school district representative mentioned 2 things that our advocate jumped on along with the Elwyn staff). We shall see how this goes over the next week or so. Our daughter really does need that support that seems not to be needed.

Our continuing efforts with biofeedback are not doing well at times. I can’t figure out why. Our daughter takes off the headband sometimes once or many times during the session of 15 to 20 minutes. She doesn’t seem to understand any type of consequence that we might tell her about. This behavior is not something new but is one that os continuing. We are trying to identify a cause to help remedy it.

And now that we have a settlement date of June 27 for my Mom’s house, we need to get everything out and clean it up in only a few short weeks. Gotta start now, at least on what we will be taking from the house.

How do you find out what is really bothering someone? Well, you would usually ask them. And you would hope that they would reply in a truthful manner. But what if someone could not (or would not) reply? What would you do?

Some observations:

My daughter gets into unusual moods and elicits certain behaviors. She rips papers, magazines, and books. She takes things apart (but can’t put them back together). She plays with puzzles but seems not to want to put them together. However, she was playing a puzzle game on the computer and was putting the pieces together. Although, at times, on the computer, she just seems to click randomly with not much purpose. She moves things around on her desktop but doesn’t delete them.

She has started standing right up close to our new LCD HDTV. She has always been afraid of movies (in theaters). But at home now, she seems to enjoy the big screen. However, she gets afraid of certain things that happen on the screen, maybe mostly with zooming in and out in certain scenes.

She started petting our dog the other day which she never did? She always picks up our cat, but hasn’t gotten this friendly with our dog ever. She follows you around event when you don’t want her to. She seems not to identify others private space.

She seems to be more sensitive to things at certain times. The biofeedback that I do with her sometimes annoys her such that she takes off the headband. At other times, she sits through the entire 15-20 minute HEG session. Why? I thought there was a pattern when she had done some physical exercise (on the trampoline or walking), all was well. When her Mom annoys her, she is noticeably annoyed and doesn’t do well. It may have to do with the video that is being used during the session. She really likes some more so than others.

Maybe she had a bad day at school. We won’t ever learn this from her because she doesn’t communicate well.

We continue to try and learn. Lately, having read some comments on a neurofeedback listserve, I feel that a neuro reorg may be important for her at this time. She is exploring and seeming to come out of her trauma. It’s as if she were a 3 year old again. She tests and tries everything. We have to keep things locked up as we parents do when our kids are young. It seems that she is rebuilding the neurological connections that she lost in her trauma.

What is it that we need to do now? We have gotten her out of her current school and into another that will hopefully be able to guide her in her last year in the education system. She will be 20 next month and at 21 is deemed an adult. Then, we need to find things in the adult behavior system for her to take part in, as long as there is funding.

Well, I just hit this milestone last week and am still alive. Don’t let anyone fool you into thinking that life gets simpler as we get older. Not the case. But life goes on anyway. I had a couple of nice birthday celebrations. At my party, I had pizza and hoagies, home-made strawberry shortcake, and pecan cheese cake. Plus we had wine and Corona. we all had a good time. I just have to post my pictures now on my minishowcase site. So, keep an eye out.

Still trying to find roof shingles to match ours so that I can get the roof repaired. And then the insulation can be added. Should reduce costs.

Haven’t yet upgraded to WP 2.5 on my live sites. Not ready yet. I have been up and down with getting things done on WP projects I’m working on and on some Vanilla projects I’m working on. Now that tax season is over, I hop I can get my focus back. But that is my trouble. I get enthusiastic about something, start working on it, and then run into a problem or just find something else that peaks my interest. And then I’m off on another tangent. I really have to stop saying “that’s cool, what can I do with it?” Too many interesting things and not enough time.

We are also proceeding with getting trusts set up for our daughter and getting our wills done and getting power of attorney. I hope this is completed by the end of May. Then we can reapply for SSI for our daughter. Once we get that, some stress will hopefully be reduced. Maybe then, I can even think of retiring in a few years.

The saga with selling my Mom’s house continues. We started at $249,000 with our Realtor in January. We had wanted to do some renovation but were told we didn’t have to. Then the house went up for sale across the street for about the same price. Then, we dropped our price after a month to $239,000. Now we have an offer although at a ridiculously low price of $195,000 (but it’s as is with no fixing or anything). I don’t think we’ll accept this but will request a more realistic offer. My emotions are affecting selling the house I grew up in. How do people get around this?

Yesterday, when we took Alicia horseback riding, several people noticed tthat she was more vocal and communicative. We have noticed this for a while but as many things are, it is not concistent. However, we are hopeful that maybe a turn for the best is at hand.

Alicia is getting more stubborn and demonstrative. Yesterday, when she was complaining and doing an inappropriate behavior, I turned the TV off and told her I would turn it back on after she went to the bathroom. She asked me to turn on the TV. This was great. She then went upstairs to the bathroom. Great again. We have noticed responses like this from her recently and are very happy.

If what we see and think is happening, then all of our support need to be on he same page (moreso now than ever) to help her move forward. We have a meeting with the school and school district and support in 2 weeks. This is a critical time for the school especially to work with her so that she improves and is not sent backwards. I think I will have to contact the behavior consultant to ensure that our observations are noted right now. Time is critical as the school year is rapidly drawing to a close. We don’t want any setbacks at this point.