Summer Round Up

In one week, Blink will be starting at his new school.  At the outset of this summer, which was three times the length of previous summer breaks since the move from a year-round school program to a traditional schedule, I anticipated I would be clawing my eyeballs out and begging for mercy by the end of the summer.  (Yeah, we didn't begin summer on a good note...)

But really, I'm a little wistful.  It's been nice having Blink around in the background while I work (attended by our amazing PCA...he wasn't being neglected!).  No doubt I am looking forward to a quiet house next week, but it has really been a great summer.

Just as I'd hoped and wished, Blink has decompressed quite a bit from the stressfest that was the end of his school year at the old school.  We've worked hard to get his anxiety under control. Looking back, I see that I haven't mentioned one critical piece of the puzzle here:  we started seeing a new specialist for medication management and over the past 6 weeks, we've really increased his Prozac dose.  And it's helping.

Today, for instance, we were running late to get out the door in time for his social skills group.  Blink had gone upstairs to get socks and gotten distracted. When he came back sock-less, I suggested (ok, maybe snapped) that he just wear his sandals.  Ordinarily this would have become quite the power struggle.  Today?  With just a little bit of exasperation, he said, "Oh, alriiiiiiiight."  I am pretty sure I stopped and blinked, myself, I was so shocked!

I'm nervous about the greater demands of mainstreaming in the school year ahead. And excited at the possibilities.  I will be holding my breath for the first few weeks, to be sure.

Strategies and Teaching Moments

Don't you love it when a strategy works? Tonight was Happy Hour Playdate (best invention ever) among my friends.  Picture about a dozen kids running amok while adults sip drinks on the patio and nosh on delicious food.  Blink is the only child over the age of 5, however, which makes for a challenging situation.  He does really well with children a year or two younger, but a gaggle of his little sister's peers?  That's kind of his nightmare.

The first Happy Hour Playdate, Blink had to be carried out kicking and screaming. It wasn't until he was agitated that I'd found a quiet place for him.

After that, I admit, I arranged for him to spend extra time with his father and avoided it altogether.  But that wasn't possible tonight, so we had a few strategies in place.

We went over the fact that the rule is, if you have a problem you get your mother. And try to remember how young everyone is.

I had him ask the hostess if there was a quiet room he could use as his space.  We brought a book and an ipod.

It totally worked!  He did a great job. There were a few, um, teaching moments. Like when he wanted to ask everyone not to eat the shrimp.  (As of today, he's a vegetarian?!)  Or when he thought the girl who was trying to impress him was being mean and hated him.  (What?!  That's not how she can impress me.  I have a list of things she can do to impress me.  Like eating a worm.  That would impress me.)

But no meltdowns!  No altercations.  Go Blink!

(Full disclosure:  I did also let him play with my iPhone a lot more than I usually do.)

Two Conversations

Two recent conversations with Blink stick in my mind.

The first was when we were on vacation and I was beyond frustrated with Blink. Out of sheer frustration, I said something like, "Sometimes it seems like you only care about other people's feelings when it directly affects you.  I'm not raising you to be like that."  His response?  "Well I guess you are." I'm pretty sure I burst into tears at that point.  I mean, what do you do?  I'm haunted by it.

The second conversation was this morning.  We were just chatting and Blink called me out for using imprecise language. It was rude, though I knew that wasn't his intent.  We were all in good moods, so I said very calmly and evenly, "Blink, you know, that sounded kind of rude." He sighed and said, "People think everything I say is rude." I nodded and explained maybe it's not always what he says, but how he says it, adding that people like nice voices. He sighed again and said, "I just have no idea how everybody does that." So true!  It was insightful.

"I know how to reign him in."

The stars aligned and Blink woke up calm and happy this morning. I explained the situation and he was comfortable going by himself.

When I picked him up, I asked the teacher how he did without extra support.  She smiled and said, "He did pretty good. I know how how to reign him in now.  I can just tell him I'm not going to do it all for him."  She's had him in classes before, which I think helped tremendously.  I again felt a little pang that Blink at his best is still...definitively different, but it was clearly a success.

I got the sense that he demands a lot of attention in a group setting -- far more than his fair share -- but that he wasn't disruptive or explosive.  But also that her job will be easier when our wonderful PCA is better. (Stomach flu, poor thing.)

Whew! I'm relieved.

Flying Solo?

This week, Blink has morning day camp at the awesome artsy-science nonprofit in our neighborhood. He has been attending programs there, with PCA (an aide, essentially) support, for years. This summer, especially, it has gone pretty well. The main problem tends to be that Blink can get rather...enthusiastic when excited about something and he doesn't know when to stop asking questions.  He also has trouble with cleaning up at the end of something.

So today started off a new weeklong camp -- Raiders of the Lost Junkyard. Today the teacher set out an array of electronics and tools and told the kids to dismantle away to find pieces they can use to build their own creations.  Heavenly, right?  Blink sure thought so.  (He's making a sculpture of Boba Fett.)

I bring all this up because wonderful PCA just texted me to tell me she has been throwing up all night.  So, tomorrow...  I think I might try to send him solo.  I could go and act as an aide, but I think that would be embarrassing to him.  No, I know it would be. Then there's the little problem that his camp and his sister's let out at the same time.  I suppose the thing to do would be to pick her up a few minutes early so we can be there if any clean-up strong-arming is needed at the end.

Wish us luck!  This is uncharted territory.

Getting Unstuck.

Blink came home from the long weekend at his father's in a mood. He wanted to get on the computer to look up the price of a specific Lego item and he was pretty agitated about this -- it had obviously been a source of contention with his father.  I was pretty wary, too. It seems like whenever I let him get on the computer, particularly Lego. com, he gets more and more escalated.

So I said no.  He got upset.  I ignored.  I told him, "You have a problem. Your problem is that you're stuck. I will help you with your problem when you're calm."

He got calm and tried to talk to me about it again.  And here I was unsure.  He was calm -- that's good!  But he still wants to check it -- does this count as badgering? (yeah, I guess....)  It wasn't a particularly unreasonable request on its own, to check a price....  But it was feeding obsessive behavior.

So I made him a deal.  He had to not talk about it for a half hour, which would take us up through dinner time.  And agree to go for a walk/scooter ride after dinner.

He agreed and held his end of the bargain.  So we looked it up.  And it was nowhere to be found on lego.com.  I found it on Amazon for $30, which was three times more than he was expecting. I tried to help him find it on the Lego site so we could have a good idea what the baseline price was...  But no dice.  I was nervous, thinking this would surely push the kid over the edge.

But no.  I closed the laptop and shrugged and he said, "That's weird."  And we went on our walk/ride.

Three Days...

The past three days, Blink has gotten more exercise than he did in the entire last month. And the number of challenging moments?

Zero.

I know, three days isn't long enough to bank on.  But I'm feeling some optimism, and after this past month, hoo boy, is that a good thing.