Responsibility

I must admit I am a little surprised about the lack of responsibility shown by so many parents regarding their children and school. I hold the Kiddo home when he has a temperature, and occasionally he misses *part* of a day when he has doctors appointments. When his teacher gives me his missed classwork I sit him down and have him finish it that day to be turned in the next. I thought this was the way it was supposed to be done, you teach your kids that not going to school isn’t an option unless there’s a significant reason for it. More important you teach your kids that the work they do in school is their responsibility and that being sick doesn’t give them a free ride.

I have that mini rant going through my head this week because of the note the Kiddos teacher sent home on Monday. In the note Mrs. H pointed out that there are a lot of kids who are constantly tardy or absent and that when this happens it negatively impacts their learning. She reminded us (the parents) that if a child misses class work they are required to finish it during recesses until it is finished. Then she requested the parents of the kids who are missing the most school to ‘volunteer’ their time during recess to help the kids finish their work so that she has more time to finish the things she needs to get done during that time. I think it was a note full of awesomeness, this teacher is not afraid to call out the slacker parents! Nor is she afraid to remind them that they are teaching their kids bad habits and irresponsibility. I doubt it will actually help, it isn’t like she can force the parents to come in, but I think it’s a great try.

Speaking of responsibility… This past month the Kiddo has been taking his dog out for her first potty trip as well as her afternoon trips. I find myself only taking her out when it is far to cold for him, or it is dark. He is proud that he is taking care of her on his own and he runs back inside beaming with excitement when she actually goes for him. Once it finally snows it will be my full time job again, but until then I have a responsible and adorable little helper (even if he is crazy wearing shorts when it is so cold out!).

What’s new

It has been a busy past couple weeks and my motivation for blogging has been non existent. I’d like to fill you in on everything that has happened; this process will probably take a couple entries :)

The Kiddo’s sinus infection is back, this time with a friend (ear infection). Normally he is a pretty healthy kid so the amount of time he has spent sick this winter is astounding to me. I hope the antibiotics kick it all the way out this time and he manages to stay healthy for Christmas.

Last month we put the Kiddo into hapkido lessons at the community center. We thought he might enjoy learning and we have read a lot about martial arts helping develop focus (not to mention coordination and stamina).

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He does seem to enjoy the classes but he says they are too long. I think his ‘problem’ is that the class is a mix of all age and ability levels so there is a lot of standing around waiting while the instructor works with the older kids. Hopefully he will get better at waiting and learn more patience. I think we are going to skip having him go this month and start him again in January, by then hopefully he will be healthy again and we also should be able to buy him a uniform.

On the school front the Kiddos class had their Thanksgiving program. His float turned out super cute and I am very proud of him for how creative he was with putting it together. He drew a picture of what he wanted and then we figured out together how to do it, I was leery about gluing toys to a float but he demanded we do it so that it would ‘look right’.

His floats title was “if I can read I can fly”. He says that being able to read well is what will give him the ability to do anything he wants to do, he can build robots (to be his friends) or airplanes (to fly to Arizona) or even rocket packs for his feet so he can fly (like Astro Boy has).

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I wish I had gotten better quality pictures. The kids pulled their floats through the hallway at school and then put on the program in their classroom. The Kiddo read his intro (he was so nervous) and then the kids presented their floats and sang several songs. It was really a cute program and he loved getting to do it.

Tired Friday

The Kiddo woke up this morning feeling a little under the weather. He crawled into my lap and curled up on my shoulder and then randomly he said “mom, when do we get to go to Arizona again?” I asked him why he would ask that and he said he really wanted to go visit and see all his friends. I told him that maybe we would see about going sometime after Christmas. He said “do we have enough monies?” I guess the realities of things we want costing money have finally sunk in for him, I think that is a good and bad thing …

Anyway he said his stomach was upset but not throw up bad (come to think of it I can’t even remember the last time he was that type of sick). He only had a low grade temp (99.7) so I sent him to school anyway but I warned his teacher and am keeping my phone close by just in case. Here’s to hoping he feels better by lunchtime and makes it through the day.

Smarty Pants

The Kiddo is a smarty pants, you knew that already though (because I brag about him often). His parent teacher conference last week went well, his teacher Mrs. H told us that she has seen some improvement since we started giving him the ADHD medication. I am glad to hear that because I haven’t seen much at home! Still I’m not seeing side affect either so I’m pleased.

Anyway Mrs. H explained that she has placed the Kiddo on reading level N (which I gather in on par with third grade). She says in reality he is above that but she is stopping him there until he can get better with his creative writing. Which I am okay with, N books are actual REAL books for him to read but they still have enough pictures to help hold his interest. As for the creative writing it’s suffering because his handwriting is so poor. We discussed that as well, I asked her to please look into possible school help with that because I do not know what else to do (I’ve been having him write daily at home and there has been no improvement). She is letting him use pencil grips to help keep his fingers positioned correctly and hopefully that will help as well.

I have a lot of appreciation for Mrs. H, she makes an effort to make sure the Kiddo knows that even while she’s nagging him and pushing him to do better she also knows he is smart and she likes him. He responds well to that type of approach, he hates being in ‘trouble’ and she has a way of keeping him happy while making him try harder. She says when she ‘reminds’ him to work in class he turns around with a grin and says “yes Mrs. H” before getting back to work, she says the way he does it makes her want to go hug him he is so cute. Gotta love an adorable smarty pants!

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted any videos and I thought I might put a few with this blog. The Kiddo needs to work on identifying coins and adding them together. First I made him a wall chart so he can reference it (for the next week or so anyway) then I have him practice daily. Of course I’m not one to let him go unchallenged so I’ve made a game of it. He picks at least four coins from a box filled with pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters.

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Then he lines them up highest to lowest, and then he adds them together. For the game I’ve had to teach him to carry, and we’ve talked about how he doesn’t have to ‘count add’ two of the same coin (one/two/three/etc) instead he can use skip counting (e.g. with nickels - five/ten/fifteen). He took that concept and ran with it the other day, and I almost fell off the chair!

In class next week the kids are going to be putting on a small Thanksgiving program. They are building shoe box floats for a parade (he is still working on his so I’ll blog and post pictures once it is finished) . After the parade the kids will sing a couple songs and read some of their creative writing to the audience. Because the Kiddo reads so well Mrs. H has chosen him to be the narrator. He has been practicing every day, the video is of him reading his “part”… note that it is only the second or third time he has read it so I’m pretty proud of him and by next Tuesday I'm pretty sure he will have it memorized...

scans and waves

What do you do when your child's Kindergarten teacher complains that he doesn’t pay attention or complete work. When she says repeatedly that he will fail first grade unless YOU (the parent) can figure out a way to help him fix it? Well first you talk to your pediatrician, and then you and the teacher fill out a Conner's form. As my regular readers know we did that last spring, we filled out ours as honestly as we could. The Kiddo’s teacher filled hers out far more conservatively then we expected from how she had been talking. The pediatrician said that our scores showed he was probably ADHD, but the teachers scores showed that he was not. Long story short we ended up doing nothing and hoping his attention problems were due to maturity and nothing else.

Skip to this fall - First grade and a month into the school year when the Kiddos teacher pulled me aside and mentioned that he was having trouble focusing on his work in class. More importantly he could not seem to follow multi step directions and she was concerned. We were one step ahead of her, already concerned ourselves due to the mid term grade report. Our genius child had mostly 4’s, which are (from what I understand) like a super A+ (meets and EXCEEDS expectations), except for handwriting (a warning flag for ADHD) and aside from respecting adults (which he does) he was marked with ‘needs improvement’ in every single ‘social skills’ area (another ADHD flag).

So we did what any super paranoid parents would do. We found an attention disorders specialist who had the capability of testing the Kiddo in a way that was as far from the subjective questionnaire form as we could get. On the 25th of October we took the Kiddo in and had his brain mapped. The Kiddo loved it! He said it was like being Xavier hooked up to Cerebro.

The following week we had his short term memory tested as well. I didn’t take a picture of that one but basically it was a computer game. The computer told him a number, he repeated it. Then it told him two words, he repeated those. So on and so forth up to 4 or five words. There was “remember where the dots are on the screen and then point to them” games, and remember the last word in a sentence games. I think he had a good time taking that test too.

We received the memory results directly after the test and while he does seem to have a few small issues his scores fall into the ‘average’ range so the doctor thinks they are not something to be concerned about.

We also received the analysis of the Quantitative EEG, it confirmed what we suspected and the Kiddo does have ADHD.

There are several recognized ‘types’ of ADHD and surprisingly his is not inattentive (which would have been my guess). No in his usual “has to be different” way the Kiddo didn’t settle on the average run of the mill type. .. . Instead he has the “only five percent of cases are this type” form…

AD/HD: The theta-beta ratio of 2.86 is normal for age. However, there is significant increased beta relative power compared to controls of the same age and sex. This finding is seen in a subset of individuals who do have ADHD, but may also be present with anxiety or sleep disorder. It is often referred to as “ the too busy brain”.

The over active mind isn’t unusual, but the fact that it comes without the hyperactivity is. I ‘boxed’ in the beta waves section so you can see how overactive his mind is (blue is low activity, green is average, yellow is slightly high, and red is the highest). I underlined sleep disorder because I thought it was interesting; the Kiddo has always been an insomniac and extremely active sleeper I suppose now we know why. Honestly it’s pretty confusing to me but the Man says he understands it so that’s good enough for me …

He has been prescribed Strattera. It is a non stimulant (no hyperactivity means no stimulant) but scary side affects abound (as they do with any medication). He started taking it last Thursday and we hope to see some sort of improvement by the end of this week. So far he has reacted well to it and we haven’t seen any negative physical or emotional side affects. I am hopeful this will remain the case because he has always been ‘the norm’ with medications, responding appropriately with no issues. Soon we should have our amazing perfect highly intelligent child suddenly able to focus… I’m a little excited to see what he can achieve.

rough start

The Kiddo has been sick off and on for the better part of the school year. It was mostly just a stuffy/runny nose but every now and then he’d develop a cough and every couple weeks he’d spend the weekend with a fever. It was odd but I didn't worry to much because my friends told me that he probably had allergies.

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A few weeks ago Thursday he woke up with yet another fever. I kept him home from school and spent the day alternating Tylenol and ibuprofen to keep his temperature down. The next day he woke up still feverish so we kept him out of school again and set an appointment with his pediatrician. Turns out he had a sinus infection, poor little guy. It’s all cleared up now (thank goodness) but the allergies are persisting so we give him a daily Allegra to help keep things under control.

Even with being sick that weekend was a pretty good one for the Kiddo, his grampie had randomly send him a new toy (a Lego kit of Mario Cart). So when he was feeling a bit better we gave it to him to see what he could do.

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I’m impressed, he build it by himself!! He loves the thing, he lugged it to and from school for a week (it waited in the car while he was in class).

So that’s the good news so far for the month. The bad news is that the Kiddo’s teacher this year has mentioned that he is (still) very unfocused in class. Mrs. H says she knows he’s smart but that he has a lot of trouble following multi step directions and/or finishing his work without constant reminding. She mentioned that he is smart enough that he can probably continue to go through class and learn even with the attention problem but that it might be beneficial to look into it. We were thinking the same thing already because even though his mid term report card was great, all A’s, the ‘social skills’ section was not (all “needs improvement). So we set up an appointment with a attention deficit clinic. We had our initial consult earlier this week, and next Tuesday we’re going to go in and have the Kiddo tested.

(in this picture he is working on learning to type at home)

The first test will be a Quantitative EEG. They will stick a dozen or so electrodes onto his head while he’s watching a movie. Then they will ask him questions with his eyes open, and with his eyes closed. The electrodes will measure his brain activity during the whole process. The results are mapped and the doctor can compare them to the level of activity that a ‘normal’ 6 year old brain exhibits.

The second test he will be taking will be to assess his level of working memory. As I mentioned above he has a lot of trouble remembering multi step instructions. Sometimes we will ask him to go wash his hands and get his pajamas on and by the time he gets to his room he’ll forget what he is supposed to do. This year is different from last in that he recognizes that he is forgetting, you can hear the frustration in his voice when he asks us to remind him what it was we had asked him to do. Mrs. H says it is the same in school, she can see the frustration when he realizes he has forgotten what to do next with activities. She tries to help by laying out his work in ‘order’ so he knows, and she watches him so she can step in and remind him when he needs it.

The tests are scheduled for Tuesday next week. I am excited to have them done because this sounds to me like an actual quantitative way of testing for attention issues (v.s. the questionnaire we did last year that was more subjective).

Grading

Every school morning when I drop the Kiddo off at school I stand around and wait until he goes INTO the classroom. I like to be sure he’s safely in his teachers hands before I go home, it’s the only way I can avoid worrying about him while he’s there. Usually there are a couple other moms that wait with me. The other day one of the mothers mentioned that she had a problem with our kids teacher, she said that she doesn’t think it’s okay that Mrs. H actually grads the kids with a letter and percentage grade.

She turned to me and said “of course you probably don’t really care because your Kiddo is so smart and doesn’t have problems spelling or reading.”

First thing I wanted to say is… I beg to differ

He HAS been doing very well with his spelling tests, 100% up until last week. That’s when he bombed big time. Bonus words in the wrong spot, and one wrong word in the ‘real list’. The missed points on the sentence (non capital first word and no period) are a bit my fault I think, I had NO idea she graded on stuff like that so I hadn’t been drilling him on it.

Second thing I wanted to say is… if first grade is to “early” to grade kids work, when is it the right time? I am of the opinion that grading like this is fine. I feel like it gives me direction on what to work with him on. It’s hard because he doesn’t always focus and will lose points on things that he KNOWS but I feel like it’s a lesson he needs to learn; you don’t get to slide past just because you know it, you also have to do the work correctly and prove that you know it.

What do you think??

girl .... friends

There is the Kiddo, in the middle with his brown shirt and kaki pants. Right behind him in a pink dress is his friend Brooklyn. Every morning she runs up to him to say hi, then she stands next to him in line and talks to him until they go in. This morning she put her arm around his shoulder and ran her fingers through his hair. I think she has a little crush…

The funny part about all this is that the Kiddo doesn’t have a clue, he chats with her or not, he’ll turn to talk to the other kids, he’ll stand there oblivious playing with his backpack strap (like today in this picture). He’s just a kid with way more important things to do .. I’m glad he’s easy going enough to take it in stride, her feelings don’t get hurt and he happily figures he just has one more extra needy touchy feely friend.

Rainbows

The start of school has been pretty cool for the Kiddo. These past two weeks they’ve had “color days” where they all get to wear a specific color each day.

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The greatest thing about it is that so far the Kiddo has had a shirt for every single day. The kids also get to take an object of that color for each day, he’s gets to show his toy to the class and then take it out to play with during recess. Fun!

The ghost cape is coming right alone, I’ve got the thing sewn together but still need to figure out what type of clasp to use. I’m thinking the easiest thing is if I do a magnetic closure (I’ve got a few magnet buttons on hand from last year). After that it’s a matter of making the utility belt and figuring out if I make a black body suit or if I just buy him jeans and a black shirt (which he could wear for the rest of the year).

Lunchtime

The Man and I talked quite a bit about school lunch vs home lunch, we couldn’t decide what would be easier for the Kiddo. Eventually we decided that home lunch was better, and probably cheaper but that we would open a school lunch account so that the Kiddo could have one non home lunch per week. To help him be excited about his home lunches we bought him the very cool bento box mentioned in my previous blog. I pack his lunch with all the usual snacks he eats at home (peanut butter sandwich, fruit snacks, dried prunes, carrots… etc) and I put a cookie in there, or a mini chocolate chip zucchini muffin…

Yesterday when I went to pick the kiddo up from school I asked him what he drank with lunch (his water bottle was still full). He said milk, I thought okay maybe he got milk to go with his home lunch, I’d be okay with that. I dug into his back pack and saw that he hadn’t eaten anything, I asked him why and he said that he forgot that he brought a lunch from home. I was frustrated and yelled at him a little but then realized that I should have expected it. In the end I realized that I can’t and don’t really blame him, it was his first time in all day school and he’s never really experienced an away from home ‘lunchtime’ before. I asked the Kiddo what he thought we should do to help him remember what days he gets to eat school lunch and what days he has home lunch and he said he thought we should ask his teacher to help. I told him that she has a lot of other responsibilities but that we could try it as long as HE was trying to remember himself and she was his help (vs. just remembering for him and letting him off the hook). Here is the letter he helped me write for him to take to school today:

Dear Mrs. H

The Kiddo had trouble remembering that he brought a lunch from home yesterday. His idea to help with this was for me to write you to ask for you to help him remember. I will include a note in his folder that says if he is eating a home lunch or a school lunch that day. He will do his best to remember on his own but will have you as his backup in case he forgets. Would this be okay?

Thank you for your help,

G

Hopefully when I go pick him up he’ll tell me how cool it was to get to eat oreos at lunchtime (two in his lunchbox) and I’ll get a chance to confirm with Mrs. H that she doesn’t mind helping me help him learn to remember lunch.

Winding Up

This past week has been filled with school prep. I didn’t go through the normal parent routine of getting the Kiddo ready for earlier days. I admit to be a little to selfish with my sleep, why get him up at seven if there’s no reason to?

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We did a little last minute pre-school year fun though. We went to a splash park with his friend T (the Kiddo is in the orange shirt in the first picture, and in the jean shorts in the second). He loved it!! For a kid that isn’t fond of getting his face and head wet he really did seem to enjoy playing in the water spray.

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We also had soccer practice and a game last week. The kids worked hard on the mechanics of kicking the ball, and the Kiddo wasn’t afraid to get into the mix of things. Team pictures were taken following the game, I’m not sure when we get the pictures so I took my own while the photographer was setting them up.

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Back to school shopping was done last week as well. We bought the Kiddo a bento style lunch box so that he could have just the right portion size container and keep things from getting squished. There’s a bigger bin that holds a half sandwich, and then the three compartment bin that holds fruit and cracker or other little snacks. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that he doesn’t lose the thing (each piece is labeled with his name just in case).

Yesterday was the day we finally got to go in and meet his teacher. I was pleasantly blown away by Mrs. H’s focus on everything I told her. She has two kids with diabetes so she understands a little about what to look for if he isn’t feeling right (the symptoms can be similar). In a week or so we will have his medical meeting with all five first grade teachers, the school nurse, and the principle. Everyone gets educated on what he has and how it effects him in order to ensure he has the best possible care at school. The best part? The school has agreed that his emergency shot is essential and are training their office personnel to give it to him!! If something happens they will give him the shot AS they are calling 911, and then calling me. I no longer have to worry about staying close to his school while he is there, the relief is beyond explanation.

I hope he does well in class, last years constant barrage of “the Kiddo didn’t focus today” has me on edge about how this year will go.. I think it’ll take me a week or two of interaction with his teacher to lose the worry about how he will handle this year. I am hopeful though, she seems fairly sharp and able to handle his distracted nature (she experienced it full scale yesterday so she knows what she’s in for).

He was ready for his first day of school this morning, pumped up and ready to go. Lunch box, water bottle, and a full back pack. I’m scared and optimistic about what he’ll tell me when we pick him up in two hours; here’s to hoping it was a good day!

Dinosaur trees

The other morning the Kiddo ran to get me to show the dinosaur tree shadow on our patio fence. He spent quite a bit of time watching the wind blow the shadow move up and down (mouth opening and closing). He thought it was so cool that I took a picture to share.

Last week was the finals week of my management class, it was a little messy with individual paper and two group group papers. Obviously not much blogging was done between that and taking the kiddos go play with his new friend.

Theo has really bad ADHD but the Kiddo is so laid back that they get along pretty well and seem to enjoy spending time together. They ride bikes outside and play on the slides and in the sand. It’s fairly hot out and the Kiddo can be a little sensitive to extreme temperatures so they also spend time indoors playing in Chances room or watching tv over at Theo’s house. It’s nice to sit and chat with another adult and hear the two kids playing quietly together.

Also it was time to get the Kiddo new shoes, we knew that already but hadn’t realized how much his feet had grown until we used a kids measuring device. Last year we bought him 10.5 shoes, a little bit for his size 10 feet but comfortable with growing room. When we measured him last week his big toe hit the 11, so we’re buying him 11.5 shoes. I found a website online that sells wide shoes and they had a few on sale so we bought him new sandals and a pair of lace up tennies. In a perfect world I’d also get him some Velcro closure shoes but we’ll have to do that one later.

We also hit the nearest Big 5 and bought him some soccer shoes and shin guards. He was beyond excited during the trip. Of course they don’t sell wide kids soccer shoes but the Adidas seemed to have enough give in the sides to fit well and he liked them a lot because they have “claw marks which make them cooler then all the rest in the whole world.”

We finally received information about his fall season. His team is going to be wearing lime green (sweet! His and my favorite color) and his first practice is tomorrow, Wednesday, evening. His first game is this coming Saturday. Then there will be a two week break from games but the Kiddo will miss two practices because him and I will be on vacation ... he’ll be home in time for one practice before his second game on the 27th. I hope he has fun playing, tries hard and does well... I can’t wait to take pictures of him in his uniform.

Among those things we’ve also continued to work on Math (he did a sheet of word problems the other day and my jaw hit the floor!). He played dress up at target (Captain America woohoo).

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We had a bbq at the in laws and he played ladder ball with his cousin (they had so much fun). And we hit the book store to buy him a few traveling books for our trip… He wanted to bring some of his library books and I told him I would prefer we didn’t (what if we accidentally left one behind when we come home?) and that I would buy him a few new ones instead.

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Now it’s a new month and it’s going to be a full one with our vacation, soccer, and the start of school for the Kiddo (he’ll be in first grade this year *sigh*). We’ve still got to call the school and see when they want to set up his 504 plan for his medication, but other then that I think we’re ready.

Upkeep

I think I underestimated my child… wouldn’t be the first time I suppose. I purchased an addition workbook but didn’t buy a subtraction one because even though I knew he knew how to do addition I wasn’t sure how solid a grasp he had of the skill.

Yeah, he knocks out a two sided sheet in five minutes. I’ve started making him do two (we only do them every few days… it’s not summer torture after all it’s summer skills upkeep). I’ll have to get my little butt back to the store and buy the same brand of books for subtraction (and time and money for that matter… since I know those are things they learn in first grade). The thought is that if do what we were doing with the ‘at home work’ in Kindergarten; I give him a worksheet, and watch, and walk away “come get me when this is completely finished and I will check your answers” then MAYBE he will also work on his focus and ability to finish a task given.

These really are the best workbooks I have found for his age and skill level. I posted the pictures so if you have kids who need the practice (and you have the time) you know which ones I use.

We already know his reading levels are up to par, and really there isn’t anything I “need to do” to maintain that level. He does it on his own. Still I signed him up for the Barns and Noble reading program (he gets a free book when he reads a certain number of books) and the Library program as well (yeah 30 minutes a day… not a stretch).

We set up a little reading corner for him in the living room so that his library books stay separate from his personal books and so that he knows where to put them when he isn’t reading them. In this picture he is reading the chicken little comic book, he spent about one and a half hours reading (he reads out loud so I know he wasn’t just looking at pictures). This morning he watched the movie, a quarter of the way in he went and got the book so he could read while he watched. He really is an odd child.

Last day of school

Kindergarten is over, yesterday was the Kiddo's last day. The kids spent the first half of class helping Mrs. S. clean the room up, and during the second half they had their poem presentations.

I think I may have read to much into the note she sent home months ago saying that the children were supposed to memorize their favorite nursery rhyme. Apparently that did not mean hand the kid the Mother Goose book and let him pick something longer then four lines to memorize. At least half the kids recited Humpty Dumpty, a couple said the alphabet, a few twinkle twinkle little stars were scattered in there as well as Hickory Dickory Docks.

If I would have known the type of poem the other kids were memorizing I would have warned Mrs. S. ahead of time that his was a little bit longer. His giggles at the end make my day, he thinks it's funny as anything that the black bird took the maids nose. After class was over I mentioned to Mrs. S. that he picked it himself and memorized it within a couple hours. She just smiled, shook her head and said "that's the Kiddo for you"...
We have his report card (A's of course) and his teacher assignment for the Fall. We even have our 15 minute "meet the teacher" appointment time. I'm wondering if they plan to have a separate appointment for explaining the medical issues. I certainly hope so, especially since this pre-scheduled time is one the Man wont be able to be at. He wants to meet the Kiddo's teacher so he can get a feel for her (we want to feel like she will put the attention into him that he needs). I'm not going to worry about it until fall though, first we have to get through the summer :)

On the off chance you want to see it too I have the before class at home practice version of his poem recital (which you can hear a little better). I love his little hand motions that he puts with it.