meganursula | Entries tagged with william

Things that make you happy:
Mad (playing with her stuffed bunny family in bed, smiles)
Mom: 'I like seeing you smile. Its great to have you happy.'
Mad: 'I am happy. It was a really good day today.'
Mom: 'That's wonderful. I wish all of your days could be really good days.'
Mad: 'Most of them are.

I posted that to g+ the other day. True story. Madeleine does seem to find a lot of joy in her life, and to appreciate the experiences she has. I think Marie is much like this in personality.

What I didn't post is the other half of the story - the William turn of events where he only talked about how much he didn't like school, and how he didn't have a good day, and how he couldn't tell me anything good.

Here is the thing - on any given day Madeleine might have had an objectively worse day of it than William. But at the end of the day she is still likely to say it was a good day, and he is still likely to say it was a bad day. If we ask about best parts of the day and bad parts, she is likely to say 'I can't think of a bad part', and he is likely to say 'I can't think of a good part.'

It seems to just be a personality thing. And its consistent with other aspects of their personality - Madeleine embraces a new experience, William fears it. But it worries me. We know something about self-talk, and what we know is that dwelling on the negative and repeating or exaggerating the negative engenders dissatisfaction. We believe our self-talk. With positive self-talk we can face a challenging situation and deal with it, with negative we fall victim to it. I spend a lot of my life examining my own self-talk in an effort to stay sane and I don't want my kids to develop bad habits with theirs.

We have been talking with William about his dialogue. And we've asked him to be able to express some positive thoughts. Sometimes he tries. I want to be respectful of his negative feelings, while still trying to get him to admit the possibility of positive feelings.

The other night he said 'I am trying to be positive, but i really just don't like school. School just isn't very nice.' Well, fair enough. I'm not quite sure what to do with it. All of our feedback from the school is that he has adjusted well, and is happy and having fun while he is there. Usually I find him smiling at the end of the day. I am sitting on the idea of having him attend fewer hours of school per week. (I don't think zero hours would actually be the right thing, but perhaps more hours at home would?) There are a lot of things in our lives with William that work out this way.

Katje - am curious to know if you read that other book, and what you thought of it??

Raising a Sensory Smart Child: The Definitive Handbook for Helping Your Child with SensoryIntegration Issues by Lindsey Biel

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is a very complete reference for parents who have a child severely affected by sensory disorders. (Or, I suppose, individuals.) It had a ton of information and ideas for seeking therapy or dealing with school issues. The book does throw out a number of concrete examples of things that can be done to help with a variety of sensory issues.

My biggest gripe is that I don't think it had very specific information for children who might have sensory difficulties, but aren't likely to seek out professional treatment. (Sensory disorders appear to be functional to me - that is, everyone has weird sensory processing to some degree, and only in some of those people does it cause enough trouble to get a professional diagnosis and expensive treatment. In my case, I am reading to help figure out how to address some problems that are mostly likely sensory related, but not terribly severe.) I found it a bit frustrating that most of the home-solution ideas seemed to be good for ANY child, and it was hard to match up which techniques to use for which sensory-behaviors. (Do we do this for hypo, or hyper sensitivity? etc.)

Still, I think it is well worth the time for someone who feels like they may have to deal with these problems, even if further research for more specifics for their individual problems will be needed.

View all my reviews

Madeleine has been earning accolades all over. Just before break we got her first report card, and she scored high marks in absolutely every category. Josh and i were especially proud of her health and fitness report (she was lauded as a 'first time listener', for trying her best in everything, and for always being there for her friends). This week her teacher stepped aside with me at pick-up and told me that Madeleine was doing so well in math, and that perhaps I could come in next week and see her work. Madeleine's reading skills have also grown exponentially in December, and it is so fun to see her exploring the new worlds that are open to her. We will have to start cracking down on lights out, i fear, as I can tell that she is staying up later than she should be reading. Honestly, Josh and i couldn't be prouder of her - in the midst of all this learning and growing she is just also a really good and fun kid.

William has been a lot of fun. We worked really hard with him in the fall to address some behavior issues that were getting in the way of being able to do things with him. Now that we have a few more techniques to help him listen and stay calm we are just really enjoying his enthusiasm and spark. He loves rockets and baseball. For Christmas he got Josh some model rockets, and the grin he gets on his face every time they work on the rockets is worth everything. William is also entering his third month in pre-school. He seems to be enjoying it a lot, and he is definitely learning something; if only that he can exist and be successful outside of home. My favorite part is the big grin and bear hug that he greets me with every time i pick him up. This week Josh took William to an ENT specialist at Children's hospital, in the hopes that we can address his near-constant sinus problems. The plan is to treat him aggressively for an infection and allergies for a couple of months, and then to work with the specialist to back off on medication to find a level that allows him to stay healthy. We are really excited and hopeful that he will start to feel better for the long term.

Marie is just a total sweetheart. We get comments all the time about what a happy and easy-going baby she is, and we agree. She is pretty happy just to kick around the house, following the other kids or parents as she pleases. She's getting stronger on her feet, excellent at crawling, and basically into everything. She has a curiosity and enthusiasm that is just fun to be around. And amid all that, she is pretty cheerful and snuggly. This past week Marie spent a few days at Children's hospital being treated for a series (three) intussusceptions. This, of course, was not very pleasant for everyone, and a bit scary. However, it is a thing that seems to happen with kids, and the doctors at Children's were very capable in handling it. Except in a small percentage of cases where there is an underlying cause, there are no expected long term effects, or an expectation of further intestinal issues. The doctors performed a test that ruled out at least one of the possible causes, and felt fairly certain this was just the result of a small viral inflammation. Now we are happy to have our cheerful smiling girl around again. Her mischievous grin is even almost enough to make me forgive the inevitable glasses grab.

The kids had a great holiday. They are really having fun and constantly appreciating their presents, and Josh and I appreciate the love that you all showed to them. The lack of Thank You cards thus far is all my fault - its still on my list, so THANK YOU from all of us. The kids and I also enjoyed having a long break; Madeleine had two full weeks off from school, and Josh took an extra week to coincide with that. As a result, we had a great and luxurious break as a family. We are getting into the full swing of winter now, and I'm sure we will all be busy and happy as always.

On Tuesday i have a job interview. It is for a substitute teaching position, and i've made it past a phone screen. I think i might try not to think about it very much because I will get too scared to go through with it.

Truth be told, the substitute position is not what i want, i think. There is a part-time position at the same school next year that i think is a better fit for me. I am really nervous about the unpredictability of being called in for an unplanned absence, for any variety of classes. Part-time may be the best thing - it is a small number of hours (comparatively speaking) to start easing back into the work force. But it is predictable, making it so i can set myself up for the classes and get a babysitter, etc.

But even then, i'm terrified of it. I want to do it, because i don't want to find myself ten years from now in the same position i'm in now. But i am terrified of it.

Well, suck it up, i guess.

It is a big week, what with William's school, and the interview. And Madeleine has a five-year well child on Thursday.

I couldn't get William interested in getting a new lunch box for school. I thought maybe if we did some of the things we did for Madeleine in the beginning of her year maybe he would be excited about it, but he doesn't seem to be. He acknowledges that he'd like to play with their hard-hat, but i can't get much more of a reaction out of him. We have these good days. Days when he gets a lot of one-on-one attention. Today he spent long hours with Dad, and that always helps. I think it is encouraging in some ways, because it probably means he will get out of this really difficult stage. But i find it a bit demoralizing, because it also means that i am probably not doing the right things to help us have good days. I can give him one-on-one attention, like when i took him to the locks to watch boats the other day, and have a peaceful period. But somehow it still all ends in him kicking and hitting me instead of getting buckled into his car seat.

Well, there are some of the pictures.

http://meganursula.blogspot.com/2011/01/crowning-glory-by-elise.html

Today i ran with the dog to feed Jasper - it works out to be a good five mile run in the end, with a hill. The stop to pet the cat, and the fact that the up-hill is almost all in the beginning makes the end fly by. It felt like a good fast run. (I did not time myself, but my last few runs have felt fast. I might be up to getting out the ole HR monitor soon.) I felt pretty great after my run.

My friends are running the half tomorrow. I'm not. I made the right decision discontinuing my training, but i am a tiny bit envious. I probably could have done it alright, i think. But the sleep and family time is too important right now.

(I also swam today. 1/2 hour once a week isn't nearly enough, but it is something, and i'm happy to be able to get it in. These things help.)

I need a new goal.
or goals.

Little W has also been running quite a bit. He's up to being able to walk across a (small) room, and do little dances while standing up. Its adorable. Really, adorable! He's also getting like four more teeth all at once - randomly scattered around her mouth.

Madeleine likes to take care of her brother. One of the sweetest things that she does is when he starts fussing, she starts singing.

Twinkle twinkle little start how i wonder what are up the world so high like a diamond in the sky

Sometimes it works.

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Megan Hazen

Entries tagged with william

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