Poor Hanna?

After what happened in school last week with Hanna there have been a lot of comments saying "poor Hanna".

Well yes, it would suck to have FASD, not be able to process things in your life, have memory lose issues, it just is not a fair deal, I fully agree with that, however sometimes no matter what you do she is going to mess up, that is just the way it is with her. No matter how many teachers, paras, PCAs, mentors, parents, etc, etc, no matter how much redirecting, structure, and routine you provide it does not work when she does not use it. She may not choose to make the terrible choices she makes at will some of the time, although there are times when she makes them and I fully believe that she is doing it to create chaos or hurt others because even though she does not function well in that mode she loves it. She clearly sets out to keep anyone who might care about her at all, away. I guess she still feels that she is in this world alone and will make sure it stays that way.

I wish things were different for her, I really do, but at least for now they are not, and when she messes up all any of us who are here for her can do is pick her up, dust her off, and let her try again in hopes that some day she will come to trust us. I wish that day would come SOON!! We are patiently, and sometimes not so patiently waiting for that to happen.

If You Give Your Hanna An Oatmeal Bar...

If you give your Hanna an oatmeal bar...

She will take it to school.

She will cook it in the microwave for ten minutes.

It will send smoke all over the cafeteria.

That will set off the fire alarm system. (Imagine what about 1,100 teenagers do when that happens).

She will clean up her mess only because someone is supervising while she does it.

She will return to the classroom where she begins to lose it.

She will be sticking her fingers in her ears so she will not hear the teacher and Mom talking on speaker phone (we do this because she thinks that we make this stuff up to be mean to her), about what had happened.

She will be crying, singing, stomping around, and talking to herself.

She will be very mad at her teacher.

She will wrap herself around the toilet so no one can get her to leave the bathroom.

She will then be escorted out of the building by the police officer.

She will be hauled home by her sister and teacher.

She will then make it to her room throwing her boots, cap, mittens, backpack, and coat off along the way, in record time, without even being told to go there.

She will spend the next four hours in her room having one heck of a melt down, kicking the wall, pounding on the door, screaming, dumping her closet and dresser and stripping both of the beds in the room.

She finally calms down enough to tell us that she had a little bit of a bad day and she is never, never going back to school, not for one hundred minutes.

Secret Surprise

I had a conversation with my teenage girls who happen to have four year old minds last evening. It was rather cute.

Lauren, "Mom I got purple paint on my t-shirt".

Sure enough, she had a small spot of paint on the inside of her t-shirt, no big deal unless she wears it inside out.

Mom "so what did you paint today"?

Lauren "it`s a secret surprise and I am not telling".

Mom "so Hanna did you paint too"?

Hanna "yep"

Mom "let me guess, you painted something green".

Hanna "of course, green is the only best color in the whole world, and I think I can`t tell you what I made, but I might tell you after dinner:.

Now I know that they made a surprise and I am pretty sure that Hanna will spill the beans and tell me what it is. She has a really hard time keeping these things a surprise and I am not sure she really understands what a surprise is in the first place.

What I Already Knew

I got Lauren to the hospital without to much of a hassle, she was tired however so keeping her awake for an hour and twenty minutes in the car cost me a buck. I told her that I would give her a dollar for every purple car or mini van she could spot along the way. Luckily there are not very many purple ones out there, but she did find one and the task kept her eyes open . We did not put the heat on because I did not want her to get to comfortable and cozy so it got a little brisk towards the end.

They hooked all the gadgets and wires up to her which was a bit of a task since she was getting cranky and whining. We then waited for her to fall asleep, which did not take long. As I sat behind the tech who was doing the test, I watched the screen while the squiggles ran across it in there regular patterns. Less then ten minutes into the test which was scheduled to take at least an hour I saw it, spikes in activity, the lines going across the screen were going all over the place.

I did not need to wait for the neurologist to tell me, I already knew there was a seizure disorder. After observing Lauren`s behavior changes for some time now and discussing the situation with two neurologists I guess I pretty much knew that was the answer we were going to get before we even did the testing. Even though I knew, getting the definite answer does not make the situation any easier. Why my gorgeous daughter has yet another obstacle thrown in her path is something that is very hard to come to terms with. This kid goes through so much just to function every day that I am amazed when I watch her succeed.

All of this is so senseless, the result of someone taking their anger out on an infant. This was no accident. Many people live with TBIs and many of them are clearly preventable, wear your seat belts, wear your bike helmets, do not drink and drive, and if there is an anger issue get help before you hurt someone else!!

Now we move ahead with life, making it the best it can be for Lauren. We have to figure out what medication or combination of them will treat the seizures while also continuing to maintain her other medications. This could be a long process because this kid has some complexed medical issues.

No Sleep Allowed

Lauren has a sleep deprived EEG this morning, what fun stuff I get to do, oh yeah. In order to keep her from falling asleep Karre, Dad, and I each took a shift to stay up with her. Hanna had to protest that it was no fair that Lauren got to stay up. If I thought for one minute that she would entertain her sister I would have let her stay up too, since she does not sleep anyway. Hanna does not play games or do anything else with anyone else unless it is fully supervised.

I hope we get some answers today. None of the things they think may be going on are very good, but at least maybe we will have answers, if not we go back for round two of testing. It is like what do we want to deal with an old shunt issue, a mass, scar tissue buildup, or seizures? I don`t like any of the options here. Well, at least everyone will get to sleep tonight.

No Calendar Needed

All winter long the clothes dryer swishes and whirls from the time I get up in the morning until I go to bed at night. I do miss my clothes line. The noise of the dryer is just there, I don`t notice it much. If I pay attention to it it either gets annoying or lulls me to sleep.

Not noticing the dryer running all day is much like not noticing the annoying behaviors that swirl around all day long when you are living with someone who has attachment issues. You get so used to being called names, being ignored, having someone who is always trying to bend the rules, or is doing something nasty that you no longer pay attention to most of it.

It is now December and we would never need a calendar to figure that out in our home because our kid lets us know that in a very loud, blunt, totally obnoxious manner.She comes up with more chaos, destruction, and rudeness then usual.

It will be nice when the calendar turns to January so we can get back to the normal annoying kid that we have all grown used to putting up with.

Ketchup Yogurt Yum!

Yesterday was an early release day at school so I was going to have to hold things together by myself for a couple of hours until two PCAs could get here. When I do absolutely nothing else I can do this. When the bus pulled up to drop the kids off I immediately knew something was up. Hanna is always the first one off the bus and in the house. She was the last one to get off today. After I got the wheelchairs situated and everyone headed in the right direction I went inside. Hanna had already run downstairs with her coat, backpack, and wet shoes still on. I got the other three kids to take their shoes off and hang up the coats. I then found Paul a couple of cars and got Lauren and Allen started on putting away the clean dishes. I figured that would give me a few minutes to see what Hanna was up to.

I went downstairs and directed her back upstairs to get the wet shoes off first and then hang up her coeat. She was steaming about something and being less then cooperative. I took her folder out and read it.

What she did just cracks me up, but being her mom I can not let her in on that bit of information. She was caught stealing ketchup from the school cafeteria, stirring it into the yogurt from her lunchbox, and eating the disgusting mixture. I closed the folder, said "really now Hanna", and went to direct Allen with hauling baskets of clean laundry upstairs. I was not going to get into a shouting match with her or even try to deal with the situation until she calmed down because I know that will lead to more trouble.

Hanna went into this meltdown, screaming that I was a dumb mom because I read her stuff and apparently I am not supposed to do that because it is only her business. Her teacher is the dumbest teacher because she is not supposed to write this stuff down. I am no longer bothered by being the dumb mom, that is better then some of the other things she has been known to call me and I am pretty sure her teacher is not getting to rattled about that either. I am overjoyed that this teacher is communicating honestly with me about what goes on at school. I know Hanna has behavior at times that is not appropriate but until now no one was filling me in on the details. I need to know what she is doing so that the same rules apply all the time for her. She does best with consistent expectations.

The fact that her teacher made her responsible for stealing the ketchup and had her pay for it with money she had earned was just what needed to happen. The next thing we have to work on is placing the anger where it really belongs. Hanna was really upset with herself because she got caught doing something that she knew she was not supposed to be doing. Neither her teacher nor I are responsible for her behavior, She does not feel that she made a bad choice all she is worried about is the fact that she got caught. We have a bit of work to do in order to get her to understand this.

I will not be putting yogurt in Hanna`s lunchbox any time soon. I hope she does not decide to steal ketchup to put on anything else.