Thanksgiving Celebrations

So, I am a little behind on posts but you do tend to keep me on my toes.

You did wonderful for Thanksgiving besides the fact that you did not particularly like the dinner. I guess that is an understatment, you ate the meal to please me but gaged on every bite that you put into your mouth. I thought the Turkey would be easy, just call it chicken, evidently you did not fall for that one. Maybe next year it will go down a little easier. I can't complain to much since you do eat almost anything and everything that is offered to you - one of your new favorites being a bolonage and cheese sandwich with mustard. You have also learned the new trick that to get your bread you have to eat a bite of food or to eat to get your chips or fries you have to eat a few bites of protein. Makes life much easier at meal time. You did LOVE the pumpkin pie for dessert that night though, one of the only ones who did. Who knows where you get your tastes from.

Since the entire week of Thanksgiving was off for the school system you had a very rough week back to school last week. It has been like light switches turning on and off your behaviors with no predictability. There are still the tantrums just because you want to be stubborn but on top of this, it could be as simple as asking you if you wanted juice and you would lose it! Self injurious behaviors were through the roof and you were just unhappy for about four days.

This is especially rough since school is still trying to learn the best way to work with you and which staff members can work with you appropriately. You know who you can manipulate and who has behavior control. We are back to meetings this week to fix your cognitive goals to make them more appropriate and to also discuss your behavior intervention plan and see what else we can do to make this easier for you. The school needs so much more training to work with you and little do they know that I do not offically plan on sending you back there next year as I would like to move you to a school that has more behavioral support.

I took you to a psychiatrist on Friday since I have been seeing so many mood swings and was worried about your self-injuriuos behaviors. Abilify was added to your Clonidine and a new diagnosis of Mood Disorder, and you seem to be reacting well. It is supposed to be 2-4 weeks to see the effects of the Abilify but because of your past drug exposure you metabolize drugs so differently. We have already started to see teh effects, we think, and you are extremely happy, for now. This could change when the 2-4 weeks sets in so only time will tell. I hate having you on meds. I am a behavior therapist, drugs are usually not a line of defense for us but you honestly need to take the edge off just a little. You can't think that the world is ending just because you are asked to pick up a crayon or put your cars away. We will see and I honestly feel that once you have more coping skills and a better set of skills to fall back on, we will not need the medication any longer. That is our hope at least!

Well, baby, I am off to bed - changes are coming though, just hang in there

Keep on truckin'
Love
Mom