All the small things...

There are times when you are reminded to slow down a little. Sometimes you ignore them, as I usually do, but sometimes you just give in to it. Today was a day that I just needed to take a moment. Sure, there is laundry to do, dishes to wash, organize something...a million things that need to get done. But it was time for Livi to take a nap. She's at that fun age where she totally still needs a nap (or else she'll just be hateful to everyone and everything) but she totally thinks she doesn't need it anymore so she fights every second of the way.

Sometimes I can bribe her to take a nap with the promise of something fun when she wakes up. Usually it's food. She is so her mother's daughter. Other times, all it takes is for me to lay down with her. I usually say no because I use that bit of time before the other two kids come home from school to get done those things that will be impossible with three hooligans running around. Other times, hell I could use a nap! Today, I just felt the need to take this time to lay with her.

Entirely too soon, she's not going to want to be around me. Soon she'll think it's embarrassing when I bust out in song everywhere we go and will randomly have a dance party because that song on the store radio is my jam. Even though she swears to me that when she is a teenager she will still want to hang out with me, she's 5. What the hell does she know? Plus, she won't put it on tape, so I don't know how much I believe it.

It's really easy to get swept up this time year. Making sure that there are going to be enough presents under the tree, running around for last minute presents and trying to find that perfect ugly sweater. This moments don't come often enough and they don't last. I am going to start making a conscience effort to take these moments when they happen. The laundry isn't going anywhere, the dishes can wait and who am I kidding? I don't organize shit. Organized chaos, that's what I say. Nap time is sacred. Get it while you can.

Blame it on my ADD baby

I haven't written on this blog in quite some time. I think it was because there was a lot going on in my world, and who wants to put all their dirty laundry out there? That's what Facebook's for! Now that things have sort of settled down, I got an urge to write on here and so here I am.

Brief history of the last 4 months or so: Broke up with bf, was going to stay in Bama, shit got crazy, moved to Texas, joined Roller Derby, live with my mom and yeah, we're current now. So that's fun.

But right now, the biggest thing that's going on in my life would be with my son. He has developed some tics over the last year or so. We have been trying to figure out where these are coming from. First, we saw a doctor in Alabama who specialized in ADD/ADHD. After a long, end of the year conversation with his first grade teacher, we had agreed that could be a possibility and he should be evaluated. Off we went to the doctor. First, you have to meet with a counselor. They ask you a bunch of questions, you fill out questionnaires about your child's behavior and then they talk to your kid. I did not like that we talked about what was going on in front of him. I really was uncomfortable with that because the last thing I want to do is make him think that there is something wrong with him.

After meeting with the counselor, who determined he met the standards for ADHD, we met with the doctor. His plan was to start him on a stimulant medication and see if that improved the tics any. However, the medication said do not use if you have tics because it makes it worse. Perhaps he missed that. And, it did in fact make them worse. So I stopped giving it to him. (I was already told that this wasn't a medication that had to build up in his system and I did not have to give it to him every day.)

During this time, everything was kind of falling apart and we suddenly needed to move to Texas. I'm talking we were in within two weeks of deciding that this move needed to happen. This is a lot for even me to deal with, let alone a child. So I have taken into consideration that this could be a factor. Now that we are here in Texas, we are seeing a neurologist. He is taking a non-stimulant for the ADHD, which I'm on the fence on if it is even working and we are running down the list of possible treatments before we can reach the diagnoses of Tourette's. There is no test for that. It's basically if it's nothing else, and it doesn't go away then I guess that's what it is. Since he's not yelling out curse words like a dirty old sailor, I guess we just have to wait and see what happens.

Another thing it could be is anxiety. Which we are trying an anti-anxiety medication to see if that decrease and eliminates the tics. Now, I know a lot of people are against medication for treatment of this (you know who you are, you handsome man) but should this medication eliminate the tics, I plan to take him off of it completely and treat the cause of his anxiety. Until then, he's going to keep skating in Junior Roller Derby, kick ass in school and keep on tic-ing. (See what I did there?)