A Fair Weather Dog

Ellie is feeling much better. It is a good thing. With the cold, wet, snow today, Ellie doesn't even want to go out to pee. She is truly a Georgia dog. Her winter coat and boots don't help, neither does her rain coat. Her and GB want/ need to go out and run. I hope winter ends really, really soon.

Poor Ellie!

Ellie is sick. She has made 5 piles so far today and has been sleeping at my side, except when she makes a mad dash to the front door. I am hoping she just got into the cat food and after it runs through her system, she'll be fine. Otherwise, there is a vet trip in the near future.

 

Sick Puppy

OOPS!

GB and Ellie went food shopping with me this afternoon. GB thought it was a spectacular success. Everyone we met told GB how beautiful Ellie was and asked to pet her. She made sure the world knew Ellie was HER working dog. From Ellie's point of view, it wasn't so successful. She was shaking most of the time we were in Hannaford. She wasn't heeling, had to be reminded to sit when I stopped, and a couple of times started to drag me. I guess I let the public access brush-ups go too long. Ellie and will have to get in the habit of going out in her working vest everyday. We got back and let Ellie run for a couple of minutes, do her business, and she was done. She wanted to go in, and as soon as she was in, she found her bed and went to sleep. GB has 2 playmates over, so I am blogging in the same room as they are playing and Ellie has been asleep the last hour. The noise and chaos isn't bothering her at all. One of the girls is GB's age and the other is 4. GB and the four year old are on about the same level socially and emotionally. Her friend, who is the same age (almost 7), is using a lot of self-control and trying to organize the other two into a coherent game. She is having very limited success. 

A Good Morning Training

Ellie and I had a good morning training after she walked GB to the bus. We worked on longer stays when I was out of sight, extended our wait time while there was a yummy treat in plain view, and reviewed all the old commands Ellie and I have down. Ellie and GB are getting really attached. I have taken to putting GB to bed first and Ellie sometime later, and each night when she goes to bed, first she checks to make sure  GB is in bed and sleeping, then Ellie jumps up on her blanket, turns three times and is in for the night. We are still working on making GB's commands more consistent.

A Two Hour Delay!

 

We got our two hour delay this morning. After breakfast, GB and Ellie had a tea party, while I had a quiet EXTRA cup of tea. We got her hair braided, and were ready for the bus with 10 minutes to spare. GB came home all smiles, said she had a good day. I'm about to fix dinner, then homework time.  If it is in God's plans, I wouldn't mind the good day continuing through homework!

Soocer in the Snow!

GB was feeling much better today and after daycare she asked to play in the snow. Hubby took her and Ellie out in the back and they had a great time playing soccer with a basketball. Ellie was wining most of the time. When GB tired, she started leaping on the ball and wrapping herself around it so Ellie couldn't get it. It was funny watching her try. I tried to take pictures, but it was too dark.

It is still snowing, so maybe we will have a 2 hour delay tomorrow. That just leaves Friday and we are through another week.

Sensory Issues

 

GB

Today the entire family, plus friends, went to the indoor water park at Lake George.  GB loves water and hasn't been near it since we brought Ellie home, early December.  We've been to this water park before, and GB has her issues. It is a very large enclosed space, so everything echoes. It is a holiday weekend, so there were a lot of people there. It was noisy and GB doesn't like noise. Usually she can enjoy herself for 2- 2 1/2 hours before she is overwhelmed. She likes the lazy river and the under five play area, with its little slides and many fountains. The park has a lot of Looney Tunes characters and she has never tolerated being in the same room as them before. Today she danced with Tweety Bird, Bugs Bunny, Wag the dog, and Sylvester the cat. She was so proud of herself for being brave! After an hour, hour and fifteen minutes, she was done. She wanted to get dressed and go home. We tried taking her to a quiet corner of the lobby, so that she could regroup. It didn't work and and I realized she was warm. After cuddling for a while, she fell asleep. When she woke up, it was obvious she had a fever. By the time we got home, she was a miserable little girl. The day was still worth it. She went to sleep with the memory of being really, REALLY brave.

 

One brave girl!

I Love Snow Days.

After a really good weekend, GB came home from school a mess, both Monday and Tuesday. So I was absolutely delighted to wake up this morning and find schools were closed! We've done some math and read a couple of books. She also spent an hour out in the snow, playing fetch with Ellie and the Kong Ball, walked up to the dollar store and bought more removable wall decorations, had a couple of cups of hot chocolate, made herself lunch, and is busy right now making a treasure box for her VIP  rocks, pencils, little pads, sunglasses, and stickers. We haven't had any meltdowns at all today. She even made herself cheese, pepperoni, and crackers for lunch and went back for grapes. She just realized we are out purple paint and and instead of having a melt down, she is listing possible solutions (all of which involve me). Where are the good, old fashioned, 3 day blizzards? Such is life... school tomorrow :(

A Good Weekend

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GB had the best weekend she has had in months. She went ice skating with her school and did well. She ran into a friend from last year and enjoyed spending time with her. She lasted the whole session.

Yesterday, she went to her (biological) cousin's 8th birthday party at the bowling alley around the block. GB doesn't like the noise and crowds at bowling alley and doesn't like new people. She wrapped around me and wouldn't let go. The only person she knew was her cousin.  Fortunately, her (biological) grandparents and uncle came about 20 minutes into the party. She is close to them and immediately let go of me. They took turns helping her bowl  and watched out for her withdrawing. I am grateful beyond words that GB still has an important part of her birth mother's family that put in the effort to be part of her life.  GB enjoyed the party and her cousin is coming to GB's 7th birthday party next month. Before she left she got a large tattoo, which we put on her leg.

 

GB  showed Ellie her beautiful butterfly tattoo to Ellie, who was very interested! We only had minor meltdowns over the weekend and last night and tonight she went in easily and was asleep before 8.

Savoring the (relative) calmness of the weekend and getting ready for another week of GB & school.

Made My Day!

  
I got a sunshine award from Essie, the Accidental Mom !  It was unexpected and made me smile. Thanks Essie!

TGIF ?

I am so glad the week is over.  Yesterday, I took GB home and bypassed daycare, hoping to have a quiet hour before we met friends at Friendly's. I saw all the work they sent home for the week, looked at the Valentine list the teacher sent home for the party, cuddled while she told me about her day,  baked cookies for snack (pre-made dough), and then settled her and Ellie in front of the TV for a half hour of PBS. MK decided see wanted to go with us. My Hubby said sure and I mentally groaned. You would think adding a 24 year old to a kids dinner out wouldn't  be worth a thought, but MK and GB have been bickering non stop for weeks. We chose to leave Ellie home, because of space considerations, and put her, her blanket, and a big bone in her crate.

Friendly's took all the patience I had. GB wanted to sit across from her friend Kyra, which was right next to MK. MK tried to dictate wear everybody should sit and I stopped that, which let to MK sulking. Then the complaints started. GB is touching me, there's no room for my food, tell GB to watch her elbow, make GB sit on her butt, GB is not eating her mac and cheese, tell mk to mind her own business, GB is pushing around her mac and cheese, MK shouldn't have ice cream- she didn't finish, and on and on. I finally sat between GB and MK and told them both to worry about themselves. This started MK's usual litany of how I do such a lousy job of raising GB, and Hubby chose to insert himself and deal with MK.

If hubby chooses to let MK come next week, HE can sit between them.

We got home to find Ellie had broken out of the crate. GB was still bouncing, so Hubby chose to take care of Ellie and I got elected for the bed time routine. GB fed Ellie and spilled some of the food out of the bowl. She finished feeding Ellie and helped me clean up the spilled dog food. I told if she couldn't settle down, Ellie would get to stay up late and join her after she was asleep. We did medicine, pjs,  teeth and a book and she was still wound. Since medicine was right before bed, I knew it would be 45 minutes before it kicked in and put her in without Ellie. She was not happy, but I reminded her she would be going to her (biological) cousin's birthday party tomorrow and that seemed to make every thing ok. It still took her 40 minutes for the singing and talking to herself to stop. (We still use a baby monitor with her.) Next week, I think I'll bring her nighttime Meds, and have her take them before we leave Friendly's.

It is Saturday morning, she dressed, fed Ellie, didn't eat her breakfast and went off to the gym with my Hubby, MK hasn't come out of her room, Ellie's asleep in front of the fire place, and I have an hour to myself. Life is good.

I Get Frustrated, Too

GB used to eat lunch in her classroom with her 1 on1 aide. She has been back in the cafeteria for lunch since Monday. She has had a problem in the cafeteria everyday. She has been bouncing every night this week. Sounds to me like the cafeteria is more than she is ready to handle at this point. OT, speech, the social worker, and special ed teacher see GB's difficulties. However, the classroom teacher disagrees. She said GB is like every other first grader and that if we would just treat her as if she was normal, she would rise to the occasion. She doesn't believe in sensory problems, bipolar, and says GB is definitely not FASD because she is way too bright. I listened to the teacher talking and I am thinking"Whose kid is she teaching?". It can't be mine. I put a call in to the special ed office, but it is Friday afternoon, and they are all gone. Just as well- it gives me the weekend to get my thoughts straight and get some emotional  distance. It is frustrating. The year is half over and she still thinks my kid is typical.

Another Manic Evening

GB came home on a tear this afternoon. She was manic through HW, dinner and a bath. When I put her to bed and we were cuddling, she told me that nobody sat with her at lunch today. I will be emailing her teacher again tonight.

It's 7:30...

It is 7:30 and GB and Ellie are quietly in bed. I don't expect them to get up again. I should be thankful, appreciative or something. All I feel is tired. When GB got home from daycare, it was just her, Ellie, and I tonight. I let her unwind with legos as she was telling me about her day. It is the first week I've let them put her back in the lunchroom, instead of eating in her classroom. It is Wednesday and it is the third time she has had a problem in the lunchroom. She wants me to email her teacher "and fix it". I went to reheat pizza and make us salads, and within a minute of leaving her, she's doing the maniacal laugh thing and Ellie is whimpering. We pick up the legos and move Ellie's bed to the kitchen so she can help me with the salad. I put the pizza in and she switches to making herself chocolate milk. I catch her in time, and let her do the stirring. She is talking about the weekend, getting very excited about the birthday party on Sat. and ice skating on Sun. In the process of counting how many days until the weekend, she spills chocolate milk everywhere. I get her a towel to mop it up. As I hand it to her, she says"Don't need it." and point to the dog. Sure enough, Ellie has the floor pretty well cleaned. I point out the chocolate milk on the cabinets and set her to wiping them off. By this time pizza is ready, and I am hurrying to finish salads, when I hear the front door close. Since nobody is due home, I quickly look for GB and Ellie and figure out that they were outside. It is below freezing and her coat is hanging up by the door. I quickly went to the back yard and heard GB crying. She had slipped on the ice and was afraid of the dark.  Ellie was right next to her, trying to get her to stop crying. I got all of us inside and rocked her until she settled down. Right about then, I smelled the pizza burning. After we threw it out, I cut up some pineapple, finished the salads and that was dinner. While we were eating, I asked her why she was in the yard. She said she KNEW Ellie had to pee and it was an emergency (a situation GB herself is very familiar with) and there was no time to let me know. We went over all the applicable ground rules she had broken (a lot) and came up with the "next time" better solution.
She had finished her math HW at daycare, so all we had was reading and spelling. Ellie helped us with HW and with 2 bathroom breaks, a drink break, and an I-can't-find-my book break, it took us to almost seven to finish HW. She wanted to watch PBS with Ellie before bedtime, so I set them up and went to clean up after dinner. I noticed an unusual odor, almost like sun block. I followed it into the kids bathroom and realized it was MK's shea butter she had just bought. I cleaned it up and went to talk to GB. I asked her if she was into her sister's stuff again. She said no and when I looked at her skeptically, she started crying. She insisted that she thought about using it, but after she spilled it, decided that wasn't such a good idea. It was now 7:15, and I said "bedtime". As I was tucking her in, I reminded her she was not to touch anything that wasn't her's with out asking. It is now 8 o'clock and I am heading for bed.

 

The only peaceful part of the evening

It's Groundhog Day!

GB opened her eyes this morning, saying "It's Groundhog Day!".  Apparently, her teacher assigned her class to find out what happened with Punxstawney Phil BEFORE they came to school. That assignment did a real number on our morning. GB couldn't do anything before she finished her 'homework', and since a groundhog can't look for shadow until the sun rises, we had quite a predicament. My husband solved it by turning on both TVs and 2 or 3 radios and convincing her no matter where she was in the house, she would know if Phil saw his shadow. This convinced it was ok to get on with her morning, but she was still very slow and distracted and several steps of our morning routine got skipped because we were out of time. One of the problems with inclusion- I am sure it never occurred to GB's teacher to consider what her assignment was doing to my morning. And unlike most of my kids, GB will not go to school without her HW done.

In the Dog House

GB is off her caffeine high and is having a reasonably good day- as long as I keep her and MK apart. Today, it is Ellie in the proverbial doghouse. MK let two pounds of chop meat (dinner) on the counter and apparently, Ellie thought it would make a good snack. MK insisted she only left the meat for 2 minutes, but however long, it was too long. GB is out with her dad grabbing fast food before gymnastics. Ellie is in the crate, very unpopular. I don't think I'll feed her anymore tonight. I'll bet she can't wait for bedtime- out of the crate and sleeping with her girl. I kept a straight face through all of this. With everything else going on, I find it hard to get upset about 2 pounds of chop meat.