Walks

Now that it's a bit cooler, we've been going on LOTS of walks. We start out with M and E on their striders and S in the stroller, or with all 3 girls pushing their own strollers. Most of the time, however, the girls get tired before I'm ready to be done, so I pile them, along with their striders or strollers and all their collected treasure, into the stroller.

The other day, I didn't feel like folding up their strollers, so this was our solution. (Mike was home when we got home and snapped a few pictures):

Glimpse of Future Peace?

This might be my all-time favorite picture:

These 2 have the most stressful little relationship, so often made up of Mariah bossing and or hurting Elaine, and Elaine screaming her little head off in pain, fear, anger, or all of the above. But there are moments of peace. I caught this one this morning. It was chilly outside (finally), and I told the girls they could take their blankets out to the back porch. I thought they were going to sit on the bench, but when I looked out, this is what I saw:

Mariah Update - Kind of

This is an email I sent to Mariah's primary teacher (who is wonderful). I decided to post it here just to give a brief update on Mariah. We're still plugging along, one day at a time, but when I look back 6 months or a year, I can see progress.


First of all, thank you so much for loving Mariah and the other kids in her class. I could tell after the first few minutes of your first day with them that I didn't need to worry one bit about Mariah being in your class. You truly make a difference in our lives. Thank you!

I don't think you need to change a thing, but I would like you to have just a few details about Mariah's situation in case any symptoms pop up in class. I'll try to be succinct and informative, both.

Mariah was diagnosed in April 2010 with Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD). From our brief conversation today, I can tell you have experience in the area of attachment. The attachment an infant forms with her primary caregiver affects every aspect of her emotional, cognitive, and psychological development. With a RAD child, this attachment is absent due to repeated trauma in the child's past (Mariah in the NICU), where the trust cycle was broken again and again, and the child "decides" she has to care for herself. From that moment on, all decisions are made from a survival standpoint. Her brain is hardwired wrong, with her amygdala (fight or flight survival) too strong, and her "middle brain" oxytocin loop (the calming, bonding, love hormone) weak or missing completely.

A RAD child has heightened senses and a major hyper-sensitivity to stress. She is overwhelmed easily and overstimulated quickly. Essentially, she's an emotionally 18-month to 2-year-old in an intelectually advanced, almost-5-year-old body.

The symptom list is long, but I'll list here a few we see often from Mariah. When she feels stressed, these are her survival instincts that kick in to remain in control. (She is not manipulative; she simply must survive and does not trust adults to keep her safe.):

• hyper vigilence - she has to notice everything and feels she must know everything. from her perspective, if she doesn't know something that's happening around her, she feels threatened and cannot protect herself from a possible risk.
• hyper activity - RAD kids are often misdiagnosed as ADHD
• emotional regression - screaming fits/tantrums and/or silliness/baby talk
• sudden shifts in mood - RAD is also sometimes misdiagnosed as bi-polarism
• no understanding of cause/effect, which leads to feeling no remorse and no empathy
• major anxiety over random, illogical, seemingly very minor things
• violent toward younger siblings
• no common sense. she is brilliant, but fits every new experience into a file with something she has previously experienced. she is getting better but has very little creative thought process. everything is a script she's learned from observation and/or experience. she has a really hard time if something doesn't fit right into her existing filing system.

Our experience with her, for the most part, is that she holds herself together while at church, and then, if something bothered her at church, she loses it the second we get home. So, there's a possibility you will never see anything unusual from her. Your demeanor is absolutely perfect for keeping her calm and feeling secure.

If she does start to get anxious, just do what you do so naturally: reassure her that nothing bad is going to happen. that you're there to keep her safe. pull her aside and encourage her to talk about what she's afraid will happen, and to share her feelings, etc. Basically, meet her at her emotional age. If she's acting 2, treat her like a 2-year-old. If she's acting 6 months old, treat her thus.

She has made a lot of progress in the last year and a half. We've been using Bryan Post's Stress Model (postinstitute.com) for the past 6 months. His bottom line is that a stressed out child is a scared child. (You have a few in your class:) Treatment involves adressing the fear at its core and allowing the child to process with emotional transitions and outbursts. We use time-in instead of time-out. And I am essentially with Mariah all day every day. She is hyper- hyper- hyper- hyper-sensitive to my emotional state, and Post's paradigm teaches me how to stay emotionally regulated in order to teach Mariah (and my other kids) how to regulate themselves and to form the bond with Mariah that did not happen in her early months.

I hope to start leaving Mariah in class for longer and longer periods. We'll see how it goes. The key will be to not pull away too fast, and to allow her, at any point, to say, "Ok, that's enough. I need my mom." I have to constantly remind myself that, emotionally, she's not much older than an infant or toddler.

I hope that wasn't too much information. If you ever have questions, please ask, and, again, thank you for all you're doing. You truly are a blessing in our lives--making the Sabbath much less stressful than it could be and has been in the past.


p.s. I am homeschooling Mariah for pre-k, and hope she is emotionally ready for a couple hours a day in kindergarten. (And I hope the district allows me to pull her every day after a couple hours. If not, I'll be homeschooling her.)

Snort

I think we might have a future class clown on our hands . . . .

The Rest of August

These pics are from the last few days in August. A fairly good depcition of our ragamuffin lives:

Princess play.

Sal putting her babies to bed.

Playing with slime.

Backyard fun.

Here are some random singing (and not singing) videos. I'm not sure what look Mariah's going for with her hair and outfit . . . . 80's?

Lysurus periphragmoides . . .

. . . is the name (apparently) of this mushroom I found (smelled) growing in our grass:

It's the second one we've had, and both times, I've smelled it before seeing it. They are about the foulest smelling things in the world, and they pop up in seconds! One minute it's not there, and the next minute, bam! The common name - stinkhorn. Nasty!!

(This one is actually much more benign-looking than the first. I caught it before the top exploded with the black slimey stuff. So disgusting.)

My Favorite People

This is a common sight on Sunday afternoons (while I fix dinner). Today they played Old Maid.

August Catch-up: Hair and Spiders

I cut Sally's hair a couple days after we got back from Utah.

Before:

After:

I did M and E's hair in braids and socks to make it "curly." I forgot to take after pictures:

Just a cute picture of Laney Loo.

I killed this massive black widow between the slats of our porch rocking bench. I was a bit freaked out about that, since the girls climb and sit on that bench all the time, and I know the web had been there for a couple months! (Before we went to Utah, I swept the web away a couple times and never saw a spider. The web was back when we got back from Utah, but I didn't get around to it for a few days.) Those nasty lumps next to her are egg sacks.  (Over the next 2 weeks, Mike found and killed 3 more black widows! One small and 2 huge!)

Utah Trip: Family Pictures

Mike's uncle, Todd, took family pictures for us. They turned out great! He was SO good with the kids, and the fastest photographer I've ever worked with!

Here are some of my favorites:

And a child shall lead them . . . .

So, today is one of those days. I'm at the end of my rope, the camel's back is broken, my cup is empty, however you want to say it. I'm done.

The girls were pushing buttons with me and each other. This was our conversation:

Me: Please stop, girls. Please. Just stop. I can't handle this today.
Elaine: Just be a mom.
Me: I'm trying my very hardest to be a mom.
Mariah: But you're acting like a kid.
Me: Oh, really. What am I doing that's like a kid?
Mariah: Kids make mistakes. Moms do not!
Elaine: Yeah. And moms don't whine.

Can I resign?

The Good Samaritan . . . 4-year-old Opera Style

This is what I just heard, (picture it in your best 4-year-old opera voice):

When Mommy put me in bed, I just remembered a scripture!

So I got out of bed and looked until I found the one I wanted!

There was a man, and he asked the Lord who he should love.

And the Lord answered him with a story . . . .

There was a man lying on the road.

And he was nakey! wearing white bikers and a bandage on his head . . . .

Then she and Elaine started fighting, and the opera came to an abrupt (and not so loving) end.

Love This Girl

(And some day (hopefully soon) I will blog again . . . .)