Sick, Cold Weekend

Ugh.  I stayed in bed from 5pm Friday until 5pm Saturday.  My sinuses hurt, I felt achey all over and my neck had stabbing pains.  I feel a bit better today.  My health has not been good, in general, for this last week.  I think it's the cold weather.  I really want to get back to my exercise schedule.

Sunny's behavior deteriorated a bit.  Friday, all the schools were closed because we got a quarter inch of snow.  I'm sure everyone up north thinks that's hilarious.  He had two fits that day.

Yesterday, since I was sick in bed and my husband had to work, Guy dropped him off at Nana's.  My mom often jokes with me -- "I don't see what your problem is, he's always fine with me!"  We both share a dark sense of humor, so I know she really doesn't mean it. She's great with him, since she has a very strong personality and the ability to maintain calm.  But sometimes, yes, it does irritate me a bit that Sunny reserves the worst of his behavior for me...

He was helping his Nana take off the Christmas tree ornaments and accidentally-on-purpose broke one because he didn't feel like helping right then.  Whenever he breaks something or hurts someone on accident, he gets very perturbed, and he has to be assured that his apology is accepted and everything is OK.  Otherwise, he flips out.  I've had lots of talks about this with him.  When he does something wrong, either on accident or purpose, he is supposed to think about other people's feelings first.  They key in these situations is to speak to him very calmly, but tell him to think about what the other person feels and what he can do about it.

Anyway, after breaking the ornament he started crying and screaming.  My mother told him to go to the other room to calm down (first mistake).  I've grown to realize that telling Sunny to go away and be by himself is like telling him "I hate you and I hope you die".  When he screamed even louder, she actually lost her temper for a minute and said "For Heaven's sake, shut up!"  I arrived shortly afterwards and Sunny was screaming about how Nana hurt his feelings and told him to shut up and "spoke to me in a harsh voice".

I took him to the bedroom and had to hold him down for a while when he got more disturbed and began lashing out.  Then we had a long talk and I made sure he didn't leave the bedroom with me until he took responsibility and started seeing things in a more realistic light.  What we discussed:

- if an adult in your family asks you to do something reasonable, you have to do it.  No matter if you think their voice is harsh.
- saying "my feelings are hurt" is not a magic phrase that allows you to avoid responsibility for your actions.
- you have to think about the feelings of other people as well as your own.  For example, Nana's feelings were hurt when her Christmas ornament was broken.  That didn't mean she's mad at you, it just means her feelings are hurt.
- three-stage apologies!  I remind him of this almost every day.  Saying "sorry" is worthless unless you then take responsibility and third, see what you can do to make up for it.

I have to hope that eventually he'll start to internalize some of these messages.  He was remorseful afterwards and apologized to his Nana, and she gave him a big hug.

I'm not happy about his behavior deteriorating, but on the positive side, he's really no worse than he was on medication.

I'm still working on getting a neurologist appointment.  I think I have a line on a neurologist in a town not too far outside the Atlanta perimeter.  It's always a chore finding decent providers.  I think doctors that take Medicaid are 1) more altruistic than normal and/or 2) really crappy and substandard.  Our pediatrician falls in the "altruistic" category.  The office is a bit disorganized, but based on the hours they keep and their stated mission, they're doing it for all the right reasons, and I love the service we've gotten from them in the last year and a half.

Generally, though, based on reviews of doctors I find on the internet, the badly reviewed ones take Medicaid, and the well reviewed ones don't.  To find a good one that takes Medicaid I have to cast a pretty wide net.  Luckily, we live in a populated region.  If we lived out in the country, we'd be screwed.

I had a long talk with Sunny and BB's foster mom the other day.  At 18 months, she estimates he's about 4-5 months behind, but making steady progress.  She thinks he'll catch up.  I trust her opinion since she's taken care of a ton of babies with all kinds of special needs.  BB is starting to say words!  He says "Nigh-nigh" when he goes to bed.  He can also understand simple commands like "pick up your bottle". She thinks his brain is developing faster than his motor system, so he could speak more if he had better control of his mouth.

I'm starting to think about childcare when BB comes to us.  Our choices are basically daycare versus a live-in nanny.  We can't afford a regular professional nanny, live-in or live-out, but we could get someone from the refugee community to come and live with us in the basement studio... that sounds kind of exploitative, but the weird thing is, we have certain connections that if we DON'T do this, my mother and some other people who work with the refugee community would be kind of peeved.  The idea would be, "if you can afford to give someone a job, so that they don't have to work in the chicken processing factory, you're obligated to give them that job."

Going that route would be complicated, ethically.  If we could get someone who was a night student, or had a small child they could live with here, so I wouldn't be causing another mother to have to get her own childcare, I would feel OK about it.  On another level, I'd want to make sure it was someone whose approach to childcare I agreed with... a professional nanny (we couldn't afford one anyway) has all sorts of references and certifications and things, and we'd be kind of flying blind without that.

Then there's daycare. That would cost anywhere from 400-1000 a month.  It has a lot of disadvantages but BB would be around a lot of kids, and he's already showing that he's very social, much like Sunny.  It's important for him to bond with us when gets here but he's also going to need a LOT of stimulation from other kids, and maybe daycare would be the best way to get that.