Running and Running

Running and running and running. That was last night. I never saw those little feet stop moving. For a normal child this would be a great way to get them to sleep well. Problem is ADHD has something else to say about this. In fact it was literally 4 hours of running while we were at daddy's horseshoe games last night. The other kids stopping to take a breath and my son yelling "Come on you guys, I can't stop yet!" As the night wound down and it got darker, I told him to stay right next to me or at least where I could see him. Next thing I know, my child is missing. I can hear him so I know he is nearby. Problem is I'm not sure where! "Hey, buddy, where are you?" "I'm chasing the fireflies mom!" he yelled back. "I told you to stay where I can see you!" "Well if I stop and look I can see you!" Ok so another ADHD thing. If I can see you, that must mean you can see me! Which I guess makes sense but then this comment came "The fireflies didn't tell me that I was way over there, mom."

My son seems to think there are voices in his head. They tell him that people don't like him, or that no one loves him. They tell him to do things that he knows are wrong. They tell him that on some days he is a good kid and some days he isn't. I know just like any other parent that he is perfect just the way he is. It saddens me when I hear him say things like that. But that is another part of this monster that controls him.

So anyway, back to running and running. All of the kids, including mine, are now starting to congregate by their families. Mine is still jumping and talking a mile a minute. We get in the car to go home, and (although wishful thinking) we think he will be asleep in no time. Running and running, right! We get home, still awake and going. To late to get a sleeping pill down, hopefully he is ragged enough to fall asleep. 2 am, still awake. This morning he tells me that he stayed up all night, having a party by himself. My poor little man.

I don't know if I should look at his meds again even though it's summer and he can run and run. I don't like that he doesn't eat. Any ideas?

Everyone wants to fix him, and me.

I just found this article on another blog. It makes sense to me. How about you?

Everyone wants to fix him, and me.

Did we do something wrong?

When our son was little, he was the happiest, go lucky kid with a few quirks. One was that all the doors in the house had to be closed, another was that moving furniture without him knowing about the move first was very hard for him to take. Yet another was that there was a specific time he did things, whether we made the schedule that way or not (i.e. naps, eating etc.) I really thought nothing of it. Chalked it up to him being him. When he turned 4, these things started to get a little more present. Plus he started exhibiting a temper like no child should have. It was like the movie Poltergeist at times with chairs and toys flying through the room, of course this was because he was throwing them. This was chalked up to being 4 and learning his independence. Just before he turned 5, we started him in a 2 year kindergarten program. He was a great student, but he couldn't sit still, or keep his mouth shut. His reviews from the teacher were fine but she was a little concerned with his behavior. We chalked that up to his age and maybe we started school to soon. So half way through the year, we pulled him out of school.

Then during the summer before he started full day kindergarten (second time of school), my husband was watching a TV show that was talking about ADHD. He called me immediately after the show was done, and said that we needed to talk....Oh my, what did I do wrong?....about our son. Phew. When I got home he had a bunch of information written down. While looking through it, we realized that our son had checkmarks next to almost all of the symptoms that were given.

Ring ring, Hi doctor, we need to talk about our kid here. And so our journey began. He was tested and came out with horrible scores for his memory and great scores for his intelligence. Scratch scratch went the hand on my head.

We started with medication and then took him off. During school he seems to be fine. The structure helps him and since it was full day school there was MUCH more structure to his day. So I am starting this blog to find more families like ours. Little ones with big attitudes not by any fault of their own (or their parents for that matter) but thanks to the monster we call ADHD. Hopefully we can connect and feel more like we don't have monsters to fight off daily but great little kids that just need extra strength parents and families!