Home-Made Ritalin

 I ran across a piece of information on the internet last night that said that a regular cup of coffee contains the equivalent of 5mg of Ritalin. A starting pediatric dose of Ritalin is 20mg per day. This was fascinating to me! My 4 year old is a lovely little boy... but he's a little bit special. He has tons of energy, can be aggressive when he's all wound up and therefore has discipline issues. It's a challenge being the mommy that he needs me to be. It takes a lot of creativity and patience - and forgiveness! So when I read this article, I swallowed it hook, line & sinker.

Let me describe my day to you:

Tuesday's DIET....
6:00am - Milk w/ a 1/2t powdered chocolate milk
               =>Chocolate is actually a no-no, but i couldn't get him to quit cold turkey... i just decreased the    
                    amount of chocolate in his drink.
7:30am - Breakfast - Carrot & Cut of Coffee
9:30am - Mid-morning snack - PizzaRoll & Yes-Yes (Corn Puffs?)
12:00pm - Lunch - Beans & Rice
              => Protein is a BIG YES for Hyperactive kids.
3:00pm - After Siesta Snack - Yogurt & Banana
5:00pm - Cup of Coffee
6:00pm - Supper - Rice & Beans
8:30pm - Bedtime

Now for the BEHAVIORAL SIDE....

It actually wasn't a good day to start today... I had my Womens' Book Group this morning. Two women come w/ their small kids (ages 1, 5, & 5). I made sure to have an extra prayer session because of this. The morning before the women arrived went pretty normal as usual. He played nicely w/ his toys & watched a morning cartoon. When the group arrived he got a bit wired, but surprisingly it wasn't too bad. Under "normal" circumstances, my 4yo will become a bit aggressive when he's hyper-stimulated. It's never mal-intended, but it happens. Today he was upset bc the other kids were in his room messing it up, but he didn't ever throw anything at them or push them around, kick or spit. I still had to interrupt the reading group to go talk to him, but it was never bc he was hurting himself or others. Personally, I consider this progress.

And so was the rest of my day. He still has lots of energy & would impulsively do things that he typically does... but the aggressive edge was toned down a bit in circumstances I predicted he'd normally react w/ aggression.

IMPRESSIONS

I (and other educational and behavioral professionals) agree that my 4yo has strong tendencies towards being ADHD. Diagnosis is traditionally done once children start school. This is still nxt year for him. For now I can pull ideas off the internet and other non-prescriptive means to try to manage him. I haven't really tried anything til today. For a long time i just figured he'd "grow out of it." This coffee idea has helped me confirm my suspicions that he's ADHD. I truly believe that there was a slight improvement in his conduct today. It wasn't an Earth-Shattering change... but then again the cup of coffee only has 1/4th of a regular Ritalin dose.

Still need to make substantial progress w/ proper diet.

Do any of you (my faithful readers...) have any personal experience w/ energetic children? Do you have special coping mechanism for yourself? Management skills for the kid? Support is always a positive endeavor!! :)

Cheers!

September Revival

Not a spiritual revival... more of a return from a time of absence.

Every once in a while I check my blog and read what my last entry was about and see that it was a successful post of my cleaning endeavors. It's really a huge disappointment not to be able to follow that post with another ego-boosting post. So this time i'm just going to give a quick update on anything newsworthy that happened in that time-frame:


-- THE FLU
The Flu hit home at the end of last month (August). It carried into this month because.... well...  who has time to rest? It's almost spring time here in PY and everything is blooming, plus there's a drought. It's nuts! So my asthmatic eldest had a couple of outbreaks that needed meticulous care (puff, ATB, rest, & no school). The other two were their ordinary silly selves, but a little more wired up bc the oldest was also at home to hang out w/ them. It's so hot that no one sleeps siesta well & at night there's coughing and vomit :( It's been 2 days since i've started to feel better. I'm taking 1g of VitC a day, plus a multivitamin. I can feel the difference. I feel more in charge of my life.

-- MY BIRTHDAY

This past Saturday was my ??th Birthday. HAHA! No shame in my age!! Let's just say I get to enjoy my 20s for one more year... Ordinarily, I'm a little kid in an adult's body. I LOVE my birthday. I LOVE the txts i get to my cel & I LOVE all the pomp&circumstance of it all. It might sound selfish... but it's just my favorite day of the year. However, this yr I wasn't planning on celebrating it. My kids would not allow that! At 6am on the 15th (my bday) they came in ANGRY to my bedroom demanding a reason why the party hadn't begun yet... (*groan*). I tried so hard to put them off... distraction... candy... activities... to no avail. They pretty much dragged me to our block store to buy proper birthday elements: balloons, candles & soda (the orange stuff - ew!). It wasn't cheap either! So we strung up the balloons, stuck the candles into the cupcakes I had brought along (a gift from a dear km81 friend) & filled the cups w/ soda. Even sang happy birthday :) I guess it turned out better than i'd expected -- thanks to the persistence of my 4&5 yr olds.

-- THE ACCIDENT

This is the part where I know there's a lot to say, but i'm not really wanting to go too much into it. There's a lot of feelings that i'm not really in touch w/ yet. I'll summarize...

Friday mid-morning my ILs had an automobile accident. It was 100% not their fault. But the helmet-less motorcyclist who bumped (NOT crashed) into them and then bounced off onto the asphalt and instantly died prevented my ILs from continuing on their way. All the legalities were attended to and in the end (to make a 36hr story short) my FIL was given house arrest (*HUGE SIGH*). Praise Jesus that they are ok... but it's just terribly frustrating to see how things worked out the way they did. My FIL says he's considering it a 2wk vacation at home. Oh well... can't argue that. Therefore... i moved my bday to the day-after (the 16th) so everyone could participate. 

-- CARE PACKAGES

I have people who love me and I know it! Mom & a special Canadian friend sent me care packages for my bday. I love getting real mail. A "new" camera from mom!! Along w/ lots of goodies for the kids (coloring books, undies, shorts, etc). And Mac&Cheese from Canada, w/ some other nice details. It felt like home... Thanks guys!

Well, that's it for updates. I enjoy blogging, but perhaps put too high of an expectation on my entries. For those of you who "follow" me, I hope you didn't feel like I was flaking out of the blogging habit. I missed it a lot!

CHEERS!

C

Progress Report: Organization

Well, here's proof of my latest efforts: THE BATHROOM. 

BEFORE....

Chaos

Shelves full of too much stuff (can you see there's a bottle of bubble solution there?)

Messy towels

Empty Listerine bottle, cooking measuring cup...

shoes all disorderly, Bathroom Books thrown around...

x

x

x

x

x

and HERE... (*drum roll please!!!*) is AFTER...

No more chaos

my stuff on the right side

his stuff on the left... under his section is my makeup

and the shoe-schrank w/ a special new box that says Bathroom Books :) 

Whew! That's one room less!! 3 down.... 7 more to go!

On a slightly less positive side... of the 3 rooms i've completed the first ones seem to have lost a bit of their luster. I guess you can't expect to clean them wonderfully once and expect for them to remain that way. So now, besides finding the energy to tackle a new room, I also have to make a pass through the completed rooms to make sure they remain clean. The living room is particularly challenging bc it also doubles as our playroom... (*sigh*). But on the bright side... I'm sticking w/ the plan. God's strength will help me get through them all!! 

Good night to all!

"Papa did it"

You know that moment when you look at your baby girl & know that she's the sneakiest person God's created? whew! That happened to me today :)

We were expecting company so I was busy in the house getting ready for them. The kids were occupied outside playing. Time was running out and I was almost done with the dishes and everything else when Alana comes into the house - drenched in water. I'm telling you... she looked like she'd gone for a swim in her clothes. I'm holding in a giggle and faking a stern face when I ask her, "Alana, what happened???" She looks down at her sticky shirt, picking at it in semi-disgust, looks at me and (without batting an eye) tells me, "Papa did it." My giggle can no longer be contained and I blast out a full blown belly-laugh. I call for my husband and ask him to explain himself :) ... he denies involvement 100%. What really happened was...

We (the parents) were so distracted getting ready for the company that we really weren't watching the kids very well. We knew they were busy inside the premises of our house and since no one was crying, we kept doing our stuff. M is making fire for the BBQ and sees a flash of a curly head peaking around the back corner of the house. She sees him and he sees her and she quickly pulls herself out of his vision. M is totally suspicious and goes to see what's she's doing. Alana has turned on the backyard faucet and is having herself a little water party. She then runs inside the house to me to tell me what "HE" did to her.

The Blame Game sure does start early!

A great week to all my readers!