My kids all love the game whack a mole- you know when you go to Chuck E. Cheese or an arcade? There's this game- it's about waist high. You stand over it with a big foam mallet. You wait for the little moles to pop their heads up out of the holes and you try to hit them as they pop up. The more moles you hit, the more points you get. But the annoying part is that even after you've hit a mole, it still manages to pop it's little head up at you to make you feel like you haven't accomplished anything.
Sometimes that's my life with Liam.
The progress report came home from school. Liam's missing homework assignments. Reading logs. What kills me about that is that he's a voracious reader, but I think with the OCD component, he feels as though he CANNOT write his reading log until he's stopped reading for the night. (Usually he falls asleep with the book still open next to him). At the same time that I was reading the progress report, Aidan told me that he'd forgotten his homework once again. Sigh. Screaming, yelling, and gnashing of teeth ensued. When I calmed down, I think I finally got it across to Liam that he would read for half an hour, write his reading log, and then if he still wanted to read AFTER the rest of his homework was done, that was ok.
New mole popped up- Liam received a music progress report saying that he hadn't completed any of his music homework. (this along with the the overall progress report, and Aidan's announcement that he forgot to bring home his homework home led to my losing it). My first thought was "How difficult can music homework POSSIBLY be??? He's been taking piano lessons since he was 5, this is probably CAKE for him." Then I reminded myself that his academic homework is tough enough for him to get through and if it's not on the homework board, he forgets about it. So do I call the principal and tell her that music education is important to us, he's taking trombone lessons after school and can we please put that towards his music grade at school? Or do I work with the music teacher and Liam to try to make up the work even though it's going to cause more stress but hopefully help him to learn to track his homework in all of his classes so that he's more prepared for middle school?
Speaking of middle school, another mole to worry about. In less than a year, we have a new school, a new administration, new teachers and new kids who had been in the same school as Liam when he was younger, but not while his tics were this severe. I'd like to start pushing sooner rather than later for those kids, teachers and administration to get educated on TS.
The bus. Happily, this mole is down for the moment. Liam is chewing gum on the bus. It seems to be working for him and the bus driver. There's a stew of reasons that the bus is difficult. As soon as kids start telling him to stop ticking anywhere, that location becomes stigmatized to him. It takes work to get it to not be a problem for him to be in that location without ticking. Also, he's been cooped up in school all day trying to control his tics. At some point, after holding them in all day, he needs to get them out. He also has issues with being in places surrounded by people. And while he has not verbalized this to me, I'm sure being in a location where he cannot excuse himself and go someplace to tic has got to be tough.
Our newest mole is church. We love our church and the CE director and ministers have been amazing with their response to Liam's increasing tics. I've emailed all of them and talked to some of them and their response has been loving and supportive. The CE director loves Liam and she has been so wonderful. She told the kids at pageant rehearsal that whenever Liam squealed, it was their cue to smile at the audience. It was FANTASTIC. We had a long talk on the phone, and she's so caring and calming. I got lovely emails from two of the ministers that were supportive and caring and they assured me that they'd work on an education piece at their staff meeting on Tuesday. My concern is not so much the children, it's the "control your child" looks at coffee hour, and the looks that Liam gets like he's misbehaving. Brian reminded me that I can't get upset at people who don't know, and rationally I know that, but as a mom, my primal instinct is to protect my baby.
The karate class mole- Liam's karate instructor is wonderful. His wife is fantastic and has been trying to help spread the word among the parents. The kids are getting used to his ticking in class. There's one poor kid who is in his class who has sensory issues and the noise for him is excruciating- more so than to the other kids. Tht one's tough, because I totally get it, and wish there were some way I could help to make it easier on him. The parents in the waiting room have been tough. I'm trying to get it out there, and I'm sure time will heal this one, but it's definitely trying.
I'm hoping Christmas break will be a nice break for me from playing whack a mole.
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