| | OK ... so the Potty Pager seems to be working well. He's still wetting his pants in the morning after he takes it off, sometimes. I just can't tell if he's not awake enough yet or if he's stubborn or what. His daytimes are doing better again, too. Now we're back to the poop. Sheesh. Sometimes I think he just does not bother to wipe at all. He gets to the bathroom in time (or with a little skid-mark) but then he just pulls his underwear back up to his poopy bottom. Yick.
For any newcomers: Andrew has a PDD, sometimes known as Autistic spectrum disorder. It's not Autism, but resembles it in some ways, including his toileting frustration. Autism does not automatically mean retarded, in fact, Andrew is very bright, but he has behavioral issues and self-control issues. That's why we're having such frustration on the potty-training front. We do keep a sticker chart, where we reward him for dry nights and dry days. After he started Kindergarten, we changed dry to "clean underwear." That was to discourage the poop problems. I think I need to create a "social story" for this one. We do have pictographs in the bathroom and by the laundry hamper that show the routines, and he uses a picture-schedule at school. Many practitioners encourage parents to wean their children off of the pictographs, or at least to ... help them not need so much detail. For example, you might start off with a picture on the schedule that shows "use the bathroom" and then a bathroom routine that shows "pull down pants, sit down, defecate, wipe, stand up, fasten pants, close and flush toilet, wash hands." And "wash hands" might even have its own separate routine ... After the child learns the routines, he may only need the "use the bathroom" reminder, but not need the whole subroutine spelled out.
What got me onto the pictograph thing is ... I think I need -more- pictographs. The ones I have seem to be helping, but I think I need to have them for more of his routines and then use a schedule at home like he has at school. I did have the start of that, but he lost the cards. Maybe eventually we could just have the schedule and not have to have the pictographs posted all over the house? 
Someone finally noticed my Jehovah's Witness quote above. That came from an actual conversation with  . Sometimes I wonder which member of this family is most "special"
Nate spent all of last week at his grandma's because his dad was in town. He came home a spoiled rotten little shit. Big shock.
I had two migraines this week. One started Sunday, late at night ... but actually I guess it started much earlier... I had this foggy feeling all day, but the pain started in the evening as one of those "I think if I just go to sleep it will go away" type of headaches. Except it didn't go away, it woke me up. I was rolling around in bed and moaning. was pretty worried for me. He talked me into a shower and some water, as I hadn't even eaten dinner. I stayed in the shower until I ran out of warm water, and then dragged back up to bed, where I promptly puked. A lovely glassful of water soaking into my new mattress. Yes, that's exactly what went through my head at the time. Heh. We (mostly he) remade the bed and I heaved a few more times into the trash can and went to sleep. I was very restless, but better than before the shower. In the morning, I didn't take my meds ....
Meds. I ran out of Synthroid on Sunday. Could I possibly have brought it on by not keeping up with my thyroid medication? I don't think so, but Hmm... Research needed. Just clicked. Sorry.
Anyway, That stupid headache lasted over a day of -pain- and probably a half-day on each side of fogginess and blurriness. Then I had Parent/Teacher conferences. stayed home with Andrew, and Nate stayed with Grandma while his dad came to his. That was odd. I was still fuzzy from the migraine, so I didn't ask any of the questions I wanted to ask, because I couldn't formulate them. The one question I did ask, I didn't follow through on because I couldn't assimilate the info. Grr. Then I whipped out a little green Ninja costume. That was a big headache all on its own, but mostly because I lost 2 days to headache and lethargy. I think if I'd had the week I had planned to have, the costume wouldn't have caused me much stress. THEN another started in on Friday night. I guess I knew it was coming, and that's why I called my friend R and had her take the kids trick-or-treating without me. She had planned to go with us (we're her excuse to dress up and show off, after all) but instead just outright took them. I had that one All of saturday, but it went away around 3 am today. Thank goodness.
We went to a wine tasting with my mom today. I indulged in very little; I was still afraid of that headache coming back. It was fun, though. They served a mini-meal with each wine at the "spotlight" session. The portions were actually surprisingly large. Then there was a free-for-all (I'm sure they had a much nicer name for it, but that's what it felt like) where the people came to the wine and food, rather than the other way around. I had about 3 sips of wine in there, but quite a bit of food, because it all looked so good.
I was supposed to have 3 dr. appointments this week. One was the thyroid stuff, one was the chiropractor (that stupid hip.) and the one I didn't actually get to was my birth control. Whoops. I technically have through Tuesday morning to get to that one, but I really was told to get the appointment this past week. I don't suppose I'm in much danger, considering Depo typically takes a long time to wear off, and also that my husband has good self-control.  They'll also fuss at me because I didn't do the Sunday-Start method, like they always try to make people do. Sorry, Tuesday's a good day for me, and that's what day I got the first patch, so Tuesday it is! (When I went on the pill through them, they had me puking my guts up because I had to take 2 pills a day for 3 days to get caught up onto a Sunday-Start. My body can't handle a hormone overdose like that.)
Dangit, just interrupted me and broke my train of thought once again. I'll babble a bit longer and then give in and post this poor jumbled entry.
They upped my Synthroid to 50 mcg, but I suspect it will be dropped again after the next blood test. After all, I didn't take any for 3 days.
The upstairs toilet is leaking. We replaced one part, but the problem was higher up. Now the toilet is taken apart. Andrew will flip when he sees THAT! I hope to fix that tomorrow.
Andrew's pediatrician was in the paper today. She was encouraging literacy by including it in her well-baby checkups, among other things. The part I found amusing was that her picture was on the cover of the TV section, with the article inside. "Let's encourage literacy by giving people the boob tube schedule. Uh-huh!"
Either I've shrunk all my union-suit type jammies or I've grown 5 inches since I got pregnant with Nate. Sadly, I'm pretty sure it's the first choice. Frustrating either way.
Now I'm going to go take a precautionary acetomenophen, kiss the kids, and go to bed. Forgive the rambling and the typos. I am NOT going back over this one yet!
(Oh, and I'm about 3-4 days behind on SIR.) |
| | Posted 11/2/2003 10:40 PM - 1 view - 0 comments
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