Ysa Last Night (good update)

Yesterday was a lot calmer for Ysa. At first, she was vicious and impatient to the younger ones when we were in the car, and gave me the silent treatment for a while, but she was much better later in the afternoon and at night.

She was dancing around, pleasant, laughing, participating in family activities, and it is hard to imagine that this normal looking child had such a scary panic attack and anger outbursts the nights before.

I talked to the family therapist. The ex had gotten together with her, and still doesn't see the issues with Zac and Bryan, but has grudgingly promised that he will not let them alone. One of his defenses was 'They should be fine if Vincent is there'. The family therapist asked 'Is there a safety plan in place so that Vincent knows what he should be doing when things escalate?' The ex admitted that no, there wasn't anything like that in place.

It turns out that the ex had brought up a concern with me and Ysa, that Ysa had been mean to the younger ones when she was watching them. So he doesn't want me to leave them alone with her anymore. Which actually was my plan anyway after the last few nights and week because she clearly is not in a place where I can in any reasonableness expect her to watch younger ones, since she is such a mess. I just thought it was very interesting that he doesn't see the issues with Bryan and Zac, has left them alone over and over even after people told him not to, and now he immediately is saying Ysa cannot be left alone with the young ones! Severely limiting my life, which feels like it could be another control issue yet again, even if I would like to think it is not. It just makes me go hmmmmmmmmmm.

Anyway, the therapist was worried about the panic attack and recommended me taking her in to see her doctor and maybe start her on therapy too. Which would not be a bad idea I think, and the family therapist actually called me back within 5 minutes saying that she had talked to one of the therapists at the center and she could see Ysa.

But last night it was encouraging to see her happy and engaged instead of angry and lashing out at everyone.

One last thing about family therapy / ex. The family therapist is encouraging him to work on his relationship with Ysa and 'yes, he wants to, but he is so busy with Zac, so he doesn't know how he would do it.'... Twit!

Zac Mon + Tuesday

Monday Zac went to school fine, although he was up very early, so might have missed a night of sleep. Monday afternoon 3pm he crashed when he came home from school.
Tuesday he refused to to go school. He was too scared.

Me 'I see, so things are not going so well.'
Ex 'Oh no, they are going very well, this is just one day that he didn't make it, he has been doing so well!' Um.... at least two suicidal incidents in the last few weeks, often didn't make it to school, and we had to adjust his school program twice so far and he considers it Zac doing well???

Ex 'His sleeping just got messed up.'

Can't he see that Zac's issues are much much much bigger than a simple sleep messup? I guess that is a stupid question since he clearly is not seeing it, but it still is mind boggling. And frustrating.

When he was too scared to go to school, his father just left him in his apartment, no supervision. Luckily he saw his therapist and case manager yesterday, so I can give them a call today and get update on how he was doing when he saw them. But it just is so super frustrating! I feel we are losing valuable time which could be used to get him REAL help instead of the stopgap measures the school is trying now.

Ysa Panic Attack and Explosion

Sunday night, Ysa had a full blown panic attack. The presumable reason was cleaning her room, but I think it really is her school stress. She was also making a drama about 'all the homework!!!!' she still had to do although it turned out in the end to only be a few questions. She was unable to breathe, unable to walk, and couldn't lift her arms. She didn't even want to pet the dog, which was too bad, because I think bodily contact with him would have helped her.

Tonight we had her explode at me with lots of swearing, kicking the walls, slamming doors, hitting the walls and scary behavior. Violet hid under a desk to be away from her. It brought me back to many scary Zac episodes although hers was directed towards objects, not people yet. Still, I feel she is moving in the wrong direction.

There have been 'I just want to die' and 'I don't care if I die or bleed to death!' statements too, one last night, a few tonight. I didn't think there were credible suicidal threats here yet, but I am documenting and I am wondering whether I am witnessing just anxiety or anxiety mixed with depression. Later tonight she was calm and pleasant and happily doing her homework with minimal help, so I will wait and see and monitor the developments. I did sent an email to her guidance counselor at school so that he knows there are issues, and I also will bring this up at my next meeting with the family therapist.

And of course, as always, I have the emergency number for our counseling center within easy access.

My life is not boring.

Penny Homework

Not a big issue, but just sent this letter to her teacher about tonight's homework:

"Penny was having an extremely hard time with her homework tonight, she does not have formal education of long vowels and all the ways they manifest, so she was unable to do one of her homework pages. I wrote a note to give to her teacher and told her she didn't have to do this since she would need some extra help and I would request it in the note, but she still totally was falling apart and very, very, very upset for a long time. It is almost 10pm now and she is laying on the couch, hopefully will fall asleep there. She still occasionally is saying 'I NEED to do my homework!!!!!!' not being able to accept that it is ok to not do her homework under those circumstances.

She also is stating that she doesn't want to go to school tomorrow and doesn't want to get up but I think that will be solved by a good night's sleep.

Please give her some extra help with the long vowels and other 'technical reading aspects' like this since she has a gap there. I request not to have this extra help given during recess or after school, since this is not a 'didn't finish reasonable homework' issue but a 'doesn't have the required knowledge yet to even be able to do
this homework' issue.

The good news is that she seems to be adjusting well to school in other aspects, I am hoping this is just a small blip on her road to a successful school career. "

Amazing how much drama can be generated by homework and school. It is not bad at all that she wants to finish her homework, but it is hard to finish it when she doesn't have the knowledge and I couldn't give her all that knowledge in a bit of informal homework help, so she was stuck there.

Zac / Bryan

I saw the family therapist and brought up the issue of X leaving Bryan and Zac alone again. She said that the therapists had made it Very Clear (yes, she talks in capitals at times) to him in that meeting that it was totally not acceptable. And theorized that he must have thought it was a different situation because Zac was asleep. Which she agreed it wasn't, but she was trying to consider his reasoning.

She agreed with me that it was a big safety issue and someone from the counseling center would contact X and explain to him again that it was not ok at all.

We decided that having Bryan's therapist contact him would be best, since she has witnessed Bryan's issues closer than any one else in the practice. I hope he will listen this time.

Um... yeah whatever

Usually the three youngest spend the Saturday at their father's house.
Today he told me 'I want to take them in batches, at the most two at a time, because it is too stressful for Zac. He really needs to relax during the weekends.'
I proposed taking them to our community's open art studio so he can spend time with all three away from Zac.

He made up some convoluted schedule where he first picks up the two girls, then an hour later comes back for Bryan, and in the afternoon ends up with just Bryan I think. I just told Bryan and Baby Bear and they all started crying, it is great when I deal with the repercussions of his stupid decisions, but maybe I should not have said yes but it was a surprise request and I just couldn't deal with a fight and I am making runon sentences now.

Anyway, how can he think Zac is doing well and at the same time consider him too fragile to have three of his other kids over???? The ex's whole life seems to revolve around enabling Zac now. Gah.

Threatening Suicide Yet Again

Yesterday, Dr Hildegaard, the school psychologist called again, and told me that Zac expressed high anxiety about the custody situation, and how it would go in front of a judge and what if the judge decided to have him live with me. My phone was being very static-y, so I had a hard time getting all the details, but he did talk about suicide again. It sounded like me getting custody would want him to suicide.

I feel his mental health is not good at all right now and living with his father is not helping for sure. It is good that he has the psychologist at school, but I really think he needs WAY more therapeutic care than he is getting at the moment. I had a meeting at school today, which was frustrating as usual, but no time to write now.

At least the psychologist didn't feel it was a credible threat (to suicide) right now, but what are we teaching him if he keeps getting results by threatening suicide and then not having to do what he doesn't want to do.

Zac Today

Just called his father.
'So how did things go with Zac and Vincent today?'
'Vincent went well.'
Me, thinking 'uhoh, I bet Zac didn't.
and indeed 'Zac didn't go to school, he was too panicky.'
Me 'I see. What is he doing now?'
X 'He is sleeping. I promised I would come home at noon and get him to school.'

Good luck to him :p

Never boring, now off to get Baby Bear to kindergarten with some forms I am still due. The forms are killing me! Oh well :D

Argh!

When I finally thought X would GET the Zac / Bryan issues, he proved to me that he does not. At all.

Friday night Bryan slept over at the X house. Saturday morning, X came here to pick up Baby Bear and I noticed that Bryan was not in his car. I asked about it.
He replied 'Oh, Zac was asleep anyway.'
I reminded him 'Bryan really is terrified of Zac, he should not be with him even if Zac was still asleep when he left.'
His counter 'Well, Bryan didn't want to come.'

I was too speechless to continue this conversation. Vincent was at work and Zac was asleep so he left Bryan unsupervised with Zac, maybe hoping that Zac wouldn't wake up even although it has been explained to him that he should not? Not to mention that I'd rather not have Bryan unsupervised in his apartment anyway, but that seems a minor issue compared to the safety issue of Zac / Bryan.

I will see the family therapist on Tuesday and bring this up with her. I am sad for Bryan that X is not willing to protect him or explain to him that sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do, like picking up your little sister, and it's not optional. And Bryan truly isn't hard to convince of things if you put one minute of energy and focus into it instead of just saying 'Oh, he doesn't want to come, ok.'

Broken

Last week when I saw the family therapist, she gave me some update on the 'all therapists meeting' which I attended for the first half and the ex for the second half. It gave me interesting and disturbing insights into the ex's psyche.

It turns out that the ex does not want to talk about any supervision for Zac when he is at work the whole day (less of an issue now that he is in school, but more an issue during the vacation) because broaching the subject with Zac would make Zac feel that he is 'broken'.

That is not the worst though, the perceived brokenness is an even bigger and very worrisome to me (and the therapists) issue in the Zac / Bryan interactions. It turns out that X has been leaving Zac alone with Bryan at his house because 'he has to practice being with him and I don't want Zac to think he is broken and cannot be left alone with his 8yo brother.'

Hello!? No one ever said anything about broken. Zac is behaving in an unsafe way, making serious threats to Bryan and Bryan is literally TERRIFIED of Zac. Bryan needs to be protected and Zac should not be left alone with him.

Luckily the therapists very much agreed with me on that aspect and the family therapist told me that the psychiatrist and one of the therapist very much were in support of Bryan, explaining in no uncertain terms to the ex that this was not acceptable. That Bryan's issues are very real. That his fear is real. That under no circumstances they should be left alone.

When she told me I was flabbergasted. Um... having Zac practice on Bryan just so he wouldn't feel he is broken? Not protecting the 8yo so that the 16yo would feel better about himself???? How can you only look at Zac but not at Bryan? How can you not understand that there are consequences for actions which should be enforced if they are dangerous to others?

The family therapist says X is identifying with Zac, and projecting his own feelings on Zac. Gah. Not very helpful in the practical sense, but it does explain his actions here and in other ways. She felt the psychiatrist and therapist were Very Clear to him though that Bryan should not be left alone with Zac. Which made me feel better that at least some 'authority figures' had told it to X and now he would abide by it.

But I am still blown away by the fact that instead of focusing on safety he figures the safety issues will be resolved by leaving Zac with Bryan, unsupervised, to practice. There is lots of passive aggressive talk from Zac to Bryan when they are supervised, they just are not ready to be left alone. There is such a long and sad history of Zac bullying Bryan, of Zac threatening to kill Bryan, of Zac locking Bryan outside the house in the winter, it is inconceivable to leave them alone together.

And the whole notion of brokenness is weird too. No one has ever used that word about Zac, and it never even has come up in my mind either. He has issues which need to be addressed. But seriously, all of us have many issues to work on, only his are more severe in some aspects, but I have never considered him broken. Does the ex consider himself broken? Or does he not even go there? He has a looooooong history of depression, is that part of this picture? I don't know, I just know that this was surprising to me and I really hoped that at least the therapists would have explained to him the safety aspects of the whole issue, even if they didn't address the brokenness (which they might or might not have, I don't know)

Zac Yesterday and Today

Yesterday, Zac did make it to school, but was not doing so well in his geography class. His teacher offered some suggestions to help him improve on something Zac was doing and Zac seemed to be totally have fallen apart. I haven't heard specific details yet. I know he got to be with Dr Hildegaard and they called the ex and he picked up Zac earlier than usual but it sounds that might have been the school's recommendation, will have to fi

Today he made it to school although his father said 'He went to sleep very late, so it was hard to get him out of bed in the morning.' No kidding :p
I asked about Vincent, whether he made it to school. 'Oh, I guess so, he gets up by himself, I am not going to get up that early!' OK ^^

Ysa

Ysa seems to be adjusting well to all subjects but language arts. There is a HUGE resistance to the writing part of language art, a lot more than seems to be explained by even her current high level of buttheadedness.

I am holding this hammer and wonder about Aspie traces in her, or does everything just look like a nail because I am holding a hammer? For now documenting examples and I will email her teacher and guidance counselor soon and get their input and their increased awareness of possible issues. I already mentioned a few words to the teacher during parent night, so I just need to follow up. Yes, in my spare time.

Example 1: Question 'Think of someone you like to do things with. For 2 or 3 minutes, write down everything which comes to mind when you think of that person.' Quite simple, eh? Not for Ysa. It took us one and a half hours of drama, tears, refusals, breakdowns, more tears, more drama, tons and tons of trouble with this simple assignment. Part of it was that 'I don't want to tell the teacher any of that!' but I feel part of it also was the seeming inability to perform the exercise.

Example 2: 'Read the poem and decide which line has the best imagery. Explain why you think so.' This one was met by 'I don't SEE pictures when I read a poem, I just read the words and that is it.'

Example 3: After a six page story about Mike in which he first grew a mustache and later shaves it off and even although the story isn't totally specific about the mustache, it still gives a lot of background on the issue. 'Why did Mike grow a mustache and why did he decide to shave it? What did the mustache symbolize?' Another almost impossible problem, although her summary was quite simple 'Well, that is easy, he grew it because he wanted it and he shaved it because he wanted to get rid of it.'

The school has some kind of homework help after school, but she has already rejected that as 'That is LAME!' For now I am ok with her not participating, but if these issues don't improve over time, she might be out of luck.

During example 1, I offered 'If you really can't do it, we can just stop now and I can write a note to your teacher and ask for extra help and support from her.' This was met by a disdainful 'NO! I am not going to be a lame spec ed kid!' Gotta love the rejection of any kind of support beyond my homework help.

No big things yet, but they make me wonder. There seems to be success in anything which just asks concrete thinking (science, math, etc) but there is a lot of resistance to these type of language art questions. It feels like she isn't able to move beyond concrete thinking towards more insightful, reflective thinking. Which of course makes me wonder and go 'hmmmm'.

Apart from that she seems to be adjusting well to school, although she has complained about her stomach hurting from day 1. I wonder whether that could be anxiety related. If it continues, I'll have her checked out by her doctor, but for now hoping for the best and hoping she will do better once she has been in school a bit longer.

Spoke to Counselor

She felt Zac was doing ok by the time she saw him so that is good news. Apart from that, I have no idea what else to do what I am not doing already, and we'll see how things develop. For now I will drink tea and enjoy my few hours off till kids are home from school.

Today's Zac Update

I first called the ex, and asked how things are going.
'Did Zac make it to school?'
'Yes, after he saw the psychiatrist.'
'How was that appointment.'
'Oh great, she said he was doing so much better than last week!'
'Good. Did you get to talk to Dr Hildegaard yesterday?'
'Yes.'
'Did you know that Zac was suicidal Monday night?'
'Yeah.'

I don't recall the whole conversation, but the ex seemed to think Zac's issues were no big deal and he was doing fine now and I am sure the Monday night thing already has almost disappeared from his mind. Gah.

I have calls in to his counselor and his case manager to see what they think of the situation and how they felt he was doing yesterday. I think their viewpoint might be a bit more objective than his father's.

At least he isn't in crisis right now, but I am still not impressed with the happenings. I know Bryan always was drawing bombs under his bed which Zac would have put there, and that is kinda how I feel right now, that there is a time bomb waiting to happen, but I can't do anything about it and there is no use in worrying until there are concrete things to do, so for now taking a deep breath and going on with the other 78 items on my 'Things to do: Urgent!' list.

Phone Calls

I didn't hear anything more from Dr Hildegaard or Zac's counselor, so I decided to call the ex, around 6:30pm.
'Hi, how was the counseling session for Zac?'
'Oh, I don't know, I haven't talked to him yet, his case manager was going to spend time with him and brought him home.'
Since I had no idea whether dr Hildegaard had spoken to him, and I also didn't know whether Zac had expressed any of his suicidal thoughts to him, I found myself amazingly reluctant to discuss the whole issue. I will try to talk to Zac's counselor and case manager tomorrow and get their perspective.

Since the ex was still at work I called his apartment to talk to Vincent and Zac. Zac eventually picked up and was his typical unresponsive self and I didn't want to ask a lot of questions, since that tends to agitate him. I did find out that Vincent was at work, so Zac was at home all by himself, which is not making me feel very good about things, but not much I can do about it right now. I will document, document, document and document and hope his therapist worked more on a safety plan with him today and otherwise ask her to do so next week.

This really flashes me back to many explosions when the ex still lived here, and which never had happened in his universe and never got mentioned and got denied if I mentioned them. At least there is an official record at school for this particular one now.

Kaboom

This morning, the school psychologist Dr Hildegaard called me. 'Zac came into my office today and was very upset. Last night, his brother Vincent was playing computer and didn't want to stop when X asked him too, and X started yelling at Vincent. This greatly upset Zac who was having suicidal thoughts, including hanging himself from the balcony. I am very proud at Zac for seeking me out at school, he came and knocked at my office door to tell me what happened and how upset he was. In addition to the 'home anxieties' he also has anxieties about a geography presentation he has to give in Mr Atlas's class and he feels woefully unprepared.'

Gah.

Dr Hildegaard gave him the emergency phone number for our counseling center, and told him at times like that he could call them, or the police, or his mom. So at least there is some kind of safety plan there. I have no idea whether Zac voiced any of his suicidal thoughts to his dad or whether he waited till today at school to voice them to Dr Hildegaard.

The good news is that Zac already was scheduled to see his counselor today, and Dr Hildegaard asked me my permission to talk to her about this. After I freely gave my permission he added he would have talked to her anyway, but wanted to ask for permission. Which strikes me as kind of interesting and amusing, but totally understandable, because suicidal crap should definitely be monitored. Dr Hildegaard did not feel that Zac was in immediate crisis right now, but wanted to speak to Zac's therapist about it.

The other good news is that the ex was going to see the family therapist today, so I can hope that maybe this will come up, but I also realize it might not and there was no way I could alert her to these happenings, since I was running around and doing my own stuff.

I have no idea what to think or feel, I am still in a bit of shock. I knew this was very likely to happen, but I truly had hoped it wouldn't and things could be calm for a while, for Zac's sake. The reality yet again is hitting me harder than I thought it would, but I can still feel my strength underneath it all and will do all the appropriate things to try to get Zac the help he desperately needs.

Please send good thoughts to our family.

Oh, and for the record, Zac did make it to school yesterday and today.

Testing Bryan

Today, I went to school for a meeting about testing Bryan. Participants of this meeting were the spec ed teacher, the elementary school principal, Bryan's classroom teacher, the speech therapist, the ex (yes, I guess he has decided that maybe attending school meetings will look better than the 10 years of not attending them :p), my parent advocate, and the district's special needs coordinator.

The speech therapist introduced himself to the ex 'Hi, we haven't met before', which is correct, even though this particular therapist worked with Zac for about five years.

His classroom teacher started out by saying that Bryan is very sharp, very verbal, but has issues with writing. Both the physical act of writing (fine motor control and pencil grip) and also spelling. She didn't notice any issues in his interaction with the other children and he seemed well accepted and happy. She did give the disclaimer that there only had been seven days of school so far, so these were just preliminary observations.

The spec ed teacher had spent quite some time in the classroom observing Bryan, and she noted that he had a strong mathematical understanding and grasped mathematical concepts very quickly. His hand goes up quite often during any math activities. His reading seemed fluent, although she hadn't had time yet to do a formal DRA, which is a Developmental Reading Assessment. She noted problems with his written output. He takes too much time, he has issues with letter formation, there are many reversals and he is unsure about his spelling.

The speech therapist noted that he has pronounciation issues which should have disappeared at this age. He has somewhat of a lisp, and his 'th' at the end of a word morphs into an f, while he uses a t for 'th' at the start of a word. He also found there was a lot of 'motor spillover' in both his gross movement and his speech, once he starts moving, he doesn't know when to stop. He thought it might be because of the foreign language background, which always seems an easy 'blame' for any speech issues in the eyes of the school.

An interesting aside to that was his spelling test, where 7 out of 10 words ended in Y, even if there was no Y in the whole word to be found, and the speech therapist suspected that was illustrative of the same 'can't stop moving' issue, once he starts spelling he just keeps going, but the Y somehow enables him to stop.

They haven't noticed any social emotional issues yet, although I feel that might be because he barely started school and is still holding himself together very well. I will make sure to document self hurting and other kind of 'everyone hates me!' issues at home just to gauge how well he is doing at that. Of course it helps that Zac has moved out for now, although I didn't talk about that in front of the ex, but I feel Bryan still has possible aspie issues. They weren't ready to test for any yet, and I didn't think that waiting a few months would hurt, will give them time to get to know him better and we can at least get the other testing done.

We decided to also do a general intelligence test, the Woodcock Johnson, which tests ability and achievement, so we can find out where there are discrepancies between the two.

I am not sure whether I should have pushed the social emotional part more, but I think this is ok for now. In a way I would like to get the testing done, so if needed, he could move to another school with an IEP in place already. In another way, I think the current testing might reveal enough to get an IEP in place anyway, and I don't have to worry about the possible social emotional issues he has, at least not right away. The school seemed to think that any of the suicidal crap was mostly because of the divorce and not more than that. Gotta love the reasoning 'it's the foreign language and the divorce.' Um... yeah, right, if only life was that simple :p

I did mention the two siblings with Aspergers, but I didn't really want to mention the father with Aspergers since he was sitting right there and never has been offically diagnosed and I have NO idea whether he would agree or not. The dad has been diagnosed with ADHD and depression, but nothing else so far. Of course, he has steadfastedlly refused any counseling for a long long time, so who knows.

School Meeting

I found out that yesterday Zac came in for math, stayed for only two minutes in the class room and then went to the Resource Room. He was picked up early by his dad. So in summary, out of six school days so far, he has attended three full ones (with some encouragement from the vice principal last Friday), has missed two and attended one hour of the last one. Not very stellar attendance.

I am still pondering what to think of today's meeting. I had hoped to bring up placement concerns, but the energy was such that I never got to do so.

Attendants: Zac, his dad, the vice principal Gator, Zac's new case manager Robin, the school psychologist Dr Hildegaard, me and a friend to support me.

Good things about the meeting: Gator was Very Very Direct and Clear to the ex saying 'He needs a bedtime, he needs the computers turned off, he needs to be in school, school is not optional and did I mention he needs a BEDTIME?????'

Bad things about the meeting: I don't feel like I have made any progress at all beyond giving the ex a reality check, which is not super useful, but hopefully will help him on his way to start setting limits and finding out that it is not as easy as it sounds when you deal with Zac.

Concrete things about the meeting: Up until now Zac had four actual classes, English, math, geograpy and art and attended from 9:30am till 2:30pm. We dropped two of them, so he now only has two left, and will use the other hours to get homework help. Both for English and geography and for his community college classes. Turns out the dad signed him up for two classes (one being a repeat from last year) without telling anyone, but of course Gator had found out and explained to him that he shouldn't do that unilaterally, but she would pay for it this one time.

We also dropped the last hour of the day, so now he only has to be in from 9:30am till 1:30pm. They tried to go back to a 12:30 till 3:15 schedule again, but I didn't think that would be ideal either. We will meet again in two weeks to see how things are going.

What is really frustrating to me is that Zac says he doesn't want to be in school because it is boring. But the moment any academic expectations beyond almost nothing are put on him, he complains it is too hard and he can't do it and he can as well not even try.

One good thing the ex did was bring up Zac's speech issues, since that is a subject which fell by the wayside when things went kaboom last year. It sounds like the school is trying to get him to work with the speech therapist again. The school will also get him into the psychologist once for counseling and once for social thinking.

At the end he was supposed to go to his geography class 'I can as well not try, I missed three classes already, I will fail anyway!' Dr Hildegaard turned it around by 'You only missed a few classes out of the 45 and Mr Atlas is very committed to help you succeed, so you really should just go in and try.' Zac left and came back five minutes later 'I have been kicked out of geography class. I am stupid anyway!' Robin went in and investigated. I didn't get details but it sounded like Zac might have said or done something which was not appropriate, so who knows.

Interesting tidbit: Gator said 'Zac told me that his dad can pick him up at any time of the day, is that true?' His dad agreed with that. Since he is his personal taxi service after all. OK, that was catty, but it was interesting to me, Zac's feeling of entitlement and 'Dad will save me whenever things get hard in school, or anywhere.'

Zac Going In Late

Today talked to the ex.
'How are things going for the boys?'
'Vincent made it to school'
'Great! What about Zac?'
'Well, I am going to bring him in later.'
'I see... What time?'
'12:30pm. I talked to his therapist and she said it was too much too soon, so I will bring him in later.'

Gah.

We have tried the two hours thing so many times and it never worked why would it work now? They are not going to be successful getting all the things he needs in the few hours he will have. I will bring up placement again tomorrow, but I expect them not to listen. Time to get myself organized for the advocate? But the ex will interfere. And I am just Very Frustrated right now. We walk in the same circles over and over and Zac is getting older but not getting any effective help or learning any daily living or social skills.

I feel we keep putting bandaids on his broken leg and wondering why he still doesn't start walking!

He was so successful every time he was hospitalized. He desperately needs the structure of a residential placement but the school is unwilling to pay for it and the ex is stuck in 'He is doing so well!' even if he isn't.

Bryan School Update

Bryan seems to be settling in well at school. Where the first days his reply to my question 'What did you like best in school today?' was 'Coming home!', last Friday it changed to 'Home is boring, school is way more fun!' And that seems to have been the consensus this week too.

He has been asking me to walk him to the school bus every day (good for the dog who happily walks with us) but yesterday he decided to go by himself. Today he wanted me to get him to the stop again though, maybe because our neighbor girl wasn't there yesterday or today so he would have to wait at the stop all by himself.

Next Monday I have a meeting for him to start the testing process. I spend a lot of time in IEP meetings. My parent advocate will be there too. I invited the ex, but no idea whether he will show up. My gut feeling is he will while this custody thing is going on.

Glad I have a good school update for him in addition to the less than optimal ones for some of the others.

Missing the School Bus or TANSTAAFL

Ysa has been a lot of passive agressive ways to be late for the school bus. Leaving home just a little too late, doing things really really slowly, making it very clear to me (in her mind) how she doesn't want to be in school AND doesn't want to wait at the bus stop for the bus. Since she is special so the bus should not make her wait.

I am sure you will have a suspicion where this story is going.
This morning, she left the house late again, a while after her two sisters had left for the same school bus. It didn't take long before she came back 'I missed the bus. Now you have to drive me.'
I explained to her that this was both inconvenient and unfair to me since I had to get Bryan to the school bus soon and Baby Bear was still sleeping in her bed and it was not as simple as she made it to be. I was not willing to do it without any kind of compensation for my time, money and effort.
She balked at that. 'You are my mother, you HAVE to drive me to school!'
I proposed 'What about you weed the garden this weekend in exchange for the drive.'
She claimed I had to do it without any compensation just because I wanted her to be in school.
I asked whether she had any other things around the house she would be willing to offer.
She stood strong in her conviction that this should be offered without compensation.

She stated indignantly 'It is not fair you haven't told me before that you wouldn't just drive me if I miss the bus!'
'I didn't expected it to come up, I expected you to be mature enough to make it to the school bus in time.'
'Well, EVERY DAY I have been barely in time for the bus and have had to run to make it!'
'OK, no problem, that will be solved if you leave house a bit earlier.'
'I don't WANT to leave earlier, I don't WANT to wait for the bus!'
'In that case better make a backup plan for what you'll do when you miss the bus.'
'Well, it is not fair if you won't drive me!'
'It is not fair if you expect me to drive you for free.'

I said she could bike to school but she replied her rear tire needed to be inflated and she couldn't bike and she would be late for school anyway.

By now we had reached an impasse where she was not going to budge and I wasn't either. But luckily she had her trump card 'I will just call daddy and ask him to drive me.'

So she called and said 'I missed the bus and Mama TOTALLY refuses to get me to school, can you drive me?'
He said yes and he came and I hope she did make it to school in time and if not, she can deal with the consequences.

On the one hand I feel really mean that I didn't just drive her to school.
On the other hand it was important to me to let her know that she wasn't just entitled to a ride just because she was tardy for the school bus. And it truly was a big inconvenience for me because of the two kids at home, one of whom was still asleep.

I don't know, I guess there are no easy answers, but for now I am just hoping she won't miss the buss again.

Zac not in School on Wednesday

Argh, I typed up most of this post yesterday and then blogger ate it. Feh. I guess will have to remember and type it again. So much to write, so little time!

Yesterday the school called me 'Zac isn't in today.'
I called the ex to inquire 'Oh, he was having a panic attack again. The school is too big and too scary.'
Me 'I see. So what is he doing now?'
X 'I don't know, I think he will be in bed.'
Me 'Maybe we should talk about a backup plan on the days he doesn't make it to school. Tim's therapist might be a good one to help us design that.'
X 'Yeah, maybe.'
Me 'When is he seeing his therapist again?'
X 'I don't know yet, I have to call her, I have so many appointments to set up!'

Uh huh, I would almost feel sorry for you if I wasn't so pissed about the reality of Zac not learning any life skills beyond 'Say you are scared and you won't have to do whatever it is you have to do' On the other hand at least Zac can't blame 'The little ones are so loud at night and that's why I can't sleep and can't make it to school!'

The ex also said 'Zac has promised that he will go to school tomorrow. I really don't understand it. Last week things went so well!' Talk about rewriting history, that was the week when he was going to pick up Zac early on Friday because Zac not liking math class and there were concerns from the first day. But in the ex's story things went so well and he doesn't understand why this week is harder. Hello??? This is the pattern we have seen continuously for the last year.

Zac saw his psychiatrist on Monday, she upped his prozac and decreased his anti psychotic.

Last week there was talk again about Zac being afraid of a psycho coming up to him in school and shooting him, but I don't think there has been any incidence of that this week. I talked to the ex about this not being the right placement for Zac, but I have no idea whether he is listening or not.

I have contacted Zac's case manager in school and will meet with her on Friday.

Therapist Meeting

Last week I had a meeting with most of the kids therapist and psychiatrist and case manager from the mental health center, which we have every few months. Because of the custody issues and the way X just took the boys and never returned them, they decided to split up the meeting. The first half hour was with me, the second half hour was with X.

A funny aside, I ended up having to find a babysitter for Baby Bear since she hadn't started kindergarten yet and clearly couldn't stay home alone. So I found her a baby sitter who is very well known to Baby Bear, but is a teenager, and Baby Bear was very miffed 'You can't let a TEENAGER take care of me! It has to be a grownup or you can just send me to daycare. I would like that MUCH better.' ^^ Tough luck, girl.

Anyway, mostly I told how things were going, and I updated on the custodial interference and it turns out that the therapists were under the impression that the two or three nights at X's house were supposed to morph into them living with him full time. That was interesting information. They either misunderstood the old family therapist, or I didn't get all the information from him that they have gotten.

I am not sure yet what to think of it, apart from the fact that it is going to be a non-issue for Vincent anyway once he turns 18 later this year, and that I am still not convinced that it is the best environment for Zac, but I didn't feel this was the place and time to fight about it. If all goes the way it seems to be going , a Guardian Ad Litem will look at the whole situation and give a more objective view on the situation.

But the big thing I hadn't realized yet is how much they felt this was way better for Bryan. Because of Zac / Bryan issues, they are hoping he feels more safe at my house right now, which I have to agree on. It is yet another data point to put into the equation. And makes me less likely to file any type of emergency motion to get Zac back right away. The breather should be good for Bryan and if X wants to try to deal with getting Zack to school every day, good luck to him.

I know it sounds stupid, but for me it was a bit of an epiphany how much better things are for Bryan (in theory, he still has all kinds of issues) and that that should weigh heavier than I was weighing it so far. And now I need to run to get Violet to therapy, I have much more to write later tonight.

Zac Not in School Today

Well, that didn't take long. Day #4 of school and Zac refused to go. Of course there was no volunteering of information from the ex, so I heard about it when I called to ask how things went this morning in getting the boys to school. He said Vincent made it fine, but Zac had a panic attack, so couldn't go and he called the school that he would not be in.

I tried to figure out what he meant by a panic attack, whether it was a real one or whether it was just X's way of saying he was upset. I asked 'Did he hyperventilate?' and X answered 'No, he was just very upset.' I don't think there was a real panic attack involved, I have seen those in Zac and they are way more scary than just 'he was very upset.' X said 'He really doesn't like school! And last week everything went so well!' Um... yeah, no kidding. Welcome to the world of trying to set limits to Zac beyond 'oh yes you can play as much computer as you want so you will learn self control.' :p

He has a psychiatrist appointment today, so we'll see what happens there. I have a email in to Zac's case manager to set up a meeting.

I am not thrilled about having Zac unsupervised in X's apartment all day when he doesn't make it to school, but it doesn't warrant an emergency hearing yet for sure. I will document it all to my lawyer though, and it will be more support for my side of the equation in the custody issue.

Time for a shower and then off to see the new family therapist (second time to meet her, she seems very nice and knowledgeable). It will just be me by myself, no children yet. A friend will watch Baby Bear, since she is not in school yet.

Teenage School Anxieties

Today Ysa had a hard time in the morning, overslept her alarm clock, refused to eat breakfast, was being a big pain in the you-know-what. 'There is nothing in the house I can eat!' 'I am not going to school if Violet is wearing those ugly shoes!' etc etc. She was able to work past it though and did make it out of the door, even if her mood was not the most sunniest of moods. I am proud of her. But I really can see that she also has school anxieties, nothing like Zac, but it definitely is a huge adjustment for her. Which is natural, so I think she is doing quite well under the circumstances.

All four at my house made it off to school today, and Baby Bear helped me with emptying the dishwasher and dryer so far before she was allowed to play computer 'It is not fair!!!!!!!! you are always making me work soooo hard!' ^^

Zac math update

I emailed Zac's case manager to set up a meeting, but figured that wouldn't solve the immediate problem that the ex decided to take Zac out of school early so that he didn't have to go to math. Teaching him the important skill of problem avoidance.

I doubted that the school would agree with dismissing him for Zac's issues in the math class so I called the attendance officer. She said yes, he was schedule to be dismissed the last few hours, but she didn't know why. She recommended to call the assistant principal. I did that and left her a message. I followed up with an email just in case.

Ten minutes later the assistant principal calls and tells me that no, this is not a good reason to be taken out of school and please give me the ex's phone number so she can call him and tell him that he can pick him up when school is over instead.

Wow!

Finally there is some immediate outside limitations on his actions. I am happy that I found out in time that he planned to take Zac out and that I was able to act on it.

School Update

Today Ysa wasn't feeling well and had dhiarrea, so I allowed her to stay home, frantically hoping this is not the start of a new school avoidance issue. I love how everything suddenly looks like a nail once you are holding that hammer.

I talked to the ex about Zac and Vincent's second day. Vincent seems to enjoy being in school and in his classes more than I (and Vincent himself, I am sure) expected.

Zac is not doing so well and is focusing on mathematics as a cause for all his anxieties. The ex's solution is that he will pick up Zac from school earlier today so that he doesn't have to go to mathematics. Zac hadn't slept well last night because of the math anxieties, so it was hard to get him out of bed.

I am trying to reach Zac's new case manager, but the phone system at their school is being stupid at me.

School Has Started

And seems quite positive so far.
In the beginning Ysa had a lot of teenage angst. She seems to have gotten over that. Not getting her locker number before school started was clearly the end of the world as we know it.
Violet got out of bed every day, even if there were more 'two more minutes!' than I really wanted, so it changed to 'FOUR more minutes!' um... ^^
Penny has not had any issues beyond not liking a boy in her class :)
Bryan's favorite part of school was 'going home!' but he seems to be doing well too. I am in the process of setting up an evaluation for him.
Baby Bear will start next week.

Vincent and Zac made it to school yesterday and Vincent sounded positive, although his math was too easy and Zac was not so positive and there was too much noise in his math class.
Today they made it to school again, although the ex said it was a lot harder to get Zac out of bed than it was yesterday. This will be interesting ^^