Overdue Update

I've been scolded several times for not updating my blog. I think I spend too much time on Facebook updating my status and have forgotten about my blog.

I've started several posts, only to abandon them and never hit "publish". The quick update is we have a new doctor. We started seeing him in March. Holland came to the first few appointments, meds were dropped and a new one added and glad to say he is doing somewhat better. The medicine is for ADD and seems to have helped him get the focus he needs. I'm shocked at his handwriting and how much he is reading and writing. It looks like the past 6 or so years, I've done nothing. I've decided that the medicine has helped so much that it's not my fault he couldn't read or write until 6th grade. The teacher and staff at his new school (he's in a day treatment program) are great. They've done several home visits to help work on family social skills and just to see how he does in a non-school environment.

We've had a few bumps in the road. Like the time he physically attacked me in a park on the way to Romania's baseball game. It was like a scene out of "What Would You Do?" with John Quinones. Only this time no one stopped to help me at all. He was really angry about having to stay for Romania's baseball game and for the time it took to walk from the parking lot to the field, he kicked, hit, yelled, yanked my coat and tripped me. And then repeated that scene on the way back to the van after I dropped Egypt off with Super-Hero at the field. It was horrible. I couldn't believe that he felt nothing about acting like that in public. He's so upset when he doesn't get his way that he resorts to phsyical violence to get what he wants. The interesting thing is that when I told our new doctor about this scene, he wasn't surprised at all. He also did nothing about giving me help on what to do when something like this happens. What I wanted to do was turn around and smack him (how's that for honest?) It's humiliating and degrading to be beaten up by your own child. And it's even harder to turn around and show love after that. All I wanted to do after that was completely ignore him. Instead of ignoring, we came home and worked around the house for 3 hours while the other three enjoyed a day at the ball field. Let's be honest here - I'm the one who was punished in this case. He feels remorse (which I'm relieved he does), but I just wish he could get to the point where he doesn't have to resort to physically hurting someone (it's not just me; he hurts his siblings, too).

We are no where near what I would consider 'normal'. I don't even like using that word. It's more like what's 'typical'. But we've come so far from last summer when I had to hospitalize him.

The next thing we have to work on is getting him into another program next fall since he ages out of the current placement. I am also planning on sending him to a 7 week program this summer and calling it 'camp'. We'll see if the even flies.