Okay...Random Post

Did anyone see Project Runway last night? I'm sad to see Sweet P go, but she just didn't step up her game. Christian is my favorite right now, followed by Chris. I really think they should have let Romy go...I'm so tired of the same thing over and over from him. He did make a beautiful dress, though. Can I just say that Jillian needs to stop making coats? They criticize Romy and Chris for doing the same thing over and over, but no one comments when Jillian makes yet another trench coat. I hope that Chris comes back and makes an outstanding line and sends Romy home. But, my bet's on Christian to win it all. He's fierce! LOL!

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Daniel...what can I say about my little guy? He's such an awesome kid and I'm so tired of these meetings at school. Granted, he can be a little high strung and he's kind of impulsive, but he's 6 (almost 7!) and aren't most boys his age that way? The school psychologist spent a whopping 20 minutes with him back in October (I wonder if he could pick him out of a crowd today) and can make a grand diagnosis. Yep...you got it. ADD. Not AD/HD, but ADD. He also says that Daniel has anxiety issues and is clinically depressed. What? I agree with the anxiety issues, but clinically depressed? Mrs. P, the school counselor ("I'm just a cheerleader," she tells me) tells me that she's concerned about Daniel's ability to be socially normal and then tells me that he has a ton of friends. They gave me a report from the Reading Specialist at the school and her assessment is that he's completely normal. She has no problems at all with him or his behavior. She says he's a great kid and that he's making great progress (he's at grade level or above in 3 of the 4 areas they test...he may be able to be removed from the reading program at the end of the year!). Mrs. P says, "of course we expect him to do well there, it's a small group setting...like 2 other kids." Mrs. H (Daniel's teacher) says, "no, he's one of 7 or 8 kids in there." I felt like she was looking for exceptions to the glowing report from Mrs. K, the Reading Specialist. At the end of it all, the school psycologist (I don't even know his name!) hands me the report and says that I can do with it what I want. I can tell you this much, I'm not medicating him so that he'll fit into their mold.

I vented a little at TKD with Stephen, Roxanne and Jim. They gave me some good suggestions (Stephen tells me, "child psychologists are wanna be psychiatrists that couldn't make it, or are too lazy to make it through school...I know because my dad is one."). Roxanne tells me that I should talk to Frank, a friend through TKD who is a psychologist at KU Medical Center. She says that he's great to talk to, if nothing else, but he should be able to steer us in the right direction. Jim tells me that we should have them start IEP (Individualized Education Plan) proceedings if they think he's got such problems. He went through something similar with his daughter and insisted upon it because it's essentially busy work for the staff. Lots of paperwork and it holds them accountable. I love that idea. Roxanne asked me how long it was going to be before she saw Daniel at their school (theirs is actually closer to us than the school we currently attend but we are not in their attendance zone). I told her that I seriously considered switching him, but I don't think that moving him would do him any good. I think it would be too hard on him and I certainly think that moving to this school contributed to his "problems" in the first place.

I've been doing a lot of research using the key words they gave me in the report. I've also talked a lot with Daniel (who does feel that he has a hard time staying on task). Since Daniel feels he needs some help, I'm going to do what I can to help him out. While I'm still going to talk to Frank to see what he says, some of my research says that some problem behavior and loss of concentration (ADD symptoms) can be attributed to dairy. Huh. Who knew? Seeing as I've had a few friends who've seen what changing a child's diet can do, I've decided to give the no dairy thing a try. If it helps, we'll continue, if not, we'll try something else. So, now I've got to figure out some new things. Luckily, most of the dairy in Daniel's diet comes from drinking milk and eating cheese (the omission of cheese is going to be really hard), so the easy switch has been to soy milk. The kids actually like it in their cereal better than regular milk. The really hard part is reading labels to find the hidden milk products. I do have to say that he had a much better morning than usual. I don't know how much of that is in my head or how much of that is real, but I do know he spilled his juice and didn't freak out. In fact, when Jacob was criticizing how Daniel was cleaning it up, Daniel stopped, looked at Jacob and said, "it was an accident and I'm fixing it, okay?" Those are not typical Daniel words. If this is the magic bullet, I'll be thrilled. Keep your fingers crossed for us!