One day I'll have to delete this, or hide it REALLY well..........

I feel like I am always blogging about my middle child. One day, when she is not 5 and is online and can, ya know, READ, I'll have to delete most of this I suppose. Until then, I will enjoy having somewhere to rant about the challenge that is parenting the Bean. I am also hoping that someone else will read this, and say, "Oh, girl. I have to do the saaaame things with my daughter."

First of all, I give up getting her to stay in bed all night. Thanks to our new BFF melatonin, she is now falling asleep with less jerking, twitching and tossing. Like 30 min less. And to be honest, most nights I don't even mind sitting with her while she goes to sleep. She's a good cuddler. And she makes really cute faces when she catches me peeking at her to see if she is awake or not. (And in case you're wondering, I DID try the Super Nanny method. To the letter. And I am convinced that even Super Nanny herself couldn't get it to work on Bean. And if she reads this and wants to try, she's welcome to my home.)

But I digress......she goes to sleep, but she doesn't stay there. And when she wakes up, she does try to fall back asleep, can't, and then gets in bed with me. I have tried charts, bribes and begging. I just tell myself that if I were in Europe, this would be normal. So I give up. Maybe when she's 18 and she's still coming into our room, I'll get her professional help. Until then, I'll just be grateful we now have a king sized bed.

So there's the update on sleeping. Oh, rooming alone was a great idea, but didn't help either. It helped my friend's child who is A LOT like ours, so there must be truth to the idea somewhere.....


The other thing that has been a source of challenge for us lately has been her playing soccer. She begged for a year to play, and I didn't sign her up last spring because I didn't feel like she was ready. She was still having a lot of anxiety, and Gabe and I both felt like it would be setting her up to fail. This spring, we thought she was ready.

She will not go out on the field without me. Period. She cries, shakes, gets clammy, the whole 9 yards. And it's not like the dropping her off at her church class where she gets over me leaving in less than 30 secs. I guess because there is more going on and more people 'looking' at her, so the pressure is more than she can bear. It's a terrible thing to see. I really feel awful for her. Her coaches are soooo nice and always give her lots of encouragement. And they are okay with me being on the field WITH her. As in running up and down the field during practices AND games. The first game Beanie had a death grip on my hand, and I really thought she was going to crack my little finger. She has eased up a bit and now I can just be near her but as SOON as the play is over, WHAM, back to my side she comes.

We considered dropping out, but she REALLY likes it. She gets excited about her games and begs me to play soccer with her at home. And she's actually pretty good when she is focused on the game and not upset that I am not as close as she wants.

And I'm going to be honest here. I hate being out there with her. I feel out of place and like the other parents must think I am over bearing or over protective or both. It's embarrassing, honestly. It's the feeling you get when your kid has a meltdown in public and other moms are watching (and probably judging), but it lasts for 45 min. Every game I pray I won't have to go out there with her. But I do. And tonight she was in a terrible mood/funk, and wanted me to hold her hand. Being close wasn't enough. I try and be nimble and get out of the kids' way (and I NEVER kick the ball or interfere), but I tried to scoot one way and she stayed put and we managed to clothes-line a couple of kids from the other team. It was awkward.....

During Saturdays game, I tried every trick in the book to help her be calm. I let her spin, I squeezed her (where she thinks it's a big, silly bear hug but really I am trying to put pressure over her whole body) and while she was drinking water waiting to play I squeezed a pressure point on her hand. (I have no real proof that helps anyone other than my kid, but I can tell it helps her chillax.) Nothing. It helped for about 15 seconds and then she was back to her borderline panic.

So I am at a loss. All I can do is what I know to do and pray one day she will be past this. I'm grateful every day that her issues aren't worse. And I'm pretty sure if I couldn't home school her, she'd be on medication. And I hope one day she will look back and think "Wow. My mom did that? How cool is she?!"

That will be about the time I have to delete my blogs ;-)

Oh Sleep, Where Art Thou?

I have blogged before about my challenging child. One of the things that makes her challenging is her sleep. When she was a baby, I could put her in her crib with her paci, and there wasn't much of an issue getting her to go to sleep. Even if she was awake for awhile, she was mostly quiet. She didn't like to be rocked- she just wanted to be put down and left alone.

Fast forward a couple of years to the arrival of her 'big girl' bed. No more paci, but she usually went to sleep OK. Sometimes she would get books to look at, or play with her baby dolls. Several nights we would go in to check on her only to find she had laid out her shoes or pull ups in straight lines. One night she even lined up her toy chairs and doll furniture.

Now let's skip to the fateful day we moved her into a different bedroom with her older sister complete with bunk beds. That's really the moment the bedtime nightmare began. She cried for nights (and by cried and mean LOUDLY and with GREAT EMOTIONAL FORCE and EXUBERANCE) proclaiming her hate of the new beds and sheets and room and roommate. I kept thinking she was being silly and would get over it. I didn't know then what change does to that kind of child, and it was probably akin to torture for her. In hindsight, I wish I had moved her back and let the littlest sister room with my first born. But I really did think she would get over it, and I sat with her every night while she cried and cried til she went to sleep.

Then somehow it went from crying about the room, to crying was how she released the day's stresses. Still I sat with her. By now several months had gone by. Now adding to the dilemma was that it was lighter outside til way later than 'normal' so it was harder for her to go to sleep. And so here we are, three years later, and I still sit with her every single night because her brain will not turn itself off willingly. And even if her brain is tired, it's not telling her body and there are lots of twitches and itches and wiggles.

There is something called compression therapy (at least I thought that was what it was called til I just Googled it and found nothing in the first 3 pages....) where children with Autism, Aspergers, Sensory Processing Disorders (and other things, I'm assuming) need compression to relax. Think a specially made heavy blanket or a big bear hug or, in my case with Ava, I lay my arms and legs over her to hold her down and keep her still long enough to realize she's tired and her brain can turn itself and her body off. Some nights she'll let me do that, other nights I can squeeze the palm of her hand and it will be enough to relax her.

I am finding though, the older she gets, the trickier it is to get her to sleep. And she won't stay asleep. Sometime between 12 and 4 am she will get in bed with me. Once that involved her trying to get me to get up and start the day. Now, thank the Lord, she will just quietly lay down next to me....at least 3 out of 4 times. The other time she will just want an escort to the bathroom (and I don't really mind that).

So last night I started giving her Melatonin. She went to sleep GREAT. But was up by 12 and then really didn't sleep much the rest of the night. I know this bc I didn't sleep much the rest of the night. So tonight I gave her a slightly higher dose, and we'll see what that does. She went to sleep GREAT again, but I need her to stay asleep.

I would also NOT be surprised if she struggled with Restless Leg Syndrome. I actually had RLS my last pregnancy and anyone who has that has my utmost pity. There are meds for that, but I just want to deal with one thing at a time. If the Melatonin will take care of the sleep situation for now, I'll just stick with that. Also, if anyone has any thoughts or advice, I'll take that too. (Unless you're going to suggest Bendryl, in which case I will punch you in the face. Not really. But still: don't.)

Sure she's cute, but she will keep you up. All. Night. Long.