That pretty much sums up the last week or so. After a busy July, we went into hibernation mode here at Chez Monkey. We’ve been bored and boring, gotta love that! It’s not often families like ours get to indulge in doing NOTHING!
Our hibernation period is over though. It was killed by guilt and a return of reality. The guilt is, of course, mine. It suddenly occurred to me that Monkey is on summer break ((Finally!)) and we have done nothing to amuse him in…days! I am such an awful mom! I’ve been torturing him by making him stay at home and amuse himself. I suck 😉 SO, our “do nothing” weekends are over. It’s time for the activity director to break out the heavy artillery. We’re talking train rides, walks on the beach and trips to the zoo…maybe even some ice cream cones and bumper boats. That will all make me feel better and give me something to b*tch about here when it blows up in my face. Win/win.
The other bit, the return of reality, is less fun. First, it’s time for our annual visit to the Fragile X clinic at Children’s Hospital in Boston. That right there is a solid 3 hours of good old fashioned Fragile X fun. We have to discuss the whole ADHD medication thing. We saw some improvements when we started but whenever we try to increase the dosage at all we get lots of side-effects and a loss of the improvements. It occurred to us, while we were sitting in one of the sessions at the conference, that we maybe should be looking at anxiety over ADHD or at least anxiety in addition to the ADHD. I don’t know. It’s a discussion. Otherwise, I’m pretty darned happy with Monkey’s development.
The other piece of the return to reality is that although summer break has just really started for Monkey, it doesn’t last long. We only have a smidge over 3 weeks until Monkey goes back to school and we are starting from scratch once again. New school, new classroom, new teacher, new aides, new classmates, new therapists, new therapy rooms, new cafeteria, new playground, new commute, new e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. And that is always so exciting and positive for Monkey. *Ahem*
Over the weekend we all drove to his new school to play on the playground. We thought it would be a fun/non-threatening introduction to the building. We didn’t want to just take him straight inside because the only other time he was in that building he had a hissy fit ((Duhdee and I were at a parent’s meeting and left Monkey with the free childcare…big mistake. The provider was actually a familiar person but Monkey did not enjoy the experience. At all.)). We played on the playground, they have a very cool water park feature that will be turned off when school starts ((Monkey is not going to like that, lol.)), and I video taped all of it…the trip and the playing…once he stopped freaking out about being in a new place. Srsly, what parents have to force their children to go to a playground?? Anyone else?? *Sigh*
So with that fun experience in mind we decided to meet with Monkey’s new teacher in his new classroom. It was really, really hard for him to walk through the door to the classroom, I think it took about 45 minutes for him to manage it. We sat with the teacher at a table for another 45 minute so he could explore on his own after that and he seemed to enjoy himself. He’d brought 3 Matchbox cars with him and he played on the rug where they’ll do circle time after he did a few circuits of the room.
The teacher has said we can come back again whenever we want. We’ll probably take another trip or two in the next weeks. There will also be two days when school will be in session and the room will be fully set up but *before* the kindergartners start officially and all of the kids in the class have been invited to stop in to visit. Basically, a 2 day open house. We’ll be there both days, most likely. We really, really, really want him ready to learn that first day if at all possible.
Tonight we need to get started editing all the videotape we’ve gathered over the last two visits ((We even had the poor teacher tape a quick greeting, lol)) and create a video for Monkey to watch. It will show everything from when he walks out the door of our house until he walks into his new classroom. If anyone has suggestions on songs for a soundtrack that would be super. I don’t really listen to music and this is killing me. We can’t leave the natural soundtrack because Monkey was whining just about the entire time, of course, lol.
We, too, belong to that elite group of parents who have to sometimes force their child to play on a playground. 😉
Hooray for summer break, even if it’s a short one. *shudder*
It’s nice to know others are out there…people look at us like we’re aliens sometimes, lol.
Hmm, no ideas for music, but I think the video is a great idea. Hope all works well.
I, too, have had to force the kids onto the playground. I did that at the beginning of the summer when we started visiting Drew’s new school. Blake went there last year and apparently didn’t feel good about going there when school was supposed to be out. lol. Oh well. We managed. We always do, don’t we?