It's Been a Long Week... and it's Tuesday

Yesterday we had the big meeting with Kieran's school about his behavior this year. It has definitely deteriorated over the past few weeks, and then his incident with the older gentleman that he kicked.

So, the psychologist thinks he's doing this for attention (I'm not sold on this theory entirely but I do get it), but also agrees he is acting from boredom, frustration, etc. The teacher will try a new tactic with him - if he gets 3 'green' days in a row (no hitting, etc) he can dip into the toy jar she has in her classroom or he can do a short karate or tae kwan do demonstration to his class.

I made sure he understood that some of the best things to show would be block drills and before he showed anyone anything he should talk about how you're not supposed to use the moves at all on anyone else (somewhat ironic coming from him, I know).

At home for every 'double green' day he has (good at school and his after-care program) he gets dessert. We're also re-focused on his magnet board with rewards at the end of the week and motivating him to do things around the house, practice his piano, etc. If he gets 34 magnets in a week, he can get into the Bag of Mystery.

I also told him that if he was on green all week he could get a book from the book fair. He's pretty excited about that as his reading has taken off to the point where he now is responsible for turning his own light off at 8:30 (we put him to bed around 8 and he gets 1/2 an hour to read to himself). He is addicted to the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books even though I know he can't really read all the words, he's doing a good job of trying.

Devin had knee surgery today. He is OK and resting now, recuperation will take 12 weeks, which will be very rough. Ken was beside himself until the vet said he was out of surgery and doing OK.

Amelia continues to amaze, she pooped on the potty once and then shunned the potty for awhile. Last night she sat on the potty before bath and peed right away (and when I told her she was going on the potty, she said "yay!"). Still not as verbal as I would like for her to be, but I know that's because we baby her so much.

OK back to work for me. Love to all, blog again eventually.

Take the Good with the Bad

And when it's bad, it's really really bad.

Kieran was OK this weekend, not great. He's been having some issues with listening (again) but overall did well. He also had a moment with another kid (who kicked him) where he lashed out instead of leaving or getting an adult. But then he played beautifully with his sister. He practiced his piano. He read books to other kids.

Then this morning, I don't know what got into him. He was fine with me though again not listening as he should have. He got dressed, brushed teeth and went potty quickly and was downstairs in a reasonable amount of time. Ken took him to school and reported all was well.

I saw on my caller ID that it was Baltimore City calling. I knew that could only be his school. He had kicked and hit (with his umbrella) an adult. Because the adult smelled bad (in Kieran's words 'he stinks'). This person did nothing to him, did not hurt him, talk to him or look at him. I'm so unbelievably disappointed in him at this moment. I really thought I had raised him better than this. At a complete loss, we'll be taking things away (again), discussing with his martial arts teachers and taking away any and all electronic devices. He's going to have this on his permanent school record, he's getting 2 days of after-school detention. I don't know why after a spate of good behavior, he's starting back up again. I'm not sure what's setting him off. All I know is that right now I want to throttle him, whup his butt - none of which I will actually do. I will keep on the path of rewards and punishment we've done before. I'll readdress (and keep up with) his magnet chart.

Beyond disappointed and trying to keep the picture of the child who protected his little sister and helped her climb up the slide over the weekend in my mind as I battle with what he's doing at school.

Bedtime Nightmares (and photos - not of the nightmares or bedtime, just photos)

Kieran's active imagination is great, except at bedtime. He tells amazing stories, but also is always thinking 'what's that noise' or 'why did the curtain move'? (The answer to the first is typically something outside and the second is usually cat-related). Most nights are great but every now and again something will upset him. He had a nightmare where someone's nose grew (not in relation to lying, just kept growing) and now he's upset by the story of Pinocchio they have been listening to/watching in music class. I told him to close his eyes, but he said the music freaks him out too. *sigh*

Amelia, on the other hand, had been doing much better. She had been sleeping through the night, putting herself to sleep and all that gloriousness. Did you notice my past-tense there? Yep. She got a cold and is cutting her molars so it's been a huge pain keeping her ass asleep. Last night she finally fell asleep on her own (something she hasn't done in about 2 weeks) and was doing great but then woke up at 2:45 AM. I went down and quieted her. Then Ken went down. Then I went down again and sat in her room for 20 minutes until she was finally back asleep. Looking forward to this phase being over.

Mia's words are getting clearer, but she's not doing much by way of sentences. We keep working on it but I think she knows she can get away with fewer words, so she does.

With the weather warmer, we moved Kieran to a new bike (and removed his training wheels). He loves it but the lack of training wheels scares him. Soon he'll love it. Ken also took him to the Orioles this past weekend and we did the DBFA's first playground crawl. I'm looking forward to the others.
OK, enough blathering on, here are some photos. If you've been on Facebook, you've probably seen them.

 Kieran doing a reading of the four questions at Passover.

 Kieran and his friend at the playground crawl.

 Kieran and Amelia at the egg hunt.

Me and Amelia at Passover.