Well this month has been kinda rough on little miss Kaitlyn. She's had some acidents and then about 10 days of nighttime accidents (which have cleared up, btw, after me talking to her about the ABC Train!!!!!! Pfffffft to you silly Dr's who think I'm crazy and know nothing!) and then this past week has been just horrible with tantrums and meltdown after meltdown.

We went to see the Developmental Ped again for a follow up last week and we decided to keep her meds the way they are and just keep and eye on the behavior and see if it is getting worse, same or better. I decided that I'm going to start, yet another, behavior type log. I had stopped doing it because I got sick of writing the same things over and over but this one will be a little different and just simple. I just want to track a few things and check for patterns and things not find out WHY she is melting down... I know why those things happen!

So far her therapy at school has been so limited I dont see that she has gotten anywhere with it. She hasnt even had enough time with the therapist for me to go to the school and say anything about it. It's frustrating to say the least and I'm not one for playing this waiting game. Nothing else I can do though, I'm stuck in the muck on this one right now.

This week Kaitlyn has had two BM accidents at school. On Tuesday when she had one the teacher had her clean herself up and take care of everything on her own, which I understand the whole building independence thing, but Kaitlyn came home with a terribly raw rear from not cleaning well enough and she was crying because she couldnt sit down in the car it hurt so bad. Then today she had another accident. She said she was busy making her stairs (with Legos) and that she didnt want to leave them so she ended up waiting too long and barely made it to the bathroom with a small accident in her pants. In talking to Kaitlyn about it I could feel her anxiety coming out when she told me that she couldnt get the stairs to go "right" and she needed them to be right before she could go potty... also she feared that if she left them to go they might be gone when she came back and she was right... when she came out of the bathroom the legos were put away and the table was moved. She started crying as she told me that part. I can tell that those things make her anxious - she didnt get to put them away and clean up (her words) so I think she didnt get closure on that activity and it's extremely hard for her to move from one thing to another like that.

Tonight has been fun so far, while I was cooking dinner I told the kids to go find something to play with (we practically own a toy store here!!!) while I made dinner. That was just before 4:30pm and that began the screaming and crying meltdown. She had no idea what to play with that was fun and she was demanding that I find her something fun to do and on and on crying away... for a min or two she got quiet and I heard her Leapster2 game turn on so I figured she found something "fun!" Well little brother must have grabbed the game or something and the Leapster started acting funny and not playing the game correctly... this sparked her and escalated the meltdown and it continued on and on and on about how she couldnt play the game, it's not working right, it's broken, she'll never play it again, etc. By this time it was after 5pm and dinner was on the table and she sat down still in her meltdown (which I asked her to get control of if she were going to sit at the table with us). Well... she went to take a drink of her milk and decided that her milk was "too cold" and more escalation to screaming and crying and totally losing control. I ended up sending her to her room because that behavior is not appropriate at the dinner table. She needed to go up, get control of her behavior and center herself... over all the meltdown was 1 hour and 41mins of screaming and crying and stomping and flailing and she did end up with pretty much nothing to eat for dinner since she couldnt not get control of herself.

Now... I look at the moon phase and wonder... what am I in store for tomorrow & on the weekend with the schedule being crazy from the Baptism and since the moon is ALMOST full... I guess we'll find out!!!

Ruff, Ruff

So far today has not been the best day for Kaitlyn. She started her day at 6am with a wake up call from her bladder which caused her to have to change clothes and ultimately waking up the whole house and no one went back to sleep. She's been having accidents at night now for about a week or so every other day maybe. I'm actually sick of running out of panties for her and having to do extra laundry every other day! So I picked up some pull ups incase we need to use them for a few nights to help her remember to get up and go!

Anyway, getting her off to school was MORE than a challenge today but we did manage to get there just on time. When I picked her up, however, I was told that she was really good all day up until the end of school. She started acting like a Dog and then got "stuck" in the behavior/character even after being asked to stop. She continued to the point of spitting which caused her to get "in trouble" and to get a "yellow" for the day. The teacher said she seemed mortified by her own behavior and that she seemed unable to stop because she was "stuck."

She's always gotten "stuck" on things but it used to be with playing with things or other stuff... now that she is into becoming characters she gets stuck in them and ends up going too far. We handle her at home by ignoring/re-directing or telling her that "we're talking to Kaitlyn now" but she's obviously taking that behavior elsewhere... though I guess the more time she spends at school the more of the behavior they are finally going to see. I just wishing it would go away or get better rather than her seeming to be getting stuck in these characters more often. She's been caught up in being a dog for the past 2-3 days... to the point of completely not listening to us and ending up being yelled at or taking it to the point of doing something inappropriate and getting a time out. Some times she will go a few days only talking through her stuffed animal Mary and some days a robot or a cat. Sometimes she will get stuck being characters on TV and acting out episodes and will go so far into it that she ends up "going too far."

Is this just something she is going to do the rest of her life? We're going to have to help her get "unstuck" from things?? Will this type of thing be grown out of? Is this from the social part of her that is underdeveloped?? So many questions and only time will give us those answers, I guess.

Kaitlyn's been doing alright for the past few days... until today. I'm not sure if it's because I forgot to give her her meds first thing this morning or just because the plans (Mommy's anniversary surprise for Daddy and Family) she knew about got squashed for yesterday. She was the most upset about not being able to go for the special family time I'd planned and cried and cried but then seemed to get over it. Then this morning she has been acting all silly and goofy and then ended up in a screaming tantrum for about 30 mins which then led to not going outside and a Time Out. Maybe she just needed to get that out because now she is calmly and quietly sitting at the dining room table coloring.

So I spoke to the Therapist that goes to Kaitlyn's school to see her and mentioned a few things to her and one thing she asked me to look for during K's "play" was that when her toys have an issue come up does Kaitlyn come up with solutions. The answer is No! Since I got a few chances now to really sit and listen and then even with some prompting she has trouble figuring out solutions. We even give her a couple of choices and she will have trouble deciding but might go along with one of them.

Anyway, an example of what I mean... Kaitlyn will play with stuffed animals or her Polly Pockets and she will make them talk to each other (you can tell how bad she wants to have conversations with people but HATES that conversations aren't scripted or predictable! She would be a GREAT actress!!!) and then usually some problem will come up like Polly can't get her hat on and she (Polly) will be crying. What has been happening is that the problem comes up and she (Polly) will cry for awhile and then K will either move on to something else or she just goes on to another doll in some other situation or just starts a new conversation with Polly. It's interesting to watch and I've gotten to see her play out these "problems" with a few different animals/dolls now and each time the issue comes up but the solution never happens.

I'm not exactly sure what that means and why that is so important but hopefully the therapist can shed some light on that for me. If anyone has any ideas, let me know!! I'm curious to know where that leaves her social development/skills.