Back with the bad.

It is probably not the best time for me to sit down and write an entry because I'm feeling disheartened and sad tonight. The boys and I stayed overnight at the dropzone last night and I think Elijah got maybe a couple hours of sleep. Today was an all-around ugly day that I would love to erase from all of our memories. Thankfully Dan worked, so June 30th, 2014, can remain untainted in his mind! :)

I won't share Elijah's struggles because they were too ugly to report. But I will share about one of Sammy's meltdowns because someday this is one I may laugh at. He "really really really" wanted a cereal bar with his dinner (he is addicted to cereal bars and could eat them non-stop throughout the day), so he set one at his spot on the table. I put dinner on the table, opened the cereal bar and cut it in half, giving one half to each boy. When Sam saw that I had given part of it to Elijah, he started screaming. "THAT'S MIIIIIIINE! I WANT IT ALLLLLLL!" He took his half, threw it on the floor and.....STEPPED ON IT! I couldn't believe it! The following 20 minutes involved wall-punching and kicking, screaming like I've never heard, mommy-punching and kicking, name-calling, trying to run away from home (out both doors) and throwing a stool across the kitchen. All because I cut a cereal bar in half.

Tomorrow is a new day. Thankfully Dan has the day off work. Today was further proof that Elijah NEEDS to get his sleep or he cannot function. We have only been to the dropzone twice this summer, so it is once again "novel" for him (which always equals terrible sleep). And Dan and I think that the older he gets the more difficult it is to acclimate to new/different-from-home places (an NLD thing), which is kind of a tough thing for me to swallow since I love summertime adventure so much.

Speaking of NLD, I was reading some things on the internet today and found a few interesting tidbits.  If you are interested and have a few spare minutes, read this post. It is an interview with a successful man who has NLD. I read through a few of his quotes a handful of times. A few that stood out..

Information cited from
http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=46014&w=9&cn=113
and quoted from Peter Flom, PhD

"I have a lot of traits -- and NLD is probably the problem that fits me best, but I have traits of autism; I have traits of areas where I'm gifted; I have things in common with Asperger's people. And I tell people I have 100 percent diagnosis of being Peter. And every kid, every adult, who has a disability of any kind, really, has a 100 percent diagnosis of being them. Nobody, or just about nobody, fits the profile of anything exactly."

"But this sort of -- I think a great thing is -- for people with NLD, for people with other learning disabilities too -- is I say it's like a way around the mountain. Like if a disability is a mountain between you and where you want to go, then there's a couple things you can do -- or four things I think. You can ignore it and say, "I didn't want to go there anyway. I'll just stay over here." That doesn't work too well, usually, because you really do want to go to the other side of the mountain. Then you can try to go through the mountain, which I would say is just like extra effort -- like work harder, do more, work harder. And that sometimes works. You can go over the mountain, which I sort of think of as taking more time than everybody does, and that can work with things like extended time or just doing more work. And that sometimes works. But then I say you can also go around the mountain, and that I liken to finding tricks.

Like, for instance, I live in Manhattan, and Manhattan's on a grid, and one thing about the numbering, the house numbering, is that on the side streets the odd numbers are always on the north side of the street. Now, if I go into a building and I come out, I have no idea which way I'm supposed to turn, okay? Most people just remember. But I can say, oh, if I'm on the side street, I can look at the canopy or the building number and say, oh, it's an odd number. That means I'm on the north side. That means I'm facing south. I want to go east. And then sometimes I'll turn myself around so I'm facing the building and facing north, and then I remember east is on my right. Now, that's a little bit complicated, but it's better than wandering around lost."


We are constantly learning about this disorder/disability. We are moving in the right direction (as Dan told me a hundred times today via text) even though sometimes it doesn't feel like it.

Thanks for checking in! Have a great week!

ps. Both boys have been soundly sleeping since 6:55. Total tiredness.