What's Up With The X Mom Gang?

The Gang has undergone some changes and new members have been recruited. We moved almost two years ago and the boys figured I wasn't nearly busy enough so they found a few more Mascots to join the family. Ebony is an 11 year old black lab who was given to us when her previous owner moved into an apartment and couldn't take her, Fats is almost a year old and became part of the family as a puppy when Scooter looked up at me with his gorgeous brown eyes and said "please mommy?" What was I supposed to say "no".. yeah right. He is a beagle and basset hound mix.. very interesting to look at. Diesel,a miniature Dachsund was given to me for my birthday by my Grandma and he is the best dog ever. So the craziness around here is definitely maxed out most of the time.

What's Going on with the Kids?

Smarty Pants started a new school at the beginning of this year and is in love with it. He is doing well, can almost write his name, and has gotten his first letter grade. He got a C in math, not a P for progress or a S for satisfactory.. He got a C.. I am so proud of him.

Renegade Doodle is doing well in school, this is his last year in the Early Childhood Special Ed program and things are looking bright for him. So far we are planning on mainstream Kindergarten woo hooo!! Go Doodle.

Scooter is going to star the Early Childhood program in two weeks, and I am not handling this well. He's my baby and I was determined to keep him till he was 5. I am worried for him because he hasn't been away from home much. He doesn't seem to be worried he is excited.. hasn't stopped asking about school.

Update on The X Mom:
I returned to college this Fall, and have chosen Occupational Therapy as my major. I will graduate from a local community college in May, then move on to an University in the Fall of 2011. The program that I have chosen is a condensed program. It takes 3 years to graduate with a Masters in OT.. I am hoping to start writing again I really miss it and I definitely have tons of stories about the gang to share.

Be prepared for more from The X Mom..

Musical Monday

I love this song...





And from the Gang....

I Got This!

Finally I have some control! Yeah that's right I said control. The Gang members have been going through Behavior Bootcamp as most of you know, and I'm finally getting to take my turn as the Drill Sargent formerly a rotating position between Renegade Doodle and Smarty Pants. Bedtime is a piece of cake, all members of the Gang have been in their own beds asleep by 8:30 at the latest w/o tears, screaming, kicking or hair pulling. So I've been slipping a little melatonin in the snack time sippy but everyone needs a little assistance once in awhile. The melatonin isn't enough to knock them out but calms them enough to sit and listen to a story or watch a movie.

RD's aggression is being handled by putting him in the highchair for time out until he is calm, we decided not to give him any type of play dough or putty, but he can have something to bite on. When the time out is over he has to apologize and hug whoever he hurt.. even if it was the dog. This is working very well and he is getting it... He proved that he knows what hurting is and that there is now a consequence for it today when he accidentally knocked Scooter down. As soon as Scooter fell William looked at me then immediately hugged and apologized to Scooter. He LOOKED AT ME!!! YAY! He wanted to see if he was going to be put in the highchair... YES! So I explained to him that it was an accident.

Smarty Pants on the other hand is giving defiance his all and bucking like a Bronco. The hardest time frame is during his "rebound period". I can manage to talk him thru frustration and prevent tantrums for awhile but eventually the Big T occurs. Nell and I are working on this and so far I'm still at a loss. She has wonderful ideas and strategies but some of them I don't feel are practical for my situation but something has to be done. We might go back to ignoring, that seemed to be working. To do this Nell and I are going to need to spend time teaching the daycare kids to ignore SP when he's having a tantrum. I am seeing improvement, the Big T's are not as severe, and are not lasting nearly as long. Woo Hoo.. so we are getting somewhere.

Basically what I'm trying to say is " I got this" and doing it on my own feels awesome! This is the first time in my life where I haven't felt dependant on my husband to enforce the rules. I actually turned down his offer to help me and TOLD him to go WATCH TV!!!

What's Working For You?

As most you know my family is currently working with a behavior specialist to reduce problem behaviors. Our biggest battle right now is with Renegade Doodle. His aggression is steadily getting worse, and he is seeking out others when he is angry, or upset. The cause of his anger does not change the outcome, it is always expressed with violence. Ideally we would like to avoid anger fueled tantrums / meltdowns, but they are occurring instantly after being denied a request. Giving him everything he requests ALL the time would worsen the situation, so I always provide alternative choices if what he is requesting is unavailable. Choices are not working with RD... he wants what he wants.

I spoke with his teacher this AM and she feels that timeouts will eventually be effective, however to follow thru with timeouts at home he has to be put in a highchair, otherwise time out is a game of cat and mouse. I don't have a problem w/ putting him in the high chair but I do have a problem with him hurting himself while in the chair. He bites the side of his hand along the bottom of his thumb and has started to draw blood. He is also pulling his hair, but so far no significant hair loss.

Mrs. Teacher and I are thinking about giving him silly putty or playdough while in the highchair, but these are both things he really enjoys and we don't want to reward the misbehavior, but would the silly putty and playdough be calming and help? This is where we are stumped... What do you mom's think? If he is in the chair and it calms him down and makes the timeout last only the 3minutes instead of him continuing to tantrum and it lasting 20 + min. The rule I was told to follow w/ timeout is you don't come out until your calm... regardless of length. For those of you who use timeout is that how you follow thru w/ it? If not what are your strategies?

Bedtime Routines

What are your routines at bedtime? What have you found that works best, and what hasn't worked for you?

Ugh....

Today has been exhausting and it's still not over for me yet! I am taking a small breather before sending the boys to bed. I had lots of extras today, There were 6 or more children in my house allday... we hit an all time high at 9 at 5:30 and well there are still 8!!! 3 are my Gang, 2 are Smarty Pants sisters from his dad's new marriage, and the other 3 are kids I sit for plus their older sister who normally isn't here. It's official I have lost all my marbles.. who in their right mind willingly lets 7 extra children into their home.. Okay so some of them are paying customers but still.. WTH? Well I must go for now, if you do not hear from me in a few days do not worry I am hiding under the bunk beds.. I'm sure there are enough sippys and animal crackers under there to keep me nourished for at least a week... LOL!

The Best Day Ever

My kids absolutely LOVE this song... and it really does send a good message.

Sense Sational Cooking

Tonight I decided to do some fun cooking... As most of you know my home is blessed w/ sensory activities for several hours a day.. so I thought I would try out some of the famous recipes I've had laying around for things like Silly Putty, and Playdough.. well I started with Silly Putty.

I looked at the recipie and it had two columns, column A and column B. Me being the genius that I am did not read the entire recipie and figured that it was two variation of the recipie and both would result in silly putty. I measured my glue and poured it into a mixing bowl, only to discover that you had to make both A and B then mix them together. I didn't have all the ingredients for A so there I was stuck with B and no A . I poured the glue into a smaller bowl and moved on to the Gloop recipe... simple equal parts cornstarch and water... well I followed that recipe precisely and didn't get gloop I got orange water... did I give up? No The X Mom never gives up.

I thought fast and dumped my small bowl of Elmers glue into the cornstarch water and mixed it up... This gave me very sticky orange liquid... DUH!! No way are my boys going to like this I thought. So I began racking my brain for something that would help dry up the liquid but not get sticky and it hit me SALT!!! So I ran to the pantry and got a container of salt and dumped half of it into the mixture and it turned out AMAZING!! I ended up with squishy crumbly orange goodness, the texture is similar to scrambled eggs... I'm considering this experiment an act of true genius creativity.. if this recipe already exists please do not tell me let me have my moment.

Here's the recipe in case any of you would like to make it on purpose... LOL!

1c Cornstarch
1 c Water
Foodcolor
Salt-
1-2c Elmers Glue
Thoroughly mix cornstarch, water glue and food color, add salt until desired texture is achieved.
Hey Diane how ya like them paragraphs?? Check out Diane's blog Good Mourning Glory it's killer.