Meds, week 1

Not much to report, actually. No side effects that we can see. He does seem a little calmer, his teacher says, but he's very much still capable of having meltdowns. Since, you know, he had a few. The psychiatrist wants to take things extremely slowly, and give him very low doses of things, which is fine by me.

(Bless his teacher -- I told her which drug it was and she went and researched it herself, just so she knew what to look for in case of side effects.)

He had a fine day on Friday, but then it was Read Across America Day, and a whole bunch of people came into his class to read to them ... including me. I've been on vacation, doing this and that around the house, and hey, when else am I going to get to read to his class? They were. So. Cute. Kiddo and a few of his buddies came running over to figure out how tall I was, and if they could get as tall as me by jumping repeatedly. Another boy came over and asked, "What are we doing?" I explained what the others were up to, and he happily joined in.

I read "Smelly Socks" by Robert Munsch -- it's a favorite in our house -- and the kids seemed to like it, though possibly the boys more than the girls. Especially popular was the part where Tina's friends come to her house to yank her dirty socks off her feet and wash them. When they bang on the door, the book says "BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM!" First kiddo wanted to do the line. Then a few other kids chimed in. Soon we had an entire BLAM chorus and I had a slightly difficult time getting them on to the next page.

At any rate, they were all very sweet and seemed much more interested in high-fiving me than in asking questions about the book. And I hope I didn't give any of them the idea of not washing their socks.

This week might be a better test of how kiddo does in class. It's nice that our family is supporting us on this; as conflicted as we were about medications in the first place, I don't think we would've wanted to hear judgmental comments from loved ones. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't, and then we try something else. Because that's what you do with this disorder. There's always a plan B. Or C or D or E or hell, Z.

We are also moving ahead with the IEP process; we're supposed to have a meeting with the rest of the IEP "team" this week, that being the social worker, a Child Study Team member, his teacher and a few other folks. The district mailed us a booklet spelling out our legal rights regarding IEPs and special education services generally, which was a nice thing to do, even if it is required. (Note: I don't know if it's required.)

So progress is progressing progressively. I think.