The one with the zombie giraffes...

As you all know, we have some wicked outlandish conversations at my house. Its pretty much the norm, as a matter of fact. Well, while Mike was in the hospital, Sean came to visit every day. As Mike slept a lot, I was glad of the company. While we were watching what passes for TV there, an advertisement for a documentary on the zombie phenomenon in pop culture came on. And this conversation ensued~

Me: I hope we're home by then, because I totally want to watch that.

Sean: Me too. Just to laugh at your generation's ideas about zombies.

Me: 'Scuse me?

Sean: You know, now that my generation has actual fact to support zombies. We were raised with enough knowledge of DNA, genomes and molecular mutation (I must admit that at this point all I heard was blah, blah, blah) that we understand how zombies could happen and why they aren't really dead.

Me: I'm not really sure what you just said, but I think you're full of sh*t.

Sean: I'm not full of sh*t. I'm just smarter than you.

Me: I'll give you that you have a higher IQ, but that means nothing when it comes to zombies, because I'm like a freakin expert here. And zombies are too dead. They're the walking dead. Duh. Everyone knows that. They travel in hordes.

Sean: No they aren't. Zombies are live people who blah blah blah.

Me: (Somehow, my brain has jumped the track and I'm off course) OMG. Do you think sharks could become zombies? I mean if dogs and cats can become zombies, then sharks could right? That's freakin scary. Or alligators! What's scarier than a freakin zombie alligator?!

Sean: Um. Sharks and alligators already attack people so I'm not sure they'd be any scarier as zombies than they already are.

Me: Oh. Well then let's pick something that doesn't already eat people. What about Giraffes? Pretty non-scary to begin with but all of a sudden, wham!! Scary!!

Sean: Giraffes are herbivores, they eat leaves and grass. So they'd just go around attacking trees. Not scary. Extremely goofy.

Me: It doesn't matter what you eat before you become a zombie. The mutation that causes zombiefication would cause a craving for flesh. Therefore, anything that became a zombie would eat flesh.

Sean: Their digestive systems couldn't handle flesh. They'd still eat leaves.

Me: They're dead! Do you think vegan zombies are going to go around eating beans? No! They're going to eat people.

Sean: But human digestive systems are equipped to eat meat. It's not a matter of evolution, its a matter of preference. Giraffes don't prefer leaves, they're genetically programmed to eat them.

Me: (jumping the track once more because its how I roll, peeps) Wait! Do you think if Giraffes "accidentally" ate flesh, they'd develop a craving for it? (I did do air quotes on the "accidentally")

Sean: Zombie giraffes or regular giraffes?

Me: Oh regular. Not zombie, live giraffes.

Sean: How is a giraffe going to "accidentally" ingest flesh?! I think you'd have to practically force feed it to them.

Me: Okay, so say a serial killer works at a zoo and he wants to dispose of a body so he cuts it up and mixes it with the giraffe's food.

Sean: I think if a serial killer worked at the zoo, there are far more likely animals to feed a body to. You know, like Lions or Tigers.

Me: Okay okay, so say he just accidentally gets some in the giraffe's food. Taste for flesh, or no?

Sean: I think it would get very sick, so no.

Me: Whatever. Man eating Giraffes. I think they're scary.

Sean: Nope. Just goofy.

Me: I hope it eats you while you're busy laughing at it.

I'm pretty sure there's a story in there somewhere. And you all might want to look a little closer next time you go to the zoo. Giraffes have really big teeth.

Happy Sunday,
♥Spot

Breakfast should be "self-serve"

Sean and I were arguing this morning. Well, not arguing really, because our arguing involves raised voices and glares. So let's just say we were "discussing vigorously". Discussing what, you might ask. Breakfast of course, and who's turn it was to make it. You see we have this kind of loose agreement to trade days with the breakfast making. I say loose because sometimes we observe it and sometimes we don't. And sometimes we get lucky and someone else throws breakfast our way. So he came into the family room at 10 am this morning and announced~

Sean: Do you know why I'm here?

Me: To find out what I'm making for breakfast?

Sean: Bingo.

Me: Nothing. Can't we just have cereal this morning?

Sean: Sure, if you make it.

Me: You seriously want me to get up and go to the kitchen and pour your cereal and milk into a bowl for you? You were just in the kitchen!

Sean: yes, but now I'm in here. And it's your turn.

Me: You're ridiculous.

Sean: That's how the arrangement works. I made you breakfast yesterday.

Me: Um. Yes, because I'm actually doing something in the mornings. I thought we agreed Sunday was everyone for themselves anyway??

Sean: No. We did not. You tried to get me to agree to that.

Me: Well I'm not doing it today. I don't know why breakfast isn't your job anyway. I make you lunch and dinner everyday.

Sean: Yes, because you're the mom. It's your job. I'm cutting you slack with breakfast.

Me: Do you know how many mothers make their 16 yr olds breakfast, lunch and dinner? Oh wait...NONE.

Sean: Of course they do...you've seen "Wife Swap". Some of those mothers wait on their kids hand and foot.

Me: Um. Yes. But then the other mother comes in and says how ridiculous that is! C'mon, I'm waiting for you to come up with some nugget of brilliance to convince me that I should do this.

Sean: Nugget of brilliance?? You still wouldn't give in.

Me: I might. I respect the brilliance. I just think you should use it for good instead of being so self serving.

Sean: But I'm not "self serving", that's the whole reason we're having this argument. I can't even argue with you if you're going to be like this. Try to stay focused next time. *and he leaves. And I'm still giggling*

Oh and btw, I totally caved to peer pressure...I started to Twitter. Please find me on there so I can follow you. I put a link in the sidebar. Because it's easier to stalk you that way...

Have a restful Sunday,
♥Spot

Boy Genius...

So I don't know if anyone else was as bored as me saw the article on MSN's home page this morning about Kid Geniuses? Anyway, I was intrigued, so I read that article and then clicked through to another .one. The second article was on cracked.com so it was funny as well as informative. Then I saw something that caught my eye...

"Some consider William James Sidis the smartest man who ever lived, with an estimated IQ of 250 to 300. For the sake of comparison, you only have to have an IQ of 136 to be a mere run of the mill genius, and your average person is somewhere in the 85 to 115 range"

and I had to call in Sean, my very own Boy Genius.

Me: So I'm reading this article about child prodigies and guess what? You are just a run of the mill genius! You aren't even like a super genius or anything. And my IQ qualifies me to be a run of the mill genius too. What do you think of that??

Sean: Did you look at the pictures of those kids? I'm pretty sure I don't want to be that smart if I have to be that dorky. And that one? Yeah, he took a vow of celibacy. Are you kidding me? No way.

Me: He probably just wanted to not get distracted by the whole boy/girl thing.

Sean: Or he was a huge dork and couldn't get a girl to go out with him.

Me: This one was performing operations at 7! What were you doing at 7?

Sean: plotting total world domination.

Me: Oh yeah. You were a little scary back then. I'm just saying. If it hadn't been for those chubby little cheeks...

Sean: Obviously those kids are some serious overachievers with no idea how to have fun. I'm just pacing myself.

Me: well you better do something impressive soon. Slacker.

Sean: That's it! When I build the world's first spaceship built for long term space travel, you are soooo not invited.

Me: Whatever Mr. Average Genius Joe.

Seriously, can you imagine raising one of those little guys? Sean was hard enough. I wonder if the three year old kissed his mom before heading off for a hard day of college physics???

♥Spot

Disco Chronicles, part III

*Quick note~ I'm going to my sister's tomorrow in Ohio so I probably won't have a chance to blog. I am planning on blogging while I'm there though, maybe not everyday. Just wanted you to know that I didn't drop off the face of the earth! Lol!*

When we left off yesterday, Sean was homeschooling and gobbling up scout merit badges like they were M&Ms. And we did that for three years. And it was awesome. I wouldn't trade it or do things differently for any amount of money. There's no better way to get to know your kids than to spend 95% of your time with them. Like I said though, it's not for everyone. Mo had gone back to school when she started seventh grade and I will put the reasons and the power struggle with the school in her biography. So we decided to send Sean back for seventh too. It's a highly social age and we thought that it would be good for him. They took him back to school with no problems, of course we'd paved the way the year before with Mo's re-entrance. And there was no problem with him going right into the proper grade because they'd already been shown that my kids were up to speed school wise. He still had the IEP from before so to make the transition easier for him we put it back in place. This meant that he went to a "resource room" for literature and english. The resource teacher fell in love with him. (Not in a Mary Kay Letourno way or anything, just in a Sean's an awesome kid way). She let him come to her room any time he wanted to do homework or work on things. Socially, everyone already knew him because he was "Molly's brother". And once again, he had the most laid back personality ever. He got along with everyone. Although, he does have a very low tolerance for stupid people. Not unintelligent people (that's considered a disability at our house) just people who do or say stupid things. And he doesn't play games. If he likes you, he's the most loyal friend in the world. If he doesn't, he just straight up tells you.

He was doing great in school, even though he still hated going. About mid year the middle school starts gearing up for the science fair. Well we'd been initiated last year with Molly. And she'd actually gotten an honorable mention. She took off on her own project, with a friend. Sean and I searched the internet for something that appealed to him and found..."The Glowing Pickle" experiment. The idea behind it is that salt conducts electricity and since pickles are cooked and stored in salty brine, pickles conduct electricity. So he and his dad built a machine to generate the electricity. It had forks at either end that we stuck the pickle on (those great big suckers). And when you flipped the switch, the pickle glows orange as the electricity arcs through it. It also cooks and smokes and gets gross. Amazingly enough, Sean picked that project because he'd learned about the conduction of electricity and salt through a CSI episode. (The boy can learn through anything). And best of all, that same CSI episode was on the night before the science fair, enabling everyone to understand and be awed by Sean's experiment. He won the science fair!! This formerly homeschooled kid, with the learning disabilities. Take that public school!!!

He also got some awards at the end of the year for academic achievement and made the honor roll every quarter. At the end IEP meeting at the end of seventh grade it was decided that he no longer needed special services or an IEP. I know that this was due in part to the habits and coping mechanisms he'd developed during his homeschooling. So he was now switched to a 408 plan. That means all regular classes the only adjustments made are not counting off for spelling unless it's an actual spelling test and the handwriting issues. Sometime close to the first parent teacher conference that year Mo came home and told me that Sean had become a legend at school. She was attending the High School now since she was a freshman but it's attached to the middle school and one of her classes was in the middle school building. She said as she was walking to class a group of 8th grade girls had stopped her and told her the story. Apparently, during science class, the teacher was talking when Sean's cell phone rang. (Now the school policy is that cell phones must be turned off and placed in your locker. You can check them during lunch time only.) Well, instead of looking sheepish and worrying about it getting taken away, Sean fishes it out of his pocket and answers it!!! When the teacher says "Sean...", he holds up his finger in the universal "give me a minute" sign. The teacher stops talking and Sean finishes his call and puts his cell phone back in his pocket. And nothing happens. Class resumes. WTF?? I'm wondering why I haven't heard from the administration about this. I heard enough from them about Mo. So I get to the parent/teacher conference and approach the science teacher warily. Sean's doing great in science, he's a smart boy, blah blah blah. So, unable to hold my curiosity, I ask about the great cell phone caper. The teacher laughs and says "I know I should have been angry or taken the cell phone away and sent him to the principal, but it's Sean. He's just so unflappable and he looked so serious about the call. I couldn't help it. It was so funny. That's one cool kid you have there." Picture me stunned. Little did I know how much he would embody this persona in the future. Eighth grade passed much the way seventh had, good grades (except in english...still Cs) and no drama. Compared to his sister, this kid was a breeze.

So how did we get back to homeschooling? Well, part of it was on Mo's account. She had opted to come back to homeschooling due to health reasons and what she was finding was the growing incompetence of her teachers. And Sean, while doing well, really hated school. He hated "wasting his time". If they'd just give him his work instead of taking the whole class time to explain it, he could be done in half the time. So if I was going to do one, might as well do two. I guess what really sealed the deal for me was parent teacher conferences that year. I went round to the teachers and talked to them all briefly. There's really only two teachers in the whole school that are worth their pay. One is an english teacher and one a science teacher. The rest? My kids were beginning to run circles around them. This is what I heard from their history teacher~

HT: we just finished a unit on the civil war. Sean could have taught the class.

Me: He really likes history. And especially the civil war. We covered it when I homeschooled him.

HT: Yeah, well thank goodness he's nicer than his sister. He'd wait til after class to correct me. She always just blurts out my mistakes in front of the whole class.

The hell??? What mistakes?? You are the teacher. You should have the facts. My kids should not have to correct you. Although, if they do, I agree it's much more polite to do it in private. See what we were up against?? He further asked if both my kids had always been "history geeks". I responded with "well I guess so. As Molly says, history is easy. It's already happened. All you have to do is memorize it." Did I mention that he was also one of the basketball coaches? Yeah, here's hoping he knew more about basketball than history.

The last installment of the Disco Chronicles next time,
♥Spot

Disco Chronicles, part II

*Sorry about being AWOL yesterday. Mo came into town for a doctor appt. and drug me to lunch and shopping all day. I really mean all damn day. We even had to pick Sean up from where he was working with his dad because hubby had a meeting. So the three of us had dinner and continued shopping. We got home at 10pm and I promptly crawled to my bed. Mo made me a cup of tea and joined me for chatter until hubby kicked her out when he came to bed. This morning my body's all "the hell chica?? You were thinking what?? That you could abuse me like that and still expect me to function the next day? So not happening. Legs, show her we're not taking this. No walking for you today missy!!" If my story rambles today, it's the muscle relaxers I tried to appease my body with. Just for the record...Fibromyalgia sucks monkey toes. And by toes, I totally mean a**! On a good note Mo's platelets were still solidly in the normal range so she can stay off the meds. And doesn't have to have another check for 3 whole months. He did warn her however, that she's not cured, they will drop again. So she has to vigilantly watch for the signs that they're low. And she got fussed at because her hemoglobin had dropped even though she's on enough iron to choke a horse. Turns out she'd been a little forgetful about taking the morning dose. But overall, it was a good visit.*

So when we left off in the last installment, we had just discovered that our third graders IQ was higher than most adults. But he had some learning issues. I say most adults because obviously there's those freakish Mensa people (no offense if any of you are one) and rocket scientists and stuff. So there are people with high IQs. It's not that rare. And thankfully his mommy's IQ is way up there near his she just doesn't get all braggy about it. Because really? What does that prove? But it's just odd to get that kind of news about your 8 yr old. So I did what I always do...I researched. When in doubt, learn. And I try to read as much as I can and then interpret things in a way we can live with. I think the best book I read was The Edison Trait. Did you know that Thomas Edison was kicked out of school for being "dumb"?? I know right? How ridiculous. But luckily, his mama was a smart woman and she homeschooled him. What if she'd listened to the school and gave up on him? We'd totally still be reading by lantern light. Well, okay, someone would have invented the light bulb eventually, I guess, but still.

I'd also learned alot from the autism seminars I'd attended given by Barbara T. Doyle. The woman is amazing. She's a clinical consultant for many programs, state board of educations, she's written books, when it comes to autism, she knows her stuff! But in her seminars she also talks about the different ways people learn. I'm a visual learner. I need to see it. I need to read things to actually get them in my brain. I'd always doodled in school. And during lectures in college I'd take some notes, but they'd be surrounded by silly doodles. She explained that visual learners doodled to engage the visual part of their brain so that the information was processed. How cool is that? And auditory learners do best when they can listen to the information and then discuss it verbally. So it was a matter of incorporating different methods to help him learn.

Towards the end of his third grade year, hubby took the position with the boy scouts and we moved half an hour north and into the country. The move was awesome in many ways for the kids. Who wouldn't want acres and acres of timber to explore? They spent most of their time outside on adventures and since their dad is nature boy to begin with they learned alot. But it also meant switching school districts. They were now in a much smaller district with small schools and small class sizes. Sounds better right? Not so much. They started school in the fall and I liked both teachers. Sean's teacher was more than willing to work with his IEP and he was doing okay in her class. But he really didn't like school. And Mo, well I'll save most of it for her biography, but she was way ahead of the class and bored. We'd discussed homeschooling before and it just seemed the right time to give it a try. So I studied up on the laws and regulations about homeschooling in Illinois which are probably too lenient and we withdrew them from school. I was lucky in that they were only a grade apart so alot of classes I could combine. Obviously, Sean was no match for Mo in english so they had separate workbooks for that. I bought Sean phonics workbooks to try to help his reading and spelling issues. But we did science, social studies, and literature all together. We used our library alot. We rented and watched alot of discovery channel programs both for science and social studies. For PE I'd send them out to the woods to play or on the trampoline or we'd go for a walk. For literature we read books out loud and then discussed them. We also started doing books on tape in the van when we had to drive. One book I picked up about the time Sean was in 5th grade was Timeline by Michael Crichton. I wasn't sure if it would be too much for the kids but it wasn't. Mo and I listened to books on tape and we got the basic story and enjoyed it. We discovered that Sean remembered minute details of the story that we'd totally missed!! And he was the one who understood the theories of quantum physics that were explained in the story. In 5th grade!! I knew then that he was going to far surpass me in science. I studied my butt off in senior physics just to get a C+, when this kid seemed to just get it naturally. We loved homeschooling. I loved it. The kids loved it. Don't get me wrong, there were bad days when someone was out of sorts, or I had trouble getting a concept through to Sean. He's still very obstinate and sometimes we'd both have to take a time out and come back to it later. There were days I was sure that I'd end up screwing them up. One day a friend called and I was like what if I screw this up and ten years from now on Mother's day Mo calls me to wish me a happy Mother's day and she's got seven kids and the littlest one only speaks spanish and she works at a gas station??! And Sean can't even call because he's in prison? And it's all my fault??! She told me that the fact that I was worried proved that it wasn't going to happen. I still have my fingers crossed that she's right. We discovered that Mo can do work anywhere. Sprawled on the floor in front of the TV, in the van on the road, in the middle of a huge group. Sean has to be sitting at the table, in relative quiet in order to focus. He has to have all of the things he'll need in front of him so he doesn't have to get up and search for things and break his concentration. He can't have a radio or TV on. So mostly it was a matter of finding out what he needed to succeed and making sure that's how we set things up.

Because we live on a Boy Scout property and summer camp is just down the road from us, the kids and I spent alot of time hanging out down there. I got certified to be a lifeguard and helped out at the waterfront. Mo, being a girl, stayed with either her father or I. But Sean got to pal around with the counselors and join the merit badge classes. The summer before seventh grade he completed every single merit badge the program offers in the nature category. The boy is a sponge. He just soaks up that knowledge.

Next up...Sean's middle school years, in which he returns to school, becomes a legend and wins the science fair.
♥Spot

Disco Chronicles, Part I

*Quick update on the xmas party first- I went. I survived. It wasn't bad because K, my partner in wine, um crime drug me off immediately to a corner by ourselves so we could talk about everyone else. We were like our own snobby little clique. Except later, I felt bad and had to make sure I said at least something to everyone. Except boss guy and his wife, who I never even got introduced to. The party didn't last much after everyone finished eating. Oh. They did have one of those white elephant gift exchanges, only I'm pretty sure the boss and his wife didn't understand because they brought really nice things like a cordless screwdriver and a professional knife set. Yeah, hubby wouldn't let me near the knives. Hubby was all proud because I was the only woman who showed up wearing a skirt and heels. How that has anything to do with him, I don't know, but he was all proud about it. Of course, if he had his way, I'd always be wearing a skirt and heels, like some kind of 50's housewife. As if. But after the church party, we went to H & K's house and guess who also came? Yeah, boss guy and his wife. And boss guys suck up office lady & her hubby. Um. What? Oh yeah, H invited them because he's being a brown noser. In his defense, he really does need to keep his job. Luckily, they didn't stay long and then the real wine drinking, crap talking started. Lol.*

Okay...back to Sean...so when we left off, Sean was getting close to his toddler years. And we'd already established that he was a pretty good baby. Ate well, slept well, wasn't a big time crier. He was an absolutely adorable toddler. All blonde curls, chubby cheeks and tubby little legs. He was the chubbiest of my babies, but not like super chubby blob baby. You know the ones I'm talking about? No, this kid was always on the go. It was then that his quirky personality started to come out. My friend J was living in St. Louis at the time and she brought her three kids down to stay for a weekend and she's the one who pointed out that Sean had quite the vocabulary for a 2 1/2 year old. I guess I never thought about it because I have never talked down to the kids. We didn't do baby talk and I just talked like normal, big words and all. (It's worse if I'm in an argument, the $5 words just fly, then hubbys all like, I can't argue with you unless you speak English, damn it). I think it was during dinner that she pointed out instead of Sean saying "this is good" he would say "mom, this is wishious (delicious)" or "tasty". And once while she was there he got stuck in the toy box and he said he was "trapped" instead of stuck. There were lots of little things like that. Then there was his propensity for wearing cowboy boots and talking about his farm in Australia. He could go on and on. About how he was a "stranger around here". Yeah, he was something.

He was also stubborn. If he didn't want to do something, you were in for a fight. I remember telling my dad that I was going to have him potty trained by his 3rd birthday. My dad didn't think I could do it so he bet me dinner. Well the month before Sean's third bday, I was getting him dressed one day and we had this convo~

Me: today you're going to wear big boy undies.

Sean: No! I want a diaper.

Me: Nope. It's time for big boy undies. You need to start going on the potty like mommy and momo and daddy. So we're going to wear undies.

Sean: No! Diaper. I take those undies off.

Me: well, then you'll be naked and you'll walk around that way. It might even make this easier.

I finished dressing his grumpiness and he immediately went upstairs to the playroom. He came back down a half hour later, naked from the waist down. "Okay" I said. "You made the choice." and I refused to put a diaper or any clothes on him. He tried to diaper himself so in a bold move, I threw the diapers away right in front of him. Well, naturally he threw a fit. Finally, I looked at him and said~

Me: Do you want to go to school in the fall? Do you want to go to preschool like Mo and CJ?

Sean: Yes. I wanna ride the lellow school bus.

Me: well, they won't let you on the bus in a diaper.

Sean: really?

Me: really. Momo wears big girl undies. You have to too.

And that was all it took. I pinky swear. We put the undies on and he never once had an accident. Mo had taken two weeks to potty train and had accidents sometimes. Not Sean. Once the kid had motivation, it was a done deal. He just took special handling. None of the disciplines we used with the others worked on him. I learned early on that swatting his butt only pissed him off and made him that much more defiant. But if I let him storm off and calm down, then talked reasonably to him, he got it. He's still that way. you have to wait for the initial anger to pass, and then he's more than reasonable. And man, was he a little hothead. Once, in an arguement with the sitter. He told her she'd better do what he said or he'd go to his room! Haha. The sitter just laughed and said "go ahead". What three year old times out themselves??

So at three, he went to a Pre-k program. He'd qualified for Pre-k because he couldn't catch a ball. I was completely unconcerned about that, I just wanted him to have some stimulation. His charmed his teachers and classmates. He made friends right away with a little girl who had muscular dystrophy and was in a wheel chair. They always sat by each other and he talked about her all the time. He also had a serious addiction to dancing. This earned him the nickname "Disco" from his teachers. He sang too. His choices were a tad unfortunate, but remember he spent alot of time with me & mo. Some of his favorite songs were "I'm just a girl" by No Doubt and "Man, I feel like a woman" by Shania Twain. Let me tell you there's nothing funnier than a chubby blonde three year old boy belting those songs out. Too bad it was before youtube.com!!

By this time, I'd realized that he had some attention problems. And a tendency to fidget all the time. I was working in the field of children with disabilities and I knew from all I'd learned that he had ADD. Of course, it has to be documented in more than one setting so I had to wait for school to pick up on it before we could get an evaluation. Part of the giveaway for me was how easily he angered at home and how it emotionally overwhelmed him. He'd just meltdown. But at school he was Mr. Easygoing and Charming. He went through two year of pre-k and then we hit kindergarten. His kindergarten teacher requested a conference and asked if we would consider all day kindergarten. She was a fabulous teacher who'd had Mo just the year before so she was familiar with the family. She said his fine motor skills were off and needed work. Well, the other kids were already in school all day, so we let sean stay too. And she gave him exercises to do like pinching clothespins. We changed schools the next year and he had another wonderful teacher. He didn't like school but he did pretty well and he got along well with the other kids. In first grade he made a friend we'll call Javir. Javir was the only child of two amazingly smart parents. They'd moved to America from Pakistan and his mother taught computers at the community college and his dad was some kind of engineer for a large company. Javir had aspergers and talked (alot) in a monotone. Sean was the only kid who seemed to be able to spend much time with him. He went to Javirs house alot and Javir came to ours. Once, I overheard Sean say to Javir "okay, you just have to stop talking for like five minutes now. okay?" which was exactly what I would say to Sean when he was following me around the house chattering nonstop.

Second grade, the teacher finally noticed a problem. She had also had Mo the year before and oddly enough, she'd been hubby's 6th grade teacher along time ago. She noticed that he had trouble focusing on his work and that he fidgeted alot. Also, he was having some trouble reading. The fact is, the squeaky wheel gets the oil, and since Sean was never a behavior problem at school, he'd slid by the other teachers. But finally, we got our evaluation. The diagnosis was ADHD. Which I'd already known. By this time his fidgeting had gotten to the point that it was driving me crazy. He was so distracting if you were trying to watch a movie with him, or read to him. We tried Ritalin, but Sean said it made him feel "not like himself". So we stopped it. We tried a couple of others before we settled on Adderall xr. It worked well to calm the fidgets and help him focus. I wasn't happy about the way it seemed to suppress his appetite though. He lost that chubby baby roundness.

Third grade was pivotal. Luckily, we were blessed with another wonderful teacher. She was a strict teacher, but a good one. She also noticed his issues with reading and writing. She asked to have another evaluation done. This time they would test his IQ and look at how it compared to the grades he was getting. When we went for the results meeting, the principal looked at us and said "we've never had a child's IQ come back so high". Were we surprised? Maybe a little, but even at that time you could tell he was intelligent. But then why was he having so much trouble? Learning disabilities. He has dyslexia which was hindering the reading. He also has no ear for phonics. You know how you sound out a word to spell it or read it? To this day he still has trouble with that and mostly guesses. He also has trouble getting his thoughts out on paper. If you ask him an essay question he can answer it at length verbally. If he has to write it down? Not so much. Somewhere in there it gets garbled. He's also a very auditory learner. He also has a benign tremor, that's what was screwing up those fine motor skills. His handwriting is still mostly illegible. We made an IEP (individualized education plan). These are exceptions to schooling that help him succeed. Like not taking off for spelling in an essay. Only if it's a specific spelling test. Or giving him a chance to rewrite or type an illegible assignment. Some small things that make a difference.

So now we know we have a genius on our hands. Now what???
♥Spot