our Logan

Its been a long time since I've blogged about Logan's developmental progresses with speech and behavior.  So hold on tight, this will be a long post but there's no way around it.  In some areas, things have gotten easier and some areas remain quite challenging.  I try really hard to focus on the positive. 


Logan is incredibly smart on so many levels, its actually scary sometimes.  He recently sat down (for the first time) to play Dylan's (highly addictive) Rush Hour Jr. game and was able to quickly solve almost every card right away.  He is already sounding out words.  He's extremely athletic with terrific hand-eye coordination.    I just signed him up for T-Ball this spring for his first ever season and can't wait to watch him whack that ball.  He has no fears and goes off to preschool each and everyday with a smile on his face, ready to see his friends and do his work.  He's passionate, creative, sweet and strong-willed.  He not only knows how to have a great time, he could care less about any rules telling him to live otherwise.  He tells me he loves me a hundred times a day.  He can be such a sweet brother to Dylan, and always makes sure Dylan gets his share of any special treat we might buy during the day while Dylan is at school.


But, he also still has a hard time controlling himself.  He has anger that is always right under the surface and if its the wrong situation at the wrong time, we have a Mount Logan eruption.  Its never a peaceful lava flow, rather, its gushing, bubbling and burning everyone that gets in its way.   I've talked about his anger many, many times, including needing to take a step away that this summer and get some perspective.  And for every one time I have talked about it on this blog, there have been a whole other slew of episodes that left us spinning and exhausted.  Its been a challenging time for our family.  I have lost my sanity many times, and somedays I feel like I've been hit by a truck.  But when that happens, you get up the next day and try to make it a better day.  Its just the way it is.


We're doing everything we can to help him learn how to control his emotions and reactions.  And I have every confidence, like a fine wine, he'll mellow with a little more age and experience under his belt.  Some anger can be good.  I'll certainly never worry about him being taken advantage of by other kids, for one thing.   However, I also don't want to worry about him being the bully in his class, or ending up at "Opportunity Station" as the principal in our elementary school calls the time-out work station next to her office.  

While there are a million great adjectives that can describe Logan's character, I don't envision "laid back" ever being one of them.  I'm fine with that.  We have one laid back child.  Dylan is just built differently.  He has his own easy going approach to deal with life.   And Logan is built the way he's built.  His passion and determination will be a huge benefit in some areas of his life, no doubt. There are plenty, plenty of descriptives we can be proud of.


Last year, we were under the impression that his behavior at preschool was much more controlled than his home behavior.  It seems that probably wasn't exactly the whole truth.   I had his fall parent teacher conference a few weeks ago, and it turns out he's having some issues with self control and expressing his anger appropriately.   This really didn't surprise me, since its true at home.  In fact, the thought of him having SO much more control at school than at home was somewhat alarming.  To be honest, it made me partly feel something must be setting him off at home to make it so much worse at home.  The fact that his lack of control carries over from home to school and back again makes more sense.

It turns out, also, he seems to have a few more issues with speech delay that need some extra help and focus right now.  So its been a couple of weeks of going back to the drawing board, making some phone calls, having some meetings and getting some help in place for him.


1.  He started speech therapy again today, and will go to speech once a week for an hour with an elementary school speech therapist.  He is in there with his teacher, and one other little boy having similar articulation issues.  He is struggling with consonant blends, sounds (especially at the beginning of words) such as "st-", "sp-", "sk-", "dr-", "th-", etc.   We listen to Logan all the time and get used to the way he talks.  But when he's around other people who aren't used to him, and he says the word "skateboard" and it sounds like "sateboard", well, it makes it hard to understand him.  You ask him to repeat himself, and then the anger kicks in.  He's frustrated you can't understand him (who can blame him?  HE knows what he means!), and then he starts yelling.

We have also found an excellent private speech therapist who will be working with him for the next few months, really honing in and trying to nip some of these phonological issues in the bud.  We're having to work the speech therapy in around his already busy preschool and taekwondo schedules, but it will be worth it in the long run.


2. We continue to work on the behavioral stuff at home and with his behavioral therapist.   We continue to use the jewel bear reward system, and every day is an ongoing series of reminding him what is appropriate and how to show respect for other people.    We have good days and not so good days.  We will be deciding this coming spring if he'll be going to kindergarten next fall as a young 5, or if (since he has a summer birthday), we'll wait until he's a young 6 year old.  These  next few months will be critical with the whole behavioral thing to see if we think he can handle it.   I'm very thankful for his excellent and helpful preschool teacher this year.   I had full disclosure with her and gave her Logan's history.  She is completely supporting everything we're doing at home, and giving me daily reports so I can talk to Logan about his days at school and find 'teachable' moments in them.  He's getting rewards for good days when we get home.


3. He continues to excel at Taekwondo, and in fact, is testing for his next belt tomorrow morning.   We'll all go to cheer him on and celebrate his success.   Taekwondo has become an important part of his life, he goes twice a week.  He's built a relationship with the other boys and his instructor.  And it reinforces all the things we are trying to teach him - focus, self control, discipline and respect.   Its been worth every penny.  If anyone has a child struggling in any of these areas and only has money to spend on one extra activity, this is where I'd put your money!


4. Back in September, we talked with a doctor friend of ours who thought it might be useful to have Logan allergy tested for food intolerances.    Logan has a history of not wanting to eat, asking only for very specific foods, avoiding entire food groups, throwing up easily and having a low gag reflex. We've also read a lot about the relationship between certain foods, particularly milk, and behavior.   Its all very interesting.   We took him to a popular pediatric allergist who did a patch test on Logan's back.  As I type this, I can't believe I never blogged about it back when it was all happening.  Its all been such a whirlwind with so many things going on at once.  I think I've also just needed some time to get my mind around it all.


But anyway, here is what the patch test looked like when the patches were on his back:

And here is what the reactions looked like after 48 hours when the patch came off:

Its hard to tell what you're looking at, but the patch reveal seemed to show that he might indeed have some intolerance to milk (which is a huge part of his picky eating diet, he drinks milk by the gallon). 

That led us to Step 2 - taking him to a pediatric G.I. specialist in our area to pursue more answers on the food intolerance.  To make it as concise as possible, Logan is scheduled to have an endoscopy on Monday, November 22nd (just over a week from now).  He will be put under anesthesia and they'll scope down into his belly, doing biopsies down his entire G.I. tract. They're looking for the  presence of eosinophils and irritation in the G.I. Tract...a condition called Eosinophilic Esophagitis. Whether or not this is related to behavior remains to be seen.  It could be another piece to the puzzle, or we might be discovering a whole new can of worms.We won't have the results back until early December, but we're hoping we can either rule this out completely or, we can try some elimination diets so see if less milk in his diet has a positive impact on his behavior.





Whew.  Are you still with me? Its a lot to take it, believe me, I know. 


I've had my hands full with taking Logan to preschool four mornings a week, taekwondo twice a week, and now speech twice a week, and still having time to fit in playdates, giving Dylan everything he needs to be successful at school and have lots of fun in his life, maintaining the housework, managing the family calendar...  Its true what they say, a mother's work is never done.  Its been a very busy fall indeed.  But I'm just doing what any other mom would do... trying to do the best things for my boys all the while trying to  keep a sense of  humor and sanity.


I've said many times how thankful I am that I've had this time to be home with my kids and focus on what they needed.  I can't imagine trying to balance in a career while all of this has been going on.  I have an incredible husband who works very, very hard to make it possible for me to stay home and there isn't a day that goes by I don't appreciate that.  


Being home as enabled me to spends hundreds of hours on the phone with insurance companies and doctors, taken Logan to more hours with more therapists and doctors than any four year old should have to endure, and stay on top of everything it takes to manage a household.  Many, many parents do balance all of this and also manage a career.  I just don't think its something that would have worked for me, at this point in our world.


I'm sharing all of this because I know I'm not the only parent with a challenging young child.  I know it helps me everytime I talk to someone else who has struggled with their child.  Parenting isn't always a neat, pretty package full of cute moments and laughter.  Its sometimes messy, loud, and not what you expected. Its hard.  Really hard.  And if someone can read this and find comfort in that, I'd feel very glad. 


Logan, from the casual on-looker, just seems like any other four year old boy. And in many ways, he is.  He just has some extra little special nuances that make him, him.  There's never a dull moment with Logan in our family, and I wouldn't want it any other way.


I love you, little buddy.