Wednesday, September 14, 2011

First day of school!

Monday, September 12, 2011

So frustrated...

Keeghan has been really frustrating me lately.  I'm not a patient person, I'll freely admit that.  Never have been, never will be.  Parenting a toddler/pre-schooler at 40 is very different than parenting three of them at 30.  I am much more patient with Keeghan.  Lately, however, I find myself snapping more and more and I couldn't figure it out at first, but now I've keyed into it.  The lack of sleep is most certainly an issue.  It's frustrating but we have been doing that to some degree since coming home.  It's Keeghan's speech.  We had her evaluated for early intervention services a couple months after coming home and she qualified.  She still had a delay once she hit 3 and therefore has qualified for services through our local elementary school.  Awesome.  The beginning of this year, however, Keeghan started stuttering.  At first I thought maybe it was just a phase.  A burst in development that was making her stutter.  I left it alone and figured it would pass.  Come April I started to get worried and mentioned it to her pre-school teacher and the speech pathologist.  They said they weren't really seeing it at school, but that Keeghan also wasn't talking much at school so that might have been it.  Come the end of the school year, the stutter was still there and we talked about it at Keeghan's IEP meeting.  We wrote it into her IEP for this fall and I was told not to worry and just to ignore it.  All great advice.

BUT the stuttering seems to be getting worse.  Keeghan can't seem to get through a sentence in one try.  It's not always the first word or a specific sound.  I have to stop whatever I am doing to listen to her and understand what she is saying because it's difficult to follow what she says with the stutter.  I can't cook lunch and hear a request for some juice...I have to stop whatever I'm doing to listen and understand.  It's...in a word...frustrating.  I wonder if the lack of sleep or stress of me wanting sleep is making it all worse.  We just started week 2 of school so I'll give it another week and then try and meet with the speech pathologist and teacher to get some suggestions because I'm gonna need some!

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Sleep sucks

Not really...I love sleep.  I can sleep with the best of 'em.  12 hours, no problem.  Unless, of course, I've got insomnia or a 4 year old who doesn't seem to think sleep is a good thing.  I've got a bit of both right now.  If I didn't have said 4 year old, and it was just insomnia, then I could nap.  But I do and it's not just insomnia.

Keeghan slept like a champ in China.  Once home, notsomuch.  Jet lag coming back SUCKED.  I went cold turkey and got back on US time pretty quick.  The then 17 month old, didn't.  Once we were over insomnia we still weren't so good about sleeping.  Understandable.  We gave it time.  I comforted her.  We bonded.  Sleep got somewhat better.

BUT almost 3 years later we still can't count on Keeghan sleeping through the night more than once a week.  And by sleeping through the night I mean 8pm-6am if we're lucky.  Naps are done.  Once in a while we take a nap but then bedtime is more of a nightmare.  Nighttime, is already a nightmare.  There are nights I've found Keeghan playing Nintendo at 3am.  Last night she was hanging out with one of the dogs at 4am.  The night before we were running the halls at 2:30am.  We had a sticker thing going...stay in your bed all night, get a sticker.  Sweet right?  Sure, for the first few weeks...then it's just old and boring and why stay in bed?  The kid is tired, she's fallen DEAD asleep in the car two days this week.  Her behaviour screams tired.  Her little body/brain however, not so interested in giving in to sleep. 

We're at the scared of monsters stage.  We're asking TONS of questions about birthparents and China.  School starts next week.  There was the 1 night a month ago someone else put her to bed...the first time since she came home.  That's alot and I think it's all adding up to lack of sleep...for both of us.  If I could just have an epic meltdown whenever/wherever I want, that might be ok.  But given I'm 4 with a 0 and not just 4, I can't.  So I'm trudging through while little miss just 4 can meltdown at will.  Trying to give my little princess some extra love and consistency and motivation.  I'll get to sleep again sometime.  She will never be 4 again.