Sickness, Sleeplessness, and ADHD Our Personal Whirlwind

Its been a bit crazy here. We had Spring Break about a month ago and it was pretty fun. I really didn't do anything super cool for Spring Break but it was fun to have a break from school. We had friends over to play a couple of day. We bought an unlimited wash pass for the van and rode through it about 3x one day. We went to Cabels and shot arrows, played on the ATV's, and checked out the taxidermy animals, and the fish. Our "Big" things was suppose to be riding the train from Westminster to Kitt's house, but Abby came down with a fever. I was so sad it didn't get better. We actually ended up wanting to take her to the doctor and we had a doc come to our house which was super cool especially since it didn't cost any more than urgent care. Anyway, it really did kind of bum out the end of Spring Break, but we were like that's okay we will see them next weekend for Kitt birthday and conference. Well, Kade started throwing up on Wednesday and into Thursday a little. I got worried with him to because he threw up so much it started having blood in it. So, we took him to the doctor and it looks like it was just a stomach bug. However, we did get a little bit of anti-nausa medicine there and that helped him a ton on Thursday so that was great. Still I didn't want to pass anything onto Kitt and Matthew so we told them it was probably best to stay home. That was probably even more of a bummer for me because I was so excited to do a birthday celebration, conference, and Easter with family. AHHHH! However, it didn't happen and its probably for the best because these sicknesses were no fun at all.

Being sick is bad, canceled plans is bad but there was more. Kylee has been having troubles sleeping through the night. She is nine, this should not be an issue, but it is. It was kind of bad before, but about this time it was starting to get worse. The worst part of it was she would wake-up, and then if we asked her to go try to go back to sleep she would start throwing a verbal tantrum and get herself all riled up and we of course at 2AM aren't so great either so we would get mad and then no one could get much sleep for a couple of hours. It was so bad. We went to the doctor for it. She hooked us up with some ideas and a therapist to talk to. However, when the therapist tried to call me I was taking a nap because I was tired. Anyway, I did later talk to her and honest I am like meh she has been okay but not great at least not what I was thinking. Anyway, she did help us get a really useful app that has sleepcasts on it and those helped quite a bit. We also have had some really emotionally charged moments here at home one because of the lack of sleep and two we have had 2 weeks of quarantine--one before spring break then another 2 weeks later. During that time I reached out to the school counselor and she has met with Kylee a couple of times and it has seemed to help. She actually has only woken up 2 times in the last 4 nights which is amazing because we were easy doing 3x a night. I am hoping we are on the up swing of this sleep thing. I would love it. 

Among all of this, Tia was diagnosed with ADHD and we have been trying to figure out which medication is right for her and how to work it. We like the first medication we tried (Conserta) but it caused insomnia. So, yes at one point in all this we had a kid staying up until 10-11 at night, another waking up in the middle of the night, and then two more waking up super early in the morning. It was not fun. Anyway, we tried another medication (Aderyal) and it didn't cause sleep problems but it took all of her sweetness away. She was so bossy and edgy. I hated it. It only last two days and I was like nope and actually returned it. Then we tried a third one that was supposed to be a little short acting but of the same family as the first family. It did last less, so we didn't have sleep problems, but it almost didn't last long enough. It never really seemed to be in her system after school and definitely not at dinner, so that was a bummer. We tried doubling the dose to see if it would help her focus a little more and last a little longer and it just made her cry about everything. So, that wasn't it. Between the first two, I did a little bit of experimenting. My mom suggested waking her up and giving it to her and then having her go back to sleep. We found if we give the Conserta at 6:00 AM it works and she can sleep. So, that is what we are going with because seriously it helps her so much at school. She is so much more confident. She can string all of her amazing thoughts together and for the most part communicate them to those around her. She does better on her school work. Its great. For our at-home-learning Fridays it has been amazing. She can sit down and work on work without me. She can decide what she wants to do and get it done. She can get her homework done without constant badgering from me. The only real downside is I have to make sure I am up by six or suffer the consequences. Most times not a bad trade-off. It actually helps me get moving in the morning. 

So, yeah its been crazy here or at least it is for us. Things have been improving and I am so glad. Like I was tell Grandma today "I feel like I say "I never thought..." a lot more often than I use to. She said "just wait." I am sure that is probably the case but still I never thought this would be some of the struggles I would encounter with my kids, but it is and we are all learning and growing because of it.