It has been a week of real ups and downs. Carmie had horrible sleep every night this past week, except for last night when she finally slept. She has been waking up at about 1am and then staying awake for 2-4 hours. As you can imagine, she has been feeling pretty awful. At tennis on Friday she was barely moving on the court and I had to have her sit and have a break. She is yet to have a good lesson. Luckily Arley has been picking up the slack and kicking butt at the lessons, so that is a good thing!
We spent the rainy weekend at home, and then on Monday Arley’s mentor came over for a two hour session. Carmie had a zoom therapy session with her new psychologist. After that I took the kids to Sea Life Aquarium, which was awesome. The kids’ new support worker Jonty works there, and he gave us passes so the kids could get photos with a seal. The aquarium was awesome, definitely a must see thing to do here. After Sea Life Carmie’s mentor came over to do a session with her, so it was a pretty full-on day.
On Tuesday morning Jonty came over to take the kids for the first time. It was raining on and off, so they stayed home and played Xbox and swam in the pool when they could. Then Carmie kicked his butt at Connect 4. Jonty seems like a good guy and I think will work well with the kids. It was really nice to have two hours when I know they were having fun and playing together and learning to be social, and I didn’t have to be involved!
Yesterday we had our family therapy first thing in the morning. It went ok - Arley was a little painful at the beginning, and Carmie was also a little mute, but soon opened up. Afterward we were supposed to go to the beach with Lexi but Carmie was too tired and overwrought from a week of bad sleep. Arley was a little off all day. We have taken him off his Prozac for the first time since he was four. He has been very depressed lately and saying some awfully sad things to me, so I emailed his paed who said to take him off. The odd thing is that the paed didn’t say to wean him, so I didn’t. I took him off about six days ago I think. As the week has gone on, Arley has been more and more difficult, depressed, angry etc. It culminated in a huge violent meltdown last night that was really scary for all of us. He was also coming down off Ritalin, and he hadn’t eaten lunch or afternoon tea because the Ritalin makes him not hungry. It was a really bad meltdown, and we are all kind of hung over from it today. I decided to take Arley off the Ritalin too, so today is his first fully unmedicated day in four years. I am keeping a close eye, but earlier he told me he feels happier and more in control. So, keep your fingers crossed!
This week we have had a couple of night time ‘pool parties’ as Arley calls them. Pretty much an after dinner night time swim. I’ve been in once with him and Jeffrey, and twice just the two of them have been in. Carmie hasn’t wanted to, but it has been really great, because Jeffrey and Arley don’t connect that much just the two of them. I’ve also been taking Arley on toad hunts - one night he walked for almost an hour and didn’t even realise. Usually after 10 minutes of walking he tells me he is bored and hot and asks to go home. He loves his toads!
This morning the kids and I had a lovely swim in the pool together, and then played a board game, had lunch (Arley actually ate!), and then the kids played computer games together. Pretty chill. Hopefully this is a good sign going forward! We have a day out planned for tomorrow after tennis, so send good vibes for Carmie to sleep!
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