Daytrana - 1 week update

So my 11 YO Son has been on Daytrana, a patch for of Methylphenidate, for 1 week now. We are pretty pleased with it. I was afraid the other night we were having some sleeping issues. He had trouble Sunday night. But since he had spent several hours at an amusement park riding roller coasters with his Dad and Aunt, I was hoping it was over-stimulation. Monday night I hear my son creep into our bedroom and make a pallet for himself at the foot of the bed. I woke up long enough to think “oh no, more sleep issues.”  But when I got up and almost stepped on the boy, I discovered it was the 6 YO. So we are not having sleep issues.

 

My Daytrana posts are listed in this entry

Blogging via emails

Here is my first attempt. If this works, I may blog via Blackberry.

---

Express yourself with gadgets on Windows Live Spaces Try it!

Works for Me Wednesday -

Check out Shannon's site for more great ideas

My Mother In Law likes to attend the boys' soccer and baseball games when she can. I started out giving her a copy of the schedule so she knew when the games were and if she could make it, great. We'd love to see her. Then I started emailing her the list. She mentioned a few years ago that she enters them into her Outlook Calendar on her work computer. So now I use the MS Outllok calendar for everything. When we get a sports schedule, I enter it into the calendar and send a meeting invite to Hubby, Mom and depending where I am doing the entry to the Home email and my work email. So we all have it. Works for Me.

I've been assimilated...

I have been fighting this since I started. It was the old "I want one, but I don't want one." Even in mainstream media, they speak of the additictions they cause. But we had an incident over the weekend that I could have possibly been monitoring and saved a lot of grief. I mean afterall, my job title is Manager of Email Services. So I ordered a Blackberry for myself and my chief technician.

Menu Plan Monday

Go see the other Menues at Org Junkies site. Blogger won't load the pretty banner

Mon- Salisbury Steak using ground beef and Golden mushroom soup
Tues - Might be Out. the 11 YO has a soccer game. I will go straight from work. Hubby may make the kids Chicken nuggests or hot dogs.
Wed - Chicken breasts int eh crockpot - Have not decided on a recipe yet
Thurs - Round steak in the crockpot
Fri - Leftovers
Sat & Sun - Going out of town.

First weekend with Daytrana

Hi Everyone,
Ok, With 2 working parents and no school, we got to observe our 11 YO son on the Daytrana patch for his ADHD meds. This replace his 72 mg of Concerta in the AM. Since we were haivng some evening issues with sports, the doctor recommended that we adminster another 36 mg dose of Concerta about 1PM. This was difficult due to the parents working and the son enrolled in Daycamp.

It seemed to take about an hour and a half to really take effect. Concerta typically took an hour. The Manufacturer recommends that you apply it 2 hours before the desired effect. It works similarly well to the COncerta. At this point we do not see a need to supplement it with any Concerta like the doctor suggested may be a possibility. We have been having him leaving it on for up to 12 hours (6A-6P) without adverse effects.

I like this method. We no longer have to worry about the adminstration of meds during the school day. He's not bothered by it or the glue. He does have a preference for the direction that we apply the patch. Since it is a rectangle, he likes it to go lenthwise across his Hip.

Patch Day 2 ADHD Post

Yesterday we left the patch on for about 12 hours. B was still Chatty Charlie at dinner last night. But he was a little more focused. I still think we may have to supplement the patch with a pill. But we'll observe him over the weekend and call the doctor on Monday.

The glue is very sticky and the red mark on his hip lasted quite a while on his hip. We did notice when applying this mornings patch that he had not scrubbed the glue off from Wednesday.

Other ADHD Patch Entries
Pioneers
Patch Day 1

Patch update day #1

The Brand name of the new Patch is Daytrana. My son has the 30 mg. He was taking 72 mg of Concerta in the AM and another 36 mg about 1 PM - or so that was what he was prescribed. It was hard with both parents working.

But the patch is really sticky. It is about 4 inches long and 1.5 inches wide. We did not get any feedback from his teacher. He claims school went fine. Dad applied the patch about 6:15AM. At 3:30 B changed for soccer practice and took the patch off. Dad said when he got to soccer practice about 5:15 that son was talking his head off, making comment he thought were funny. It took B 45 minutes to empty the dishwasher and clear off the table from dinner. He was busy playing around with his brother and took off to the basement to watch TV a few times. Thus No Focus.

Now the manufacturer's directions say to put it on 2 hours before you want it to become fully effective and it should not be left on for more that 9 hours. The doctor said to make sure it comes off 3 hours before bedtime. So we are going to push the 9 hour timeframe tonight. I asked him to keep it on until he got home from Soccer practice tonight so we could see the effect.

Hubby said he did not like B's behavior from the time he got home. So he has a less than positive view of it already. I am concerned about how he is during the day when the medication is at it's fullest effect. It is enough? It does nto seem to be too much. But I want to observe him over the weekend.

Add-Related Posts
Pioneers

School today

The 6 YO is a morning person just like Mom, He popped out of bed, got on his tailored shorts - he prefers elastic waists, put on his belt and came out carring a shirt "is this a uniform shirt mom?" and it was. (Love Land's End polos, the 11 yo wore these shirts form 1-4th grade. They still look good). He was excited to ride the bus, even when he found out his brother was not going to because..

The 11 YO got a post card informing him that he was to be the captain of the morning safety patrol for the first week of school. He was honored at the end of the year as one of two representatives to go to the safety patrol party for the district (they let the Parochial schools participate). So Hubby was going to drop him off at school early. I did take the opportunity to congratualte him and tell him I was pround, but I could not resist asking hi, that since he was so responsible with safety patrol why coudl he not do a little bit of cleaning up after himself at home? Hubby said he had basically trashed the hosue yesterday. He made stuff to eat and left everything sitting out. He had shoes, socks and clothes all over the living room. Let's not talk about his bedroom that was cleared out this weekend.

I guess dear Hubby tried to get a pciture of the 1st grader getting on the bus, but when he turned it on it wanted the date set and the bus driver seems to be in a hurry AND the boy ducked when he saw the camera. Ah well. I was proud that he tried. He knows I like to scrapbook those things.

Pioneers - Our Daytrana experience

I got a call this AM from my son's doctor. The neurologist who treats his ADHD. The patch is available and they want him to try it. But we may have to tweak the dosage. Ok, no biggie except.. Tomorrow is the first day of school. That means a new set of teachers who don't know him. They don't know what kinds of behavior can be expect from him. So how do we get the feedback we need? So I sent his homeroom teacher the following email:

Hi Mrs. C,

I just wanted to let you know that Bobby will start with a new medication for his ADHD tomorrow (Wednesday). He will be using the new patch. The directions have us put it on his hip. The doctor said he may need more medication than this, so it is experimental. We’d love to hear feedback from you or any of the other teachers.

I realize that you have not had him in class before and it may be difficult to determine what his normal behavior is.

Appropriate behavior:
ð Paying attention
ð Not being a huge distraction is class (we have been having issues with him whistling at inappropriate times this summer)
ð He tends to need to get up and move, sharpen his pencil, use the bathroom. However, sometimes he needs a gentle reminder to use the bathroom when he is interesting in something.

Behavior that needs attention:
ð Belligerence, arguing
ð Frenetic activity
ð Emotional meltdowns

He is unable to recognize that his medication is not effective.

Thanks so much. I apologize that we were unable to do this before the first day of school, but this just came available.

Iw as trying to remember what behaviors the unmedicated B exhibits. The arguing seems to be the biggest. He has had 2 days in his 7 years of school where he has been basically unmedicated. Once is second grade when we gave him only Straterra and no stimulant with it, and once last year when he just did not take the meds. He came home from school and they were sitting on the kitchen table. That day he came home with 3 demerits for behavior. He had never had these before. He would not obey a teacher and he was disrespectful of another.

But anyways, check back for reports on how he does.

Menu Plan Monday...

is on Tuesday this week.





Monday - Cheese Burger sloppy joes
Tuesday - Chick breasts are thawing in the fridge - Hubby will cook them in some way
Wednesday - (Crockpot since it's the first day of school with Soccer practice) - I have a Pork shoulder in the freezer.
Thursday - Round steak - probably in the crockpot
Friday - Homemade pizza on Boboli-type crust.

Check out organizing junkie for more ideas

Getting Organized

So I have spent untold money at the office supply store. I have all of the stuff to implement an organizes paper flow system with the 11 yo. All the stuff is sitting on the large folding table in the basement. I am undecided when to start. The guidlines say to create a catagory for each subject. I'm just not sure of the subjects he will be having. I suppose it will be safe to go with Math, science, Religion, social studies, but are reading, english and spelling together this year? I went to teh schools webiste to see a listing of what subject each of the three teachers are teaching. There is no such thing right now. You are supposed to assign a color to each subject. I suppose we can do something tentitive, but I want to wait until after his first day. Maybe there is something that makes sense. But I can "organize" the 6 yo. (He asked me "when are you going to Organize me Mom?)

Actually, I should take time to organize the 11 YO's bedroom. He cannot keep it clean. Maybe I'll get some banker's boxes and start packing some books. Then I can move books out of the 11 YO's room into the bookcases. He'll have to keep a more limited supply of books in his rooom because he cannot keep his bookcases looking neat. I am about ready to issue him 2 laundry baskets, one for clean clothing and one for dirty. Before we left on vacation, Hubby saind he was stripping the room of just about everything. It may be time. I am tired of having the "Clean Sweep" it on a semi-monthly basis.

Life is good!

Since it’s been a little cooler here, I was able to take at nice walk on my lunch hour yesterday. I walked down the road that leads to the “Women’s Center”. I found myself eagerly anticipating seeing the man standing outside the center with his Bible and Catholic Catechism.

This Spring I saw him, and at times, another man. I had already been thinking about our Modern society and how John Paul II called it a “Culture of Death”. Hubby’s Grandmother passed away this Spring. I had been praying for peace for her since she has been suffering from Alzheimer’s for several years. My Father in law has been her primary caregiver and I saw how hard it was on him. But I got to thinking about why I was a participant in this “Culture of Death”, why I did not have the absolute love of life that I should. I decided it was because I am not afraid of death. So everytime I passed the center with the men praying, I said a little prayer asking for help in gaining more respect for life.

The man was not there. There was no one saying prayers outside the center. I was disappointed. Then that made me glad. Maybe I am slowing achieving that respect for life that I feel I should have. Thanks to be to God.

Works for Me Wednesday

Actually, this is a "I hope it works for me" entry.

My 11 YO is very smart but cannot organize his way out of a rice paper bag. Part of it is a refusal to do so. I have tried many things to help him keep his room from becoming a black hole. I removed all of the dressers and put in open shelves so he could see what he has. I need to go an purge his clothing again. He had a trash can and a laundry hamper easily accessible (no lids), but trash and clothings still fall to the floor and stay there. I have temporarily shifted focus away from his room and an working on his school-related paper flow.

I read this book "The Organized Student: Teaching Children the Skills for Success in School and Beyond." And I am going to implement her binder and desktop file box system for him. My hope is that homeowrk assignments will amke it home and back to school to be turned in and not lost in the recesses of his backpack.

I have been looking for help in teaching him Organizational skills for a long time. I was thrilled to find this book. I'm an not expecting miracles. The author said things will fall apart from time to time, but hopefully the putting back together process will be a bit easier.

Join Shannon for more WFMW ideas and tips.

"Why Parents should not ask 'Why?'"

Our local newspaper runs a parenting column on Sunday's written by a local Child Psychologist. Dr. Ramey wrote this past week about Parents who ask a kids "Why" they misbehaved. Hubby often demands an answer from our ADHD 11YO to that question. It makes me cringe everytime. I think the 11YO doesn't know. His impulsivity kicks in and all thoughs of the consequences goes out the door. There is a overriding goal in mind. DH still disagrees with me and thinks that he asking, repeatedly "Why" gets DS to think and consider his reasons. My take is "HE doesn't know", the thought popped into his head and he does not realize that the action might be a bad thing because his brain functions differently, no Jiminy Cricket pops up to say "Now what might happen".

Dr. Ramey wrote that the reason's people do things are complex and often unknown. Parents ask this question becasue they are looking for insight into a child's problems. He said that the Why question leads nowhere and that the parent should deal with the issue of changing the child's behavior. He suggests alternate questions:

• What can you do to avoid this problem in the future?
• What were you thinking?
• Help me understand what is going on? or Tell me more about what happened.

Now if I can work on changing Hubby's behavior.

Big new story!?

Ok, the big news in SW Ohio is that IKEA is building a store here. Hey, cool! I hear it's a great place with a cult following, but the headlines from Dayton to Cincinnati. I thought there were more important stories: Cease fire in Lebanon, Ohio State school rankings, Another Bengal arrested... The closest store are in Chicago, Pittsburg and Canton, MI. If this is news, I don't get it.

Menu Monday

Ok, To play along with Org Junkie, Here's my weekly Menu:

Mon - (Ground beef night) - Hubby talked about making meatloaf
Tues - (Chicken)- Tonight I'll pull out chicken breasts to thaw.
Wed - (Soccer Practice of the 11 yo) - I picked up a bottom roast. I'll probably put it in the crockpot
Thurs- Frozen hamburgers thrown on the grill
Fri - Homemade pizza - Store-bought crusts, Italian sausage in the freezer

Heigh Ho...

Vacation is officially over. I'm not a huge beach person, but my Sister-in-law is. She's also a stay at home Mom who is good at setting a schedule and I depend on external forces (my job) to structure my day. My SIL also has 4 kids and I have two, so she sets the pace at the beach. Around 8:30-9:00, everyone is up and has eaten breakfast, brushed their teeth and dressed in a clean swim suit. The kids (11-6) line up to get lubed up with sunscreen.

We carry 2 unbrellas, 5 chairs, boogie boards and other stuff out to the beach and set them up. We also have couple of coolers packed with drinks and snacks. (So what that we are only only a footballs field length away from the beach.) But it was nice this year as the older boys are help carry more. We did not need to use a wagon this year.

About 10:15-10:30 is snack time and 11:30 is pool time. We come back, change into a dry swim suit and each lunch. After about an hour of relaxing, it's time to lube everyone up again.

My SIL is happy as a clam to not leave the island. Hubby and I would have liked to have eaten out dinner about two or three times, instead of just one, but hey, look at the money it saved. But By Thursday, we had had enough sand and sun. So we took the boys and drove down to Myrtle beach for the greater part of the day. I was surprised that they did not complain about being away fromt he cousins, but they seemed ready for a beach break. They were trhilled to have a few dollars to spend at the arcade and they we played minature golf. We have a nice (and expensive) lunch and returned to the beach cottage by 4:30.

The drive home went well. When they boys argues over the remote for the DVD playing, They were told to turn it off for a while. The trip took us about 10.5 hours. A lot less then we expected. I suspect the roads are getting better.

I was not able to get as much reading done as I expected. I felt like I needed to keep an eye on the boys in the water. The 11 YO spent a lot of time in teh water. But he did not get surfer's rash this year thanks to the surf shirts I bought them. I got them a set of shirts and trunks form Land's End earlier this year. They have wore them a lot while playing with squirt guns outside, field trips to pools with day camp and at the beach. I also pick up them another shirt for half the cost of the Land's End one at Old Navy.

Works for me Wednesday

I'll play along this week. My Dad, brother and Sister-in-law were unable to make the beach trip this year. They all are going to Germany for Octoberfest. Mom, who's semi-retired, is able to do both. So the six grandkids, and 2 sets of paretns joined Grandman at the beach house. So I created a picture blog for Grandpa to keep up with the kid's activites. Works for me.

Vacation blogging

Ok, So we are on the North Carolina coast in a 4 bedroom "cottage". There are 11 of us here. The six kids are between 11 and 6. But this darn place has wireless interent - for free. It is both a blessing and a curse. I am able to keep up with my work emails. A system deployment scheduled for next Monday has been postponed becasue I am not there to starighten things out. My chief tech was away for two weeks and we missed each other. So he did not realize that we changed the way we were planning to deploy. He was under the impression that this would effect all email users, but we chaned it so They need to put a keyword in the subject line to encrypt the emails. He wanted to notify the entire popluation that emails would be electronically scanned. The CIO got upset because that is not what he was briefed. AACK! So I am worrying about this on my vacation.

Life is a beach....

Yes, I am on vacation. Our beach house has wireless internet. So while my Mom, hubby, kids, Brother, sis-in-law, nephews and niece are on an evening walk, I am nursing my sore plantar-faciitis feet ans blogging. We are missing my Dad who is working this week and my little brother and his wife. Dad, Brother B and Wife E, along with my Mom have the opportunity to go to Germany for Octoberfest this fall, the they (except my Mom) are saving their vacation days for that. Dad made it here for the weekend.

But it's nice the the six kids are between 11 and 6. This year they are old enough to do some simple cleaning up chores. They are doing them enthusiastically. That's so nice. Last night two took out the trash, one vacuumed the living and dining rooms, another swept the kitchen, one swept the deck and one the stairs.

Book Review

So I finished the Book To Hell with That: Loving and Loathing your Inner Housewife, by Caitlyn Flanagan. I saw a review of it at The Family CEO. I left a note on her blog that it sounded interesting and as a Mom who works outside the home, I was going to look for it. She replied back that she thought there were some things that might make me uncomfortable and to let her know what I thought of it. Well, I laughed, I cried and I got mad, but I also related. Her jumbled thought about the conflict between staying in the home and working outside of it mirrored my own turbulence. I want it all. I want the kids, I want the career, I want the nice home and the crafts area. And you know what, I have all that. I am satisfied with the way it all goes.

I was out to dinner last night with a group of friends. We do a monthly Girls Night out. One of the ladies asked another if she was working full time or staying home. K. replied that she stayed home full time and she was really glad she had the ability and the temperament to do so. That caused me to laugh. I was glad she said so. I love my boys. I longed to stay home for the same reason I nursed them. It was what would benefit them the most. But alas, I married for love and not money. My husband, in the beginning, had no regard for the fact that he liked to live beyond his means. He knew he should get more education in order to make more money, and he worked at it. But here I was, An MBA with skills in Information Technology. I could pull in the paycheck. One time right after our first son was born, He said “You know, I think it might be best if one of us stayed home with him.”
“Yes, but are you willing to be the one to stay home or are you willing to sell the house and one of the cars and eat beans and rice?” He wasn’t, so off to work I went.

I want to be a staunch supporter of Stay at home Moms. I believe the choice is the critical thing the generations before us have worked for. I believe it takes all kinds to make the world go ’round. But I enjoy my life. My boys are relatively happy and well adjusted. They do well in school. They do well in sports. My friend, the Stay at home Mom reminded me that a while back Hubby and I stated that we were “Glad our kids were average in ability” in sports because we could barely keep up with them in their recreational level leagues. Select sports is unthinkable.

My house is nowhere near as neat as my Mom’s is. (My Mom worked too!). But my generation lets me off the hook somewhat. Flanagan touches on this a bit when she talks about the mystique of Martha Stewart.

Medicine worries

We leave for tomorrow on vacation. The 11YO ADHDer has enough doses of his medicine for about 5 more day. The boy runs at the mouth and is contantly picking on his brother. He is very impulsive. Yes, we could let him go unmedicated for several day, but I'm worried about him being on the beach and in the water. Will he do something stupid? Did I say he was extremely impulsive?

I called his doctor to see if we could get a prescription for about 14 pills to get us through. Of course, I'm not sure how we will manage to pick i tup. I'm 50 miles away. And we just got an email from my SIL that her AC is out and she was wondering if Hubby had the time to come and look at it. Hubby is also supposed to play golf after work. (Unless it rains)

I guess plan B with the 11 YO is to meter out the pills and give him half doses. Maybe it will be enough to keep him out of too much trouble and being at the beach he can burn off a lot of his excess energy. Prayers would be welcomed.

Beach reading list

We are leaving Friday for vacation. We are going to a beach on the Carolina Shores. A nice quiet, family oriented beach. Last night the 6 YO and I walked to the Library. I went to different library last week and have gathered a vast array of books to take. It's eclectic. For my fiction, I have teen aged books and I have some non-fiction. Here's my list.

• Tell Hell with all of that: Loving and Loathing our inner housewife - I am about halfway through all of this. I read a review at The Family CEO and I was intrigued. I am finding it's pretty scattered but it seems to echo my confilcting thoughts on Motherhood and working outside the home.
• The Organized Student: Teaching Children the Skills for Success in School and Beyond - I am alsways trying to figure out how I can teach my 11 YO how to be organized.
• The Princess Diaries I checked out the first three of the series. They look like I can know them out in a few hours each.
• Anne of Green Gables - I am amazed I did not read these as a Child. I read every other series.
• A Non fiction book about the Women who wrote the Nacy Drew Series. I'll have to look up the title later today.

I'm another person who finished grad school and now I have trouble getting into fiction. I love to read. Aa a child I rode my bike to the library every few days during the summer. While in Grad school I burned out on trashy romance fiction (had to be historical). The last two books I sat and read while the world went by around me were the last two Harry Potter books.