Independence can Backfire

Lately, I have been experimenting with different types of "incontinence protection" as the Department of Developmental Disabilities puts it.

Haley is too big for the L/XL Goodnights pull-ups that we have been using.  They are tight on her and sometimes when I am pulling them up her legs they rip.  I have even put my finger through the sides on occasion, but that may have been due to the fact that I needed a manicure.

She is outgrowing them for other reasons besides size.  They just don't offer her enough protection, so to speak.

I bought several brands of adult incontinence protection products a month ago and we have been testing them.  At first the testing was rather difficult.  Nothing seemed to work.  Then I decided that part of the problem was that Haley was just drinking too much.  It was kind of a "look for the root of the problem" thing.

So I started limiting her intake and then we settled on our current plan.

She wears the Goodnights to school and then I put her in Depends at night.

I chose to leave her in the Goodnights because the school is better at taking her to the bathroom on schedule than I am and they fit her better.  The Depends have a lot of extra material that shows through Haley's pants.  When she wears the Goodnights it looks like she isn't wearing them, unless they sneak up past the waistband, which they do on occasion.

I was able to find Unisex Depends with adjustable velcro sides.  That was great.  Even though the smalls are still way to big for her I could pull the velcro straps as far as they would go and they fit a lot better.  The adjustable sides make them easier to put on and take off too.  We used them on our trip to Montana and it made going to the rest areas so much more convenient.

So here's the problem.  The stores that I have been shopping at have stopped carrying the adjustable Depends.  I have been all over town.  They are gone.  I have only been able to find small Depends for women and they are too big for Haley.  There is way to much fabric and she leaks through them, or around them to be technically correct.

So Haley has been wearing the Goodnights to bed again.

There is another problem.

She has been getting her own drinks lately.  I taught her to get a drink of water at night if she is thirsty, because I didn't want to give her a full glass of Nesquik or orange juice.  Next thing I knew she was getting herself a glass of water whenever she wanted to.  Occasionally during the day I would hear the cupboard close and the water run.

I was so proud.

She chooses her own glass.  So she started choosing the one we got at the zoo, probably because it has a lion on it.  That glass holds 32 ounces of liquid.

She started putting a straw in it.  She tends to drink a lot more through a straw then when she sips.

Note that I taught her to use a small plastic glass and to sip it.

So when I got her a glass of Nesquik or orange juice I knew what she had and when she had it.

I had some control.

Now, with a little bit of independence she is drinking 32 ounces of water at a time, quickly.  And I don't always know when.  Last night I think she had more than one.

Haley woke me up at 2:00 am.

She was soaked from head to toe.  Her bed was soaked.  She has a water proof pad on her bed.  It didn't handle it.  Even her pillow was wet.

I had no choice but to make a bed for her on the floor with some blankets.

She got up about a half an hour after I put her in her makeshift bed.  She went downstairs and turned on her laptop.  I went down and got her and put her back to bed.  I don't know if she slept very well on the floor.  She was up when I got up this morning.

So I will have to watch her a little closer from now on.

Independence can backfire.

No Big Deal

Haley went to the dentist again yesterday for more sealants.  It was really no big deal.

She sat down in the chair.  When the dental assistant asked her if she wanted to watch a movie she said "Yes."  Then she picked a movie and let the dental assistant lay her seat back.  She waited patiently while the dental assistant worked with the equipment and got it running.  Then she put the video glasses and the headphones on her.

We had to wait a little bit for the dentist.

No one said anything about the "happy air."

The dentist came in and greeted us both.  She laid Haley back a little more.  She told her she was going to clean her teeth and Haley opened her mouth.

The whole thing went off without a hitch.

You would have thought that she did it every day.  You would have thought that she never had any qualms about the dentist.  You would have thought that she was a mature fourteen year old getting a routine treatment.

I was blown away!

She has come so far from where we started.

She knows it too.

When it was all over they sat her up and took off the video equipment and she immediately put both of her hands up for a double high five.  She knew that she had accomplished something.  The dentist just kept saying that she was amazing.

Where have I heard that before?

Attention

When Haley wants me I want her to say "Mom."  I really do.

I ask her to do that.  I talk to her about it.  I even ask her to repeat after me "Mom."

She won't do it.

In her entire life I only remember her doing it once.

She does know how to get my Attention though.

She does it by making sounds.  Sounds that annoy me.  I have to answer those sounds.  Occasionally my husband, in his most helpful way, tells me to ignore them, but I can't. 

I just can't.

The sounds that she makes are sometimes whiny, sometimes frustrated, sometimes pathetic, sometimes insistent, almost always incessant.  I just can tell that she needs something.  That she needs help.  That she needs me.

I know that because if she were to ask for help, she wouldn't ask her Dad or her Big Sis.  She would ask me.  But, she doesn't ask me.  She just knows that I am the one that will respond.  It is kind of a vicious cycle.

There are other ways she gets my Attention.

She sometimes brings me things.  Things that she wants that she can't quite do for herself.  She is trying to be helpful.

I have been making her cocoa using Nestle's Quik and Rice Milk.  The other day we ran out of Quik.  She knew that.  She went to the cupboard and brought me a box of Keurig coffee cups.  I just smiled at her.  She said "I want coffee please."  

Well, that is one solution.

Sometimes she just wants my Attention, just because.  She likes to show me the things she finds on the computer.  Sometimes it is something on the internet, sometimes it is a picture from our own files.

The other morning we were sitting at the kitchen table.  We had both finished our breakfast.  I was reading the paper and drinking my coffee and she was on her laptop.  I must have been engrossed in what I was reading because she was getting impatient with me. 

It would seem that she had been trying to get my Attention to know avail. 

She snapped her fingers at me. 

I immediately looked right at her.  She then pointed at the screen. 

That is her go to gesture now.  If I don't respond right away she snaps her fingers at me. 

Today she did it every time she wanted to show me something.

Again I asked her to just say "Mom."

I wonder if she ever will.

A Bit Groggy

Last week for Spring Break we went to Montana to see my family.  

Haley got to hold her one year old cousin on her lap and give her some hugs.  She also got to play with my Mom's cat Scooter a lot.  Scooter is normally a very anti-social cat, but since my niece arrived on the scene he seems to appreciate the companionship of people a lot more.

It was nice to visit my Mom for several reasons, not the least of which was I got a full night's sleep almost every night.  Haley didn't wake me up in the middle of the night at all.  She slept on a mattress on the floor right next to me.  

I don't know if that is why.  

Maybe it is because the room we slept in is very dark at night, or because there are no sounds outside.  Other than the occasional train that goes right by my Mom's house.  

Whatever the reason I really enjoyed it.  

At dawn when some light finally came in to the room Haley would wake up and go downstairs quietly on her own.  She had her laptop set up on a small desk in the kitchen, right next to the space heater.  She was perfectly happy.  Her Dad usually got up shortly after she did.  I slept until I heard my Mom get up (there is something about her voice, even at this age I cannot ignore it.)  I would look to my right and my husband was gone, then I would look to  my left and my daughter was gone.  I never heard either one of them get up.

So, now that we are home things have changed a little bit.  Haley did sleep through the night a couple of nights.  She has been getting up when my alarm goes off or just before it goes off.  She comes in to my room and I look at the clock.  I figure it is close enough to the time to get up and I tell her she can go downstairs.  

That has happened several times.

So this morning, when she opened the door to my room, I glanced at my alarm clock.  I said "You can go downstairs, Haley."  She quietly shut the door.  I laid there for a second and then I looked at the clock again.  I jumped up and caught her half-way down the stairs.  I said "I'm sorry Haley, it is not time to go downstairs.  Come back up."  

She turned and headed back up the stairs.  As she climbed in to bed I apologized again and told her that sometimes (especially when I am a bit groggy) a two can look like a five on my alarm clock.

I am so glad that I looked again.  She would have happily sat downstairs playing on the computer for three hours before I finally got up, but she would have been the one that was a bit groggy during school.