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November, 2010:

Parties and performances

Nov 30th, 2010
by Zendette.
2 comments

Parenting can be so overwhelming, especially during the holidays! Matan is still young, so most of our Hanukka excitement will focus on Karen. We started with a Hanukka party at school on Sunday. These events always focus on a show that the kids perform. Karen usually gets upset, and refuses to participate, even though her teacher says that she has the entire routine down. Something about doing it in front of the parents makes her nervous. She has a gymnastics performance next week. I never push her to do it if she doesn’t want to. She’ll be ready for the gymnastics, but it will be up to her trainer to convince her to take her place, if she gets stage fright. But I don’t think she will. She has always enjoyed her gymnastics performances.

In addition, she has two theater plays over the next 7 days and two birthday parties to attend this week. Which brings up another issue. It’s that time of year again. Karen will be six in January and this year we need to celebrate in January, not March like we did last year. We had no choice then because we were stuck in Ukraine on her last birthday, waiting for Matan’s passport.

So I again welcome any suggestions for a party. Right now, we are looking at two options. Either invite up to 15 friends to our apartment, and hire a couple who do a chocolate adventure theme, or take her entire class to see a movie. We have a nearby theater where you can rent a small screening room and arrange for popcorn and other goodies. Last year, after much agonizing, we did a pajama party. Our whole living room was paved in mattresses and Karen invited 10 girls from school. DH and I arranged everything and guided the girls through various activities. They incredibly rowdy. It was nice to see that all her friends were capable of behaving as wildly as Karen. DH absolutely refuses to do it again, lol. So this year we’ll hire it out, somehow.

P.S. I just noticed that on some of the older posts, the photos are doubled, and the layout is awful. I switched WP themes a couple of times and it seems to have affected graphics.

Sensory integration advice from Mozambique

Nov 25th, 2010
by Zendette.
2 comments

Two days ago, I saw a new reader check in from Mozambique. Unlike the 10 second visits of various bots across the world, it appeared that the person spent a bit of time reading my latest posts.

Surprise, it was a friend of mine travelling on business there, and she pinged me later on Skype. Turns out, her son had behavior and symptoms similar to Karen’s. In fact, she sent me a comment almost a year ago, after reading about Karen on this blog, asking me to get in touch since she was familiar with this type of behavior, and “it could be a simple neurological issue, call me to talk”. I’m embarrassed to say, but at that time I was so overwhelmed with immediate issues that I didn’t contact her. But now, once I’ve reached my own conclusions and posted about sensory integration issues, she reminded me, again, from Mozambique, that we need to talk.

Slowly, and if you repeat something to me enough times, I may actually listen. It turns out that my friend in Mozambique wanted to discuss sensory integration with me almost a year ago! Had I only had ears to hear, I may have saved us a year of worry and distress, or at least we could have started an appropriate therapy earlier. The good news, according to my friend, is that it isn’t too late, in fact it never is, and we can begin addressing Karen’s sensory integrate immediately.

Today I met with Matan’s occupational therapist, and she said that she thinks discussing brushing for Matan was premature. After reviewing his complete profile, she thinks he needs more specific sensory stimulation, especially oral – not so much desensitizing him with regular brushing. She went on to say that from what I’ve told her of Karen, brushing may actually be more effective for her, but of course, I would need an OT to do a full work up.

So now I’ve gotten some leads on OTs for Karen, and her therapist’s agreement to pursue OT. The therapist admitted that her focus was dealing with emotions and that she lacked any expertise in OT. She wasn’t even able to recommend anyone. Originally, she had asked us to desist from using other therapists/therapies with Karen, but after I discussed the whole OT and sensory integration issue, and she admitted that she had no real knowledge of it, so she agreed for us to work with someone else on OT. I will make sure to connect the OT we select with our therapist so that we can pull together the information. But in the end, only a parent can really integrate all the different therapies and advice.

More opposition, and violence

Nov 21st, 2010
by Zendette.
6 comments

The kids are alright now, but last week we had emergencies and antibiotics for both of them! I had enough antibiotics to fill up my veggie bin in the fridge. It seems the sicker they get, the less they/I/we sleep.

I missed work last week to stay home with one, and then the other. It’s terrible to have to take days off when I haven’t even been there a month, but such is the life of a working mom. When they’re sick, our neighbor can’t babysit them because she can’t risk her own kids catching it. Teenagers are in school, so I’ve got to find a babysitter who is out of school and doesn’t have kids of her own. Once I find that rare creature, I’ll need to pay her a higher hourly than I earn!

Now they are feeling better, but the antibiotics suck. Karen’s moodiness got much worse. Got a call from one her friends’ mothers just now. She called to let me know that Karen kicked her daughter 3 times today…..because she wouldn’t share her cereal with Karen. I had specifically asked this mom to let me know if anything happened after her daughter came directly to me to tell me that Karen had punched her. Karen is asleep, so it’s too late to talk to her about it now, and if I bring it up in the morning, it means she will probably have another lousy day at school. Lousy for her can be anything from smart mouthing the teacher, to punching or kicking another child. I’ll need to talk to her about it tomorrow after I pick her up from school. Talking doesn’t help. We will sit and create “I’m sorry” gifts, but that doesn’t do much either. I can ban play dates for the week. I can take away her gymnastics class for this week. But that’s about it. What else can I do?

Oh, and if you’re wondering why a teacher didn’t call, so am I. The girl Karen kicked said that the assistant teacher who saw it told her it wasn’t a big deal, and that she is fine. I hate getting calls from the teachers, but I hate even more having to find out from someone else. It’s irresponsible of them not to call me, especially since they know Karen is in therapy for behavioral issues, the worst of which usually occur at school.

Our therapist isn’t an occupational therapist, and I’m wondering if we need another person to work with her. I’ve been reading about how carrying heavy things is good for kids with poor sensory integration. They sell weighted vests and other things like that. I can just make her carry her own backpack for a change, I guess….

Oppositional Defiant Disorder

Nov 12th, 2010
by Zendette.
4 comments

I finally have a “diagnosis” for Karen’s behavior. No doctor or psychologist has yet tagged her with it, but that is most likely because her therapist doesn’t want to treat a disorder, she wants to treat Karen – and our family, by extension. Our therapist did mention the phrase to me once, in passing, and I have since scoured the Internet for more information.

I have another parent meeting with K’s psychologist next week, and I’ve found more to add to the soup. Interesting how dealing with one child’s issues, overlaps and helps resolve things with the other.

Matan is getting occupational therapy to help him overcome some of his delays. Overall, he seems to function at about the age of a 20 month old. She gave us a questionnaire to complete in order to determine if he is suffering from sensory integration issues, ie, suffers from sensory overload. She recommended the “brushing treatment”, which we will begin next week. It consists of spending about 20 minutes, six times a day, to brush large portions of his skin and then put squeeze with moderate pressure on his major joints. This is supposed to help him moderate his responses to sensory overload.

After completing the questionnaire for our son, DH and I realized that when Karen was at his age, she had much more extreme responses to over stimulation than does Matan. After reading a lot of material, both online and in real books, I’ve come to the conclusion that much of Karen’s acting out may be attributable to Sensory Integration Disorder.

Topics to discuss with our therapist next week are whether Karen can also benefit from treatment for sensory integration disorder, such as the brushing we’ll be doing with her brother. I also want to know if there may be other solutions more appropriate for her age. My guess is that working with this therapist, and having the therapist guide is in parenting, will have the most influence, but it will take a long time. I like the brushing idea because I think she’ll enjoy the closeness of having me focus on her like that.

It seems that most institutionalized children suffer from sensory integration issues because they were exposed to so little in terms of their senses. Sure, they may have had music, but they had no physical closeness to a caring adult on a consistent basis. They formed no attachments. They had never seen tv, a movie, or even a car. They spent about 14 hours a day in bed, and the remainder, in a cold environment with few toys, and certainly nothing stimulating and exciting. Suddenly they find themselves in a loud and colorful world, full of motion, new creatures and people speaking a strange language. It sounds like science fiction, but when we first brought them home, both children were like aliens in a new world.

Every child responds differently. Karen went into shock after her first day out in a park full of people, dogs, bicycles, skateboarders and noisiness. She spent the next 48 hours staring listlessly, lying on the cold floor tiles and refused to eat or drink. We managed to help her pull out of it, but she continued reacting to loud events and new people and places. Now she’s a big girl, and thinks she can deal with anything. I wish she could, but she isn’t, and can’t.

A plethora of diagnoses, but few real ways to treat, except to follow a long road to creating a safe and calm situation for both children.

What religion am I?

Nov 4th, 2010
by Zendette.
No comments yet

I have had the good fortune, recently, to have met several people over social networks who hold spiritual values similar to my own. I have always been independent in my views. Born Jewish, I’ve studied and been greatly affected by Buddhism and many of my views are in line with the message of Buddha and many other teachers of his path. I also very much like the message of Christ, as a teacher, but not his divinity.

By nature, I think I’m an atheist, but I do sort of believe in Karma. In some ways, Karma is like G-d. In monotheistic religions, most believe G-d judges. My understanding of Karma is that what goes around comes around, or that by acting negatively, you generate negative energy that comes back to bite you on the ass. Maybe Karma can be seen as not so much a judge, rather a process.

As you may have noticed, my spirituality is fluid, and doesn’t work well with concrete beliefs. For example, reincarnation is an interesting concept to me. I don’t necessarily believe in it, but I can suspend my lack of belief in order to accept reincarnation for the purpose of better understanding Karma and spirituality.

Writers paid less than minimum wage?

Nov 3rd, 2010
by Zendette.
7 comments

I saw this job posted on a local website. I began my career with tech companies as a marketing writer, so I’m always interested to see what has become of the profession since I studied journalism many years ago. I thought the job posting was a bit preachy to begin with, but when I saw the salary, I immediately thought, “I have to tell someone about this. They won’t believe it”. So here I am, posting about it. They pay $4 USD (FOUR US DOLLARS) per article. They must write 6 a day. $24 dollars a day. And they have the audacity to remind you that it’s a work from home position, so you save on commute time and costs! Is anyone else outraged? With their emphasis on perfection, I would have thought they could have at least proofed this posting.

Content Writer Position

We are a financially stable, growing Internetcompany that specializes in content creation. We’re an International company with employees in the US andIsrael. Additionally, we have thousands of outstanding articles that need to bewritten.

To be a writer with us, you’ll have to have areliable Internet connection and computer. When you have technical issues, you’ll need to go to anInternet café or some other location with a reliable connection.

As a writer with us, you’ll be required towrite a minimum of 6 articles a day, 5 days a week (3 a day part-time). However, many writers complete 10 +articles a day. We will supply youwith the titles in the morning, and you’ll send them back to your team leaderby the end of the day. You are responsible for editing andproofreading your own articles. They should be submitted without any mistakes.

We pay once a month via PayPal, so you must have a PayPalaccount.

We’re currently people that can write “How-To” articles thatfollow our AP Guidelines, which you will learn about during your training.

The writing positions with our company are long-term, fulltime positions for reliable writers. This is not a short-term or temporary position.

We pay $4 per article. Take into account that this a work at home job, so there is no commutingtime or cost.

We’re only looking for reliable and dedicatedindividuals. This is a real job,and we expect our employees to be online during the agreed upon hours.

Please send yourresume and a unique writing sample to: (email omitted)

All Interviews will be conducted over Skype.

Tel Aviv is in top three cities in the world, says Lonely Planet – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News

Nov 1st, 2010
by Zendette.
2 comments

Purim in drag

Tel Aviv is in top three cities in the world, says Lonely Planet – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

“Tel Aviv is the total flipside of Jerusalem, a modern Sin City on the sea rather than an ancient Holy City on a hill,” the publisher of popular travel guides said on its website. “Hedonism is the one religion that unites its inhabitants. There are more bars than synagogues, God is a DJ and everyone’s body is a temple.” Israel’s party capital also won praise for its tolerant attitudes and thriving gay culture.

See my previous post about how great it is to live or even visit Tel Aviv.