Posts Tagged by ADDventures

The boy insisted on pulling the heavy 20 kg bag of sand to the box hmself.. he did a great job! heavy sensory therapy work DIY style.

He’s been in the sand box ever since. The sand has always been one of his most favourite things to do. I can currently hear him humming to himself under the cherry tree playing with cars in the sand.

We live in a very rural area, and about 12 klm from town of about 5000. there they have a fitness and aqua center,  and this week I got the kids signed up for programs there.

We have a great community, that helps low income families like ours pay for such programs so they can attend. Honestly the gas in and of itself twice a week makes the budget tight for the next 8 weeks, but the program is covered, and the kids benefit from it tremendously in many ways.

Socially, physically, and even mentally and therapeutically for their sensory integration issues.

So for their age groups I have them in a gym and swim program, the girl had an hour of swimming ( informal swimming and water games, and some guidance, not lessons, but coaching just the same) and then an hour in the gym for a rules/lead game and some tumble and roll, trampoline gymnastics stuff.

She will be going every Wednesday evening, and then the boy will be in a similar set up on Thursday mornings for the next 8 weeks, but I need to attend with him and coach him in the pool, formal level red cross swimming lesson, with one leader/coach guiding us teaching our kid.

Anyway. her first night was tonight, and got the low down on all the boys who cheated at the games they played in the gym…ever the rules police she is Aspie kids are stickler for rules, and don’t adjust well to change. She has the added issue of being ADHD as well, and gets easily side tracked, so because of these things, she was terribly worried about going, that no one would like her, that she can’t swim very good, and she sucks at sports like soccer.

When we got there we discovered that due to pool availability, the swim portion of the 2 hour program is first. Which I think is really rather shitty, cause she’ll have to shower off the pool chemicals from her body to go to gym, and do all that in a timely fashion, AND then she’ll sweat and stink in the gym, and come home and need to shower again!
With a child who has an issues with time management, getting side tracked, and anxiety about changing in front of other girls, this could really put a major crimp in her liking this program at all. She was VERY upset…it’s different from how the program ran last year, so she was all bent out of shape over that at first….and she NEVER showers for less than 15 minutes, and THEN takes 15 minutes to dry and change….so I can’t just drop her off for a 2 hour free time in town, and then pick her up… I need to be there in the middle of the 2 hours, for the switch over, to ensure she stays on track. It is a good lesson for her to work at, and would be helpful, but still, not what we understood, not what we planned, and i can’t just take 2 hours to do errands, or maybe even enjoy a break at the library, or whatever, without needing to be back there an hour into it, and then hang around for 45 minutes left of the program.

But even with that…she had a good first night, and she was happy to be the first person dressed and ready for gym.

I’m glad she enjoyed it and came home with a smile on her face, and excited about it.

I’m really pleased with her instructor/leader. She eased into it well, though she was terrified and almost in tears at the beginning.

I hope that he is a sign of changes happening with a new generation of community leaders/teachers/coaches etc we are about to see more in upcoming years as my children and children with special needs are being accepted.

He’s energetic and young ( about 18/19) and great with the kids, and was receptive to my suggestions to make my girls’s experience better, to help lower her anxiety in social situations, and how to give her warnings for changing events/transitions easier. He didn’t know much about it, but he generally understood Aspergers and ADHD and was positive about her maybe needing a little extra coaching to stay on track.

I watched him interact with the kids in the pool, and with the kids in the gym, and leading the games, and He’s a positive verbal encourager, but not unfairly, and he high fives all the kids and makes them feel positive about their contributions….you can tell he is fresh in the game and loves his job.

I want more of this in my children’s future. He was a pleasure to watch coach the kids.

Tomorrow at 9:45, I’ll be back there with a great female instructor we know from my sons program last year, and last year he was very shy due to his CAPD…but he ASKED to go back this year, and is very excited about tomorrow. She’s in her mid 20′s, and she is just as great.

I rant a lot sometimes, so it is nice when I have the opportunity to share nice things

Because being poor and not creative would really be hell!

a lot of the stuff we have, are things we recycle, build fix.

This week I rescued an old dresser that is all busted up and was set to burn in a garbage pile at the dump. I saved it, and am currently re purposing it, into a garden arrangement. I’m painting it white, adding chicken wire to the top dressers on the front, filling it with dirt and going to grow flowers and herb out of it.

It’s going in my tea garden on the front of the house.

Also, today I salvaged a skid/pallet “shed” from the local hardware store. i think it had come with garden center supplies on it, and the local hotdog wagon vendor guy had put a roof on it to hold his supplies, and then dumped it off in the “free wood” pile near the store.

The kids saw it yesterday and mentioned it would make a cool clubhouse.

So today when I went into town, I took the trailer and grabbed it. it was HEAVY, and awkward to move around but I did it. it is now in the back yard waiting for some reinforcements, paint, and fixing up with other scrap wood, singles and windows etc, I have salvaged, or will in the near future.

Rural life was meant for me…this is ME, I am in my element when I’m doing this stuff

I’m pretty sure “rustic” as a decor, was invented by people with ADHD

I can’t wait to post pictures of the dresser, and show the ongoing progress of the clubhouse

I just took a sponge bath…so,I challenge you to take a sponge bath this week. using only 8 cups of hot water.

Why?

We have run out of propane to heat the hot water heater, so we are “roughing it” until the propane gets filled in a few days.

though, I’d hardly call no hot water right out of the tap roughing it, for where I come from. But I am sure there are some people in the world who have never even thought of where their hot water comes from.

I used to have to sponge bath when I was a kid. Not “often”, but enough to be familiar with the concept, and the ability to wash my whole body, my hair, and rinse off with 8 cups of hot water, mixed half and half in the tub with cold water, using nothing but a cloth and a cup.

now I am all clean and and feeling fresh after a grubby day of yard work

I enjoyed it…could live like this all the time if I had to and would not blink an eye, or mind all that much. I’m

It is amazing to me how much we are users and wasters in our daily lives.

the boy: “<whining> mommmmmy, she won’t let me have a taste of her icecream! tell her to give me a taste!”
the girl: “I’m not giving him a taste of my ice cream, he never even offered me a piece of his brownie!”
the boy: “Yes I did!mommy i did offer her a price of my brownie!”
Me: “If she doesn’t want to give you a taste of her ice cream, she doesn’t have to”
the boy: “but mommy! i did offer her!”
The girl: “no you did not!”
the boy” I did, see right here, i offered you this large crumb, not you have to give me a taste of your icecream!”
at this point I started to laugh my ass off and had to tell him that a large crumb offer does not guarantee you a taste of icecream.
Sorry I think I must be really tired from the trip to the city… cause I found this extremely funny.

The stigma of living with ADHD is pretty negative at times. The negative impact it has on our day to day lives, and the people we live with can get pretty stressful. So stressful in fact that without help from medications to regulate brain chemistry, and being on top of RIGID routines to make life easier, we can end up being sucked down the big black ADHD holes of depression and inability to cope.

I grew up not knowing I had ADHD. I was just told I was lazy, and stupid, and bad, a daydreamer, etc. I didn’t learn to cope with my ADHD well, and now in my 30′s I’m basically teaching myself stuff i should have learned when i was younger. Kids today have advantages in the life skills with ADHD arena.But it is still not easy.

Some people think living with ADHD is a walk in the park because we get prescription drugs that are basically cousins in chemical make up to drugs that people take to get high, like Meth. ( drugs that have been around since 1955 BTW)

People see celebrities like Richard Branson, or Robin Williams ( with suspected ADHD) and think it must be a blast to have ADHD.

People make comments about being on medications for it, like we’ve somehow cheated a system to be granted legal narcotics, so we can get high.

As representatives of ADHD, you see these celebs as jovial, and friendly, and chatty. They are daredevils in racecars, or actors or comediens, business people, teachers, even doctors.

But you don’t see us ADDers among you scramble to keep a house clean, make dinner on time,get our kids out the door in a presentable fashion, With everything they need. You don’t see us struggle to  make appointments on time, and the stress it causes us internally.You don’t see us struggle to keep a job, struggle to pay for these medications that are far more expensive then any street drug.

You don’t see us search for the 10th time this week for our missing car keys because we got side tracked or interrupted in the middle of putting them away, and we laid them down someplace, and we only realize it when we are already 5 minutes late to an appointment, or lunch with you. You don’t see that we are late because we also didn’t have any clean socks.

ADDers live a life of secret embarrassment for these kinds of things. We blame the traffic, or roll our eyes and say “kids! what are ya gonna do?” or we say ” hey I thought you said  <insert what ever time is cloest to us not being late but just on time>, I’m sorry about that.”

We have to do things like set our clocks a half hour earlier and get everywhere a half hour before, just to ensure a “saftey zone” in our schedules to allow for ADHD blunders and mixups.

People with ADHD make mistakes, A LOT. Daily. hourly. We struggle to keep up in a world with standards and time tables set by people who don’t have ADHD.

So, as a person with ADHD it really pisses me off when people make jokes about my medication, or imply that I must be a “happy mommy” because I take amamphetamines to “get through the day”. Or they joke and ask me how I pulled off an ADHD diagnoasis just to “score”. They say things like ” nice deal if you can get it”

So…

Just to clarify…

An Amphetamine is a psychostimulant drug that is known to produce increased wakefulness and focus in association with decreased fatigue and appetite. Amphetamine is related to drugs such as methamphetamine and dextroamphetamine, which are a group of potent drugs that act by increasing levels of norepinephrine, serotonin and dopamine in the brain.  All chemicals, if you bothered to look into it further,that you’d know ADDers have  lower levels of.

We chose to put these chemicals in our systems, because it alters our brain chemistry to try and put us on a par level with people who don’t struggle through life with a sleepy brain, and so we can live better among a society who sees us as “broken, annoying, and beneath the rest” that need to be fixed.

FYI the hyper activity of ADHD is CAUSED by LACK of the chemicals those drugs help our bodies produce at more “normal” levels in order to STOP the hyperactivity. To bring us UP to a level of  “normal” functioning like you have the ability to do just by breathing. We don’t take them to make us high. Bt they’d likely make YOU high.

I personally struggle in the morning to wake up because those chemicals are so low in my system. I could just sleep all the time without my ADHD medication. Did you know there are scientifically proven links between ADHD and narcolepsy

In order to be able to just walk to the bathroom upright in the morning, due to the morning haze my ADHD brain has, I have to set two alarms, one to take my meds and snooze back asleep until they start to wake me up more due to the chemicals in my brain rising from the help of the meds, and then I wake up to the second alarm, and even then STILL, it takes my brain at least an hour to feel functional. When my meds wear off toward the end of their effectivenes in the day, as a mother and wife I still have a lot of  “work ” to do to keep a family with special needs functioning, and prepared for tomorrow.

If I don’t remember my meds one day, we fall out of routines and things get way out of sync, and we all must struggle to get back on track, because I go around in a scatterbrained haze unable to accomplish much of anything.

If I take my meds too late in the day, my brain is wide awake, and I can’t get to sleep and I’ll find myself awake at 4 am, planning a menu for the month, or tweeting, or watching  movie, because my brain then won’t shut down until the chemicals dwindle down to a lower level to bring on sleep.

And, just so you understand the cycle… once my brain is FINALLY sleepy from the lack of chemicals again needed to stay awake… my brain will just want to stay sleepy, and we start the cycle the next morning all over again.

ADHD medication make us not want to eat as much and people struggle to get in the proper daily intake to remain healthy. This is especially a concern with children who are still growing.

I’m not sure what the Non ADHD world thinks, but having ADHD is not all fun and games. People with ADHD come from higher rates of divorced homes due to the chaos and stress ADHD traits cause in everyday living.  Adults with ADHD, struggle in relationships to find a balance that works, and also have a higher rate of divorce.

People with ADHD have increased risk of drug and alcohol abuse ( trying to self medicate a constant sleepy brain), have higher rates of severe low self esteem and depression than the general population, as well as debilitating anxiety problems, and higher suicide rates.

Ya! pretending to have ADHD when I was 6 months pregnant and depressed to get a diagnosis finally, just to not be able to get any help with my brain chemistry for over a year, due to breastfeeding  my son was a SURE sign I was looking for a quick cheap legal high.

HAHA YOU R FUNNY!

Oh? it is just a joke? oh. my bad…I’m such a stiff!

People with ADHD have higher rates of being in lower income levels due  to struggling through school with learning difficulties, keeping jobs due to ADHD interrupting their ability to do their job to expected standards ( late for work, poor performance on bad days, forgetting projects due etc)

People with ADHD try to be upbeat and positive because we have SO MUCH negative stuff in our lives to deal with. Prescription drugs for ADHD is not a COPING thing. We are not getting high. Shit, smoking pot in highschool didn’t make me high, it made me normal! YA that was fun! Everyone else was giddy and high as a kite, and I was able to finally focus enough to go home and do my homework for the first time in my highschool career.

Our meds are helpers to the chemicals our brain cannot produce well enough on their own.PLAIN AND SIMPLE.

You’re stigma, prejudice and “jokes”  are offensive. PLAIN AND SIMPLE.

So if you are gonna look in my face and say to me that my drugs make me hyper, or happy, or that ADHD can just be “cured or solved” with some basketball… well, sorry to be so blunt, but I’m gonna have to say…

FUCK YOU!

Plain and Simple.

YMCA Vancouver Paid Ad in a local paper. Charlene Giovannetti-King, the YMCA Vice President of Funds Development directly linked to the Advertisement said “We don’t see this really as a mistake” on a CBC radio interview with Rick Cluff.

It is amazing what 11 years will do for a point of view.

Not being full of myself in anyway, I’m sharing from my heart, because I see a lot of people hurting seemingly searching for “the right one”, or for “more” or are sad about where they are in their life right now.

Love is difficult. but when you bring baggage and neurodiversities to the table..it makes it even harder.

I don’t wanna be that ” look at her all up in her perfect life telling ME how to be happy” because my life is far from perfect. I just chose not to look at it that way. I wanted to share what 11 years has taught me…If you care to know…read on.

If you are reading books on the meaning of life, how to be happy, how to find the person of your dreams and other books promising you the answer, but still can’t seem to find real love no matter how many people you date. Or, you think the relationship you are in sucks because it is too boring, you fight too much, neither of you look as good as you once did and have grown too far apart emotionally, or the kids are too much work, and you sadly wonder if there is more to life than crunchy cheerios in the carpet, and paying the bills, there is a simple answer.

Change your mind. That’s it. Just change how you look at it.

As a kid growing up with ADHD and other neurodiversities, I had a rough time. I wasn’t the pretty girl, or popular, i fact I was considered to be “non datable” and was the fat girl in school. Graduation could not come soon enough. I HATED SCHOOL. I moved away from home at 18 as soon as I graduated from high school hoping to find happiness and maybe find my Wesley to save me, since he wasn’t coming to get me.

I ended up married to a man 13 years older then me. Fast forward a few years and I was 23 & newly divorced from a guy I married for financial security and the wedding party. Yes I readily admit I married to have the party, the gown, the reception, the gifts…I was 20,it’s what all little girls want. I fooled myself and settled early cause I didn’t figure anyone would want ME.

Evidently, we could not have children together, and that was all I really wanted anyway…because babies would love me unconditionally, and I grieved the loss of three pregnancies in those years.

Coming out of that marriage, I was broken, and hurt, and reading those dating books and magazine articles, thinking no one would EVER REALLY love me. So, I decided to stop looking, and work on me.

I’m not sure why it happened the way did for me, because I had a LOT of work on me to do, but when I simply decided to stop looking for validation from someone else for my worth,my soul mate came into my life instantly. It turns out I needed him in my life to do that growing, which I’m still doing today!

So, read the following and decide right now to STOP LOOKING, and love yourself. Because everything else after that, is a bonus.

1)Be yourself. if you don’t like who you are, make the changes needed to love who you are and make no apologies for who you are to anyone. Love yourself enough to be true to yourself and hold out for the right one who will love you for who you are. Not love you for the “dating made up you” you stop being after the wedding, I mean the REAL “this is how I look with the flu” you. Don’t settle…no matter what. Make damn sure you love HIM/HER for real too. Stop searching so hard, and just let it happen, you never know when “the one” is going to show up, and where that might be. When you listen to true love stories of long time married couples, the “how we met” stories vary greatly. You’ll know if he/she is the one…even if everyone around you is telling you otherwise.

2)Realize how wonderful a person he/she really is for loving YOU, and DON’T RUN AWAY IN FEAR. If you do, be brave enough to ask to come back, if it is real love, you’ll get it back.

3)Hang onto him/her forever NO MATTER WHAT, but don’t marry him/her unless you REALLY believe in for better or worse, sickness & health, and REALLY REALLY know what that means.

4)Be comfortable in your own skin, THAT is what makes you sexy, no matter what you wear, or weight

5)Love him completely everyday & he’ll love you back. Even when you are mad, think of a reason you love him.

6)Never go to bed angry, even if it means staying up till dawn working it out. really and truly, this is very important. It doesn’t mater how tired you are the next day.

7)While you are looking for him/her… Don’t care if EVERY MAN/WOMAN falls in love with you. Just care that the RIGHT man/woman stays in love with you when you find them. If you follow these tips, you’ll soon know the difference.

8)If other’s envy you for finding your true love and being happy in ANY circumstance that came your way…be compassionate and tell them how they can have it too. If they can’t hear it right now, it’s just not the right time for them to hear it.

9)Realize real love is not like it is in the movies, so don’t base it on the romantic movies you watch and wish for fairy tales.

10) Like the rest of life, love it is real, and funny and happy and sad, and can hurt, and can make you soar like your flying high. It can hurt like you are being burned by the sun.

Real love endures EVERY moment in life, no matter what that moment brings you. It doesn’t run away when it gets tough. Sometimes it might start to run away, but then it comes back.

Even when you think that you are so close to letting it slip away, or giving up out of fear, anger, frustration, hurt, real love will be there, enduring every moment with you.

If you are in a moment in your life that is hurting deeply right now and this seems impossible to you. Save it anyway, and come back to it now and then. One day you’ll be saying it too.

Real love takes WORK, it is not something that just IS. It might be work, but it is SOOOO worth it… every single moment of it. Yes even the bad moments, because they help define the good and the great moments.

If you asked me how I know, I’ll tell you….11 years ago tonight I found real love, and we’ve been through all those things, and will be again and again, and the one thing I DO know is that when we go to sleep at night ( or at 6 am because we had things to hash out) we go to bed loving each other, and when we wake up in the morning, we greet another day knowing we have each others back, while holding each others hand facing the world together.

If you have don’t have that, you can. It’s not a fairy tale. Like making it to the Olympics. it takes work, and practice. Or, perhaps you already do have that and because it is not packaged up nice like a romantic movie, you don’t recognize it, or you simply forgot in the hecticness of day to day living.

There have been a lot of real moments in the last 11 years…and everyone is important, but the top moments for me have been when he first kissed me, touching his hand to my face like I was the most beautiful woman in the world, when he caught our daughter at her birth, when he caught our son when he was born, and every moment in between when he caught me because I stumbled or fell.

That my friends, is what can’t really be put in a book about “Mars and Venus”, and sell as “how to find the perfect mate” because it is not gimmicky and won’t make the top bestsellers list or Oprah’s book club choice of the month about how to tell if a guy is “not that into you”

Love YOURSELF, and you will be loved back.

*I* should know better…I had a nephew from my first marriage die from fatigue driving 3 months before our wedding. He was supposed to be our groomsmen. Driving home after a long shift at work, and visiting his girlfriend, at 5 am, he fell alseep. Just like that… Gone.

*I* SHOULD know better…In our rural area, last year a well respected, well known  business man, driving in the wee hours of the morning along a straight stretch, getting close to home, fell asleep, and hit a tree.  Just like that…Gone.

I have family who are long haul truckers, who have to follow rules to stop and rest….I’ve driven from Nova Scotia to Ontario straight through MANY times, sharing shifts at the wheel when we each got tired…so  if anybody should….*I* SHOULD KNOW BETTER.

I would never dream of drinking and driving…but when you’re tired…eh, who’s NOT tired this day and age right?

It’s been 3 busy days for me…during a very hot spell this summer, and I’ve had a terrible time going to sleep, and getting terrible sleep at best of the 6 to 7 hours I’ve gotten the last 2 nights. I could give you all the reasons WHY I’m tired, but we all have them. I’m on my period, so I’m more scatter brained, the joys of ADD to add to the whole situation.

But, even when you are tired you do what you need to do, and we needed bread,milk and eggs,some other essentials, and a new door for our house that we need to install before winter.

Home Depot had a door on sale, and we new it was ‘now or never” purchase opportunity. I was tired before we left around supper time. I was cranky, and hot…the kids were driving me nuts all day, being tired and cranky and hot too.

The city is about 35 minute drive from where we live. Due to my husband’s illness,  I’m the driver in our family. Shopping under the stress of tired whiny kids, while I am tired just wears me out more. But this is usual, and we knew this ahead of time, but we went, because we had to. We did what we needed to do hopping at 4 different stores over a 4 hour time period or so. On the way out of the city we grabbed some fast food to eat on the way home.

We sat in the van to eat it, and then I started our 35 or so minute drive home on dark two lane rural roads on a Friday night after 11 pm

My husband mentions to me that he hates driving home at this hour because you never know what kind of idiot is out trying to drive home drunk. This is a fact I’d considered based on the fact that the drive into the city during  daylight hours didn’t inspire any confidence by the way the oncoming traffic was being reckless trying to pass in badly chosen places, tail gating and speeding etc.

Traffic is not heavy, but for a Friday night in a rural/tourist area, it is steady enough with oncoming cars.

Some people are forgetting to turn off their high beams at the right time and are practically blinding me, making my already exhausted brain need to concentrate more to not be drawn to their lights like a moth to a flame. That really aggravates me, too, it’ is not like they don’t know I’m coming.

So, I pay attention to the corner of the pavement I’m driving on in my lane to avoid looking right at the headlights, to ensure I pass safely. I’m aware than I move a little to the right each time an oncoming car passes me. I’m trying to be safe.

I drive half way home sipping warm coke from a can, eating sweets and talking to my husband, shifting positions, doing what I need to to stay alert and awake. He hardly drives these days due to his disability, and he’s in a lot of pain today. I don’t want to ask him to drive. He’s tweeting on his Black Berry to a friend and telling me about the conversation to keep me alert.

We were not far from our destination. which is  “just going home from grocery and home repair supply shopping”. He’s tweeting on his cell phone. Just another shopping trip. I’m always tired anyway.

He mentions I’m swerving a bit on the road. I say “I’m fine hon, just a bit tired”. It’s a reminder for me to pay closer attention. He says, its starting to freak him out a bit.

I decide half way home to stop & try to jar some adrenaline into my system, even though adrenalin is short lived, it’s worked before, and we are closer to home. I did jumping jacks, breathed fresh air, stretched, jogged a bit back and forth, drank more caffeine…just like countless other times that always work.

I get back in the van, and it’s ok, though I still am needing to concentrate more then I usually need to.

We make it to the little town just a few more minutes from where we live rurally, and I tell myself, it’s not far now…I think my brain starts to let it’s guard down now due to this knowledge.

We drive through the one main street of our town, checking out the lack of action going on in our little town at almost midnight.

I don’t even realize I’m having a micro dose until i “wake” from one. It feels like I’m not even really ever NOT aware of what’s going on, and no one else notices. A little more adrenaline makes my heart pump a bit, and makes me more alert, and I drive past the Tim Horton’s.

When I dozed this time Just a few feet up the street, my husband screamed my name and grabbed the wheel to jerk the wheel to the left miss a parked car in front of the flower shop I just about plowed into going 50 KLM, with no ability to brake for impact because I don;t see it coming.

He tells me to pull over now.

I do.

I’m in such a mental state of shock that I dozed that long or bad, that my heart is not even pounding. I notice my state of tired, and wonder how it got to that point.

I apologize, and we take a moment for HIM to slow his heart rate. I’m grateful he’s not freaking out on me. I mean we just avoided an accident. a very serious accident.What if he had been asleep like sometimes he does on the way home. What if that had of happened while we were on the road doing 70 to 80 KLM with oncoming traffic!

I’m too tired to even have adrenaline over that jar and have my heart pound so hard I can hear my heart beat in my head.

We switch and he drives home the last 10 klm. I’m grateful he does, I’m so exhausted I doze on and off on the way home, now suddenly jarring awake here and there worrying about HIM being awake enough to drive home. He’s fine, not sleepy, just in pain from his illness. I feel out of my element in the passenger side of our van, where I rarely sit but am releived to be right then.

When we get home, I bring in everything that we bought, door included, the kids go to bed and then crash…I have sleep to catch up on and I suck much! and don’t tell me I don’t.

When I woke up this morning, the slider door on the van was open, because I’d forgotten and left i open when taking our sleeping son up to bed.

The sobering effects of this event have not Left me, and I won’t allow them to.

And I wrote this, so hopefully YOU won’t either.

Stop depriving yourself of sleep. And Don’t Drive if you are feeling that tired.

To Husband and the kids…I’m sorry.

To my husband… thankyou.

Some fatigue Driving facts

A report produced by the Highway Safety Roundtable, compiles some of the latest available research on the consequences of driver fatigue. It linked to the deaths of some 400 Canadians every year to driver fatigue.

“The message is very clear that a lot more Canadians are driving tired on our roads than anyone has ever thought before, or ever wanted to admit before, and it is a very serious road safety issue. We really have to be a lot more aware of the dangers of fatigue than we have been up until now.”

-Mark Yakabuski, president of the Insurance Bureau of Canada.

Research based on Ontario traffic data suggests a long day at work could be triggering collisions, since most accidents involving fatigue occur between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. and on Fridays.

The most fatal fatigue-related crashes occur between 1 a.m. and 7 a.m.

“Fatigue is likely being under-reported, because police don’t have a good way to determine when it is a factor in a crash – unless drivers admit they were fatigued” – Yoassry Elzohairy, senior safety research adviser for the Ontario Ministry of Transportation.

A 2005 study also found one in five drivers admitted to falling asleep behind the wheel during the previous 12 months.

Yes, you read that right, and let me be the first to admit that I let my kids play with dangerous things.

OMGZ!! I’m a terrible mother! But wait! Why not read the rest before you go calling the appropriate authorities on me. I let them do it for their own good. If you are still worried when I’ve said my peice, I’ll give you the “evidence” you need to know just how terrible a mother I really am!

Looking back, I think sometimes that people didn’t see my learning disabilities/ADHD and audio processing issues as a kid because I was outside a lot playing, doing the things of my own accord, just being a kid.

You know, doing the things, that we as parents now with kids with these same kinds of issues pay people who call themselves occupational therapists a LOT of money to schedule into their daily routine as therapy.

We pay them to first figure out what kind of PLAY will best help our kids issues, and then we pay them more to get our kids to play on padded mats in rooms with trained spotters and safety equipment, and guess what…our kids usually HATE it, because it is associated with their “issues that need to be fixed”

It is sad, that it has come to us paying to practically force our kids to finger paint and stick their hands in beans, tumble and roll, and jump and climb up plastic fake rock walls and listen to music.

When I was a kid that was free, how moms just knew what to do to keep kids busy and something I WANTED to do even if my mom DIDN’T want me to.

We live rural and we somehow manage to survive on a pretty low disability income due to my husband’s health. Affording occupational therapy for my kids numerous  sensory issues is out of our financial reach and not covered by our government, as well as too far away physically to even afford to GET to, never mind pay for.

So, I do what worked for me when I was a kid. I just let my kids be kids.

Our back yard is our therapy room. I’m working on recreating a space in our workshop for the winter months when outdoors are too cold for daily events.

When my son starts spinning in the kitchen for vestibular stimulation, or stands on the furniture and sits on the rocking chair upside down to watch TV because his “brain can’t make him stop” I send him outside to jump and play, and be a kid. OR if i can’t send him outside,I have what I didn’t have as a kid to help him, a round of Wii Fit jogging, on the Wii.

I’m not a lisenced occupational therapist, but it is not rocket science folks. I’ve read dozens or more books on this stuff, I have two active kids with sensory issues, and my own issues to be my case studies. I have read dozens of websites on therapy related products and what they “accomplish” when used on kids with my kids sensory issues and can figure out for myself what I can do at home to accomplish the same thing for free or cheaper.

Being an occupational therapist means figuring out what things a person needs help with, and giving them exercises to benefit them and help them improve or maintain ability. I call it being an “Ability Growth Coach™” , and it is pretty simple.

As my kids Ability Coach, I let them play with rocks, and sticks. They take mud and cake it together with leaves and make pies. I let them play in the backyard with wood and rope, and build a teeter totter.

They swing on rope swings I’ve made them for nothing for sensory stimulation that calms their nervous systems and slows the hyperactivity down, and I even let them figure out gravity for themselves when they stand and balance on an old bike rim and topple off.

I let them climb trees without being duct taped in bubble wrap for protection. I even let them play on an old rusty metal play set at our local drive-in.

All in the name of Therapy… ahh who am I kidding, I let them do it because they love it, and it is fun, and it is what they want to do.

Kids generally know their limits and will safely test their limitations out…they won’t climb higher in the tree than they feel comfortable with. If they do, they’ll fear it for a bit, puzzle it out, and usually eventually figure out a way to get down on their own.

I’m tired of our society limiting my choices available to me as a parent by banning and/or by creating new laws and standards everyday we must adhere to, or fear the dreadful knock on the door from CAS/CPS because some busy body neighbor thinks we are allowing our kid to play unsafely or “unsupervised” (i.e. not having one eyeball glued to the kids butt)

I’m tired of our governments thinking we need to save us from ourselves. But I guess when you cannot ban stupidity or carelessness in humans, the next best thing is to protect them from themselves.

Yes, over the last 25 years since I was my own occupational therapist as a kid, other kids have been hurt badly or killed by things we no longer allow. I have my own battle scars and stories for each one of my own injuries.

Sure, it was likely unecessary for them to have been hurt/killed.I’m sure you probably know someone personally who was. I’m not heartless. It is sad when someone dies or gets hurtfor any reason. But, if I took the time to break them down for you here (I have done it before) the stats on such things is miniscule. The number of incidents are so minimal when you average out the population number in total, and the numbers hurt by any one thing, you’d have better chances of being killed on the way home tonight from work. So, why are we not banning cars?

My kids love  to play. Ya, maybe they get a scrape or a bruise here or there,  splinter, a thumb hammered accidently,but they are learning and they are not in real danger. They are also learning when they get a splinter, how NOT to do that again, and how to get out a splinter and treat the wound without running off to the ER like they’ve severed a limb.

IT amazes me how my kids fall down and bump themselves, check with me, get some hugs and a “you’re ok” first aid when I assess they are ok, and  they pick up and keep going when some other kids cry for a half hour and the parent is off to the ER concerned about a concussion, while blaming the equipment the kid was on for being unsafe.

The equipment isn’t “unsafe”. It’s  always a “risk” like everything in life. Their assessment of the situation, and handeling of the outcome just sucks. THOSE kinds of parents are who got merry go rounds, and slides that are “too high and dangerous” outlawed. Those are the kind of people that got baby walkers banned in Canada.

GROAN!

So, I’ll get off my soapbox now, but here’s the evidence if you want to call the local authorities on me…this is my kids this afternoon playing, I mean doing their therapy. Not ONLY did they do that, but it was a homeschooling lesson as well in math, physics, engineering, constructing/industrial arts, phys-ed, Leadership skills, team work skills, and they don’t even know it!

What they don’t realize they are doing will do them a lifetime of good.

sigh…..where do I even begin with THIS one… ugggg… my poor husband….he is such an amazing man to put up with everything that ADD has a part in for the chaos that is often our life caused by me.

IT’s been a rather interesting week or so, you see…I’m hitting menopause…yes, at 34 years old. I’m on the way out of the childbearing years. I knew it was likely to come earlier then typical for most, because all the women in my family have started their journey to “mature womanhood” around this age.

As such I’ve been having a lot of issues related to hormones…typical ones like heavier periods, longer ones, then shorter ones, hormones and mood fluctuations. Not to mention hitting a sexual peak for being REALLY interested and easily aroused, and being REALLY REALLY scatterbrained!

So today the BIG ADD moment and screw up was I drove to the city for about 20 KLM with the parking brake on.. yes folks… totally in a daze… mostly a sexual one, being all hot and bothered for my hubby sitting beside me smelling so damn hot, while we flirted obscurely without the kids aware of what we were saying from the back seat. I drove with the parking brake on. You see I have a check list I do for a lot of stuff I do, to make sure I do them…habits that I’ve come to incorporating to make sure I don;t make scatterbrained mistakes. IF I get side tracked from them,,, my world starts to unravel and I make a LOT of mistakes. So I forgot to do my checklist hen I got in the car before I put the car in drive.

It was NOT a nice moment when hubby realized it… I had to pull over the van and he got out and walked off the steam coming from his head from the anger at THAT one… the brakes are not good at best right now, and then I go an do that

THAT was a crappy moment

We managed to make it through the rest of our trip relatively unscathed from my lack of ability to concentrate well, and are home now.. kids are fed and in bed. and I’m heading there now too. To take advantage of this new shift in sexual interest I have to THOROUGHLY make it up to hubby for the day we had !