Skylar

So, I had a big long post typed up about Skylar.  Then Josh's stupid laptop just shut off and I lost it all!  GRRRR!!!  His laptop does that sometimes ever since Gabriel threw it across the room and now the battery gets loose.  Soooo...I'm going to try this again......

Like I said, Skylar is my second-born and she is 7.  If Daniel was a perfect angel-baby...she was a demon child from birth!  Well, maybe not quite that extreme.  She was a diva.  Let's say that.  She knew what she wanted and she was going to get her way no matter what she had to do to get it.  The problem with that is BABIES CAN'T TELL YOU WHAT THEY WANT!  Due to some horrible PPD that I was suffering from after having her and her being an immediate "daddy's girl" Josh had to come up with some pretty unique ways of keeping her calm.  I remember a period of time where he would calm her down by playing Ozzy Osbourne music.  I don't know if it scared her into silence or if it spoke to her inner demon...but it worked!   She would be screaming and he'd try to feed her and change her and it wouldn't work so he'd just play some Ozzy. Ok, whatever works!
When she was a toddler she would throw some epic tantrums!  Oh, she was so cute and charming...when she was getting her way!
School has been very hard for Skylar.  In kindergarten she had trouble paying attention, and making friends, and doing anything that she didn't want to do!  She would get very nervous and would sit and pull her hair out...or go to the nurse a lot.  We tried Girl Scouts, but it made her more nervous.  She would not do any work that she didn't want to do unless her teacher showered her with praise and attention and/or gave her prizes.  By the end of the year she was acting out by stealing from other kids in the class.
At home she was having violent explosions.  She would be just fine and then all of a sudden she would start screaming and violently attack anyone near her.  During this time she also started climbing out of the upstairs windows and she broke a window out during a tantrum.  We nailed the windows shut and she started therapy and got on some meds for her anxiety and a mood stabilizer.
1st grade started out ok.  As the year went on, though, she was going to the nurse more and more.  And then all Hell broke loose.  Not just for Skylar, but the entire family.  In Dec. 2010 my grandma died.  It was a huge blow to the family.  Skylar took it VERY hard.  She was sad a lot.  She worked with her therapist and started some extra grief counseling, but she was just sad a lot.  Then in February 2011 Josh went to check on his father one day and found him dead.  That was probably the most traumatic thing this family has experienced together.  Skylar took this even WORSE than she did my grandma's death.  She was VERY close to her grandpa...she was his little princess.  At school she started acting out.  She was going to the nurse almost every day and refusing to do any work at all.  At the beginning of March my mother got pneumonia and was in the ICU for a long time and came very close to dying.  I spent several days out of town to be with her and then even after I came home I went back up there a couple times to see her.  We tried to keep the seriousness of the situation away from Skylar, but I think she sensed that something terrible was going on.  In April 2011 Skylar had her first break-down at school.  She tried to run out of the building, was running up and down the halls screaming, and had kicked the teacher and the school social worker.  I came to the school and we were able to get her to calm down enough to leave with me.  The next day she did it again!  This continued several more times.  Her therapist was working a lot with her but her behaviors were getting more and more extreme.  One day she completely cleared the classroom!  She threw desks and books and trashed the entire room.  She even tried to throw the class lizard!  After a terrible incident where she was bashing her own head on the walls and floor, I made the decision to put her in the hospital.  She was there for about a week.  But she was back to her old tricks when she came out.  We got an attendant care provider to sit with her at school..it helped a little bit but it also gave her a new target.  One day she was suspended for trying to stab her attendant care with a pair of scissors!  We were able to determine that she sometimes has panic attacks that set off her outbursts.  Sometimes they are set off due to her trying to get her way.  And sometimes she is just trying to get attention.
Then the summer came.  Her attendant care provider, case manager, and therapist continued to work with her.  She still had meltdowns from time to time, and she was still very defiant...but she wasn't having major explosions all the time.  We decided when school started back up that her attendant care provider would be with her all day, every day, starting the first day of school.  She only made it about 5 hours before we got our first phone call!  She was sad and wanted to come home.  I talked her into staying, though.  Two days later she had to come home because she went to sleep at school and wouldn't stay awake.  That was a Friday.  On Monday she was suspended for the first time this school year (only 5 days after school started!)...she had one of her meltdowns and I had to come get her.  We had a meeting at the school and they are trying to get some extra services for her...but with tiny budgets and no extra staff, it's hard.  So, that's where we are with Skylar.  She's been in the 2nd grade for 4 weeks and she's been sent home three times.  We've had several phone calls where we've had to "talk her down" and we just don't know what else to do at this point.  We basically take each day minute by minute.  I really don't know why she is this way...and we really are doing the best we can to get help for her.

Ok, this post took me over an hour to make and the kids are all throwing tantrums and threatening mutiny if I don't get my ass in the kitchen and fix them some damn tacos!