Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Rollercoaster of Emotions... a 2E parent's ride

Hi all:

Now that my dd is happily settled into first grade with no anxiety, solid team support on the ld's and IEP and a great teacher who seems to understand her I have turned my focus to learning all I can about what she will need moving forward. I am in the middle of 5 or 6 different books - many recommended here ( The Misunderstood Child is amazing!). I am finding that the more I read the more emotions I am starting to feel about this whole situation. Did any of you go through this?

At first it was just a mad attack to gain as much information as I could to get her settled into a new school year in the proper place and with the proper support. Now I guess I have hit the stage where I feel sad about the difficulties she will face alternating with pride that she is such an amazing little person. Then there is fear about what the future may hold for her. Will she ever have the chance to make use of that amazing little brain with all these ld's to overcome? Then of course there is guilt - as I read more and more I am identifying some of my own issues and many of DH's. It leaves me feeling like this poor kid never had a chance with the genetic pool we offered her.

And then there is the anger - WHY didn't anyone at the last school recognize what was going on or listen to me when I tried to address it? And then of course more guilt over how could we have subjected her to that environment. Then occasionally pride that despite no support from the school we were able to find this early and get proper services in place.

DH is also experiencing this although his own dyslexia is making it very difficult for him to read as much or as fast as me. He is feeling totally guilty but also found out in the midst of this that during his own childhood the special ed teacher from his elementary school approached his parents several times with concerns about him and they refused to listen. "Boy it really would have been nice to get some help." So now he is beating himself up over what he passed along to her and also feeling resentment about what might have been possible if only he had the support he needed.

So anyone else experience this rollercoaster of emotions? On one hand I feel strongly that knowledge is power and so I want to learn all I can about how to help her, on the other hand so much of this information makes me sad, fearful, angry, guilty, etc. Any words of wisdom?

Pemberley - I could have written your post - verbatim. I've used the same words when describing the journey I have taken with my very bright, profoundly dyslexic son, age 14 who we identified in K. It is a roller coaster with twists and turns that include an enormous range of emotions - sadness, fear, anger, pride, hope, etc.

For me, as time goes on, there are longer instances of pride, hope and other positive emotions. I see ds growing and overcoming. Of course, his dyslexia and organizational skills will never go away, and there are times of sadness when I wonder about job opportunities, higher education opportunities etc give his terrible literacy skills.

I've channeled some of my energy in self education (love misunderstood child!) as well as beginning my own special ed training and advocacy practice to help other families. It's been a ride, on balance positive. Not sure of any words of wisdom, other than recognizing that life is not a race, but a journey. Take care, and pace yourself!!

Yeah, it's a ride, isn't it? Not my favorite, but doable, and the high points are great. Some thoughts:

1. Everybody gets what they get genetically. When choosing mates, most people don't comb their family trees looking for things that can combine badly. Your DD is very bright... I think you can call that a win, even with challenges thrown in.

Brightness doesn't overcome all challenges, but on the whole it really helps a person learn to compensate if they just learn well in general.

2. I try to plan therapies on a 5-year outlook (where will DS need to be in 5 years, what skills will he need, let's see what we can do about teaching those so he'll get there). But I try to keep worry contained locally, on a shorter time scale. I know we're doing everything we can on the 5-year goals; if he doesn't make it we'll revise; but I'm going to try to get through today in some kind of good shape, without panic, because the panic doesn't add anything valuable to the planning process. Notice the panic, acknowledge it, but let it go.

3. About having had her in a bad situation: we went through this too. We solved it eventually without changing schools through a massive education campaign and getting the principal to attend carefully to teacher placement. I think our school is now better not only for my DS but for others.

Did he suffer some in the process, before we were able to arrive at a workable situation? Well, yes. Am I thrilled about that? Well, no. But I do think he has learned that situations can change, that just because it was bad once doesn't mean it will always be bad-- and that is some valuable learning. You can't shelter your kid from everything, and sometimes letting them see and even experience problems and then see the problems getting resolved in some way is a good life lesson.

As people with disabilities, they have to eventually become problem-solvers for themselves, comfortable in the knowledge of how their disabilities affect them, and with an understanding of their ability to find solutions. If they never see problems, they won't get there.

Not to say that it's all lovely. The school part has been the hardest part for me, because there I have had the least control.

4. The anger/guilt. You can't go back and fix the past based on what you know now. (Wish you could, but you can't.) This is true for school people as well as for you. Would I have done everything differently had I known then what I know now? It would have been easier, for sure. But I didn't know, I was trying to figure it out, but through no fault of my own I could not get it done faster than I did. I think it is worth thinking this through and absolving yourself of any guilt. You got there, when you could get there. And earlier than many people do.

You worked VERY HARD this year to get your DD where she needed to be. (I was very impressed with your speed, depth of thinking, reasonableness, and effectiveness.) If anything, you deserve a pat on the back and a treat. Not self-flagellation.

DeeDee

ps Editing to add: when I reread what I just wrote, I realize that it's very like what I tell DS if he's panicking: "Make a coping statement." I just shared some of my coping statements with you. :-)

Thanks Mich and DeeDee. I know this must be a common response for anyone who discovers that their child will have issues to overcome. Hearing reasoned voices of experience from parents whose kids are further down the road helps. A lot.

I am relieved that we identified the ld's early and she is getting the interventions earlier than many kids are able to. I am also relieved that my happy, outgoing, effervescent little girl is back - the one who brightens every room she enters. (We have been noticing recently that "the DD effect" - we can tell from a distance that DD must be speaking to someone (or a group of people) by the way everyone smiles ear to ear and their eyes literally seem to dance in delight - is back.) I guess I will use that as our gauge moving forward on this journey. When she is happy and comfortable in her own skin things are going well. Not many parents can say that their child is THAT happy. I guess all the rest is gravy - right?

I know you are both right that I need to pace myself, stop beating myself up over what I can't change, recognize that I made great progress in a short time, etc. Intellectually I realize that. But I also realize that I have to be the one on guard - looking for the warning signs and advocating, advocating, advocating. People who see only her reading or writing skills do not believe she has such high level comprehension and can discuss things like subtext, character development, etc in audio books. People who have these sorts of discussions with her absolutely cannot believe she is learning disabled. So far I have been able to protect her from hurtful comments but I know that they will be coming - and probably sooner rather than later. I have signed up for some advocate training sessions that will start this week. Hopefully that will help.

How do you look 5 years down the road though? At this point I don't even know if she'll be able to read independently by then. I know we will need to start working on keyboarding and maybe some text-to-voice technology but the special ed people want to focus first on trying to get her as much of the basics as possible and I guess I agree with that, as long as that concentration doesn't prevent us from doing the other stuff down the road. I can't even imagine her sitting through standardized testing and really can't visualize how that will happen. My gut also tells me that while the public school is all over her now providing special services through her IEP eventually she won't be that cute, sweet, precocious 1st grader - will they be as eager to help her? If we can't also get the enrichment that she needs (and I don't know where we will stand on her admission to the talented and gifted program if her ld's or anxiety interfere with her test performance) then I will again be looking at whether we need to do private school with additional support services. I guess it's the looking ahead part that makes this all so tough - isn't it?

Thanks again for the supportive shoulders � I really appreciate it and am just SO happy that I found this site.

Hi Pemberley,


For me, it's happy in own skin PLUS growing in the direction where I can foresee success, noticeably adding the right skills over time. In DS's case, this is primarily "how are the social skills and self-control coming along?"


Yes, vigilance is something we tend to. However, I would warn you against going overboard with vigilance. You can make yourself crazy that way. I'm striving for a level of reasonable watchfulness...

If you haven't already, it's good to have conversations about LDs with her now, before she's a sensitive pre-teen. Make it part of the set of things she knows about herself: "things I'm naturally good at" vs. "things I have to work to be good at," while making it very clear that all people have things in both of those categories. That way, if she gets negative talk at school, she can shoot back "I'm working to get good at this" or "I just need more practice, I'm getting there" because she already knows how to think about this aspect of herself.

My mother says if a child knows he's lovable and capable, you're doing it right.


Yes, right now basic reading is The Thing for her, I'd imagine. And the ancillary skills you mentioned can come in incidentally. (There are touch typing computer games; 5-10 min. a day, as play, gets a person there, but I'd think it's a subsidiary investment to the reading, which is core).

By 4th-5th grade they start to do more independent reading-to-learn (instead of learning-to-read, and the teachers are presuming comprehension even as they continue to fine-tune it. Having a goal of catching her up and keeping her caught up to average age-peers in comprehension and mechanics by 5th is a good one-- whether it's achievable, time will tell, but put everything in place as if it can be made to happen, and keep following through on that plan.


IEP services are NOT based on cuteness, but on need. You will continue to help the school see the needs, and make sure she gets what she needs. This cannot be solved now-- you've got it under control now, so the future action will have to be done in the future. Trust yourself, you'll know when it needs to be taken; and there are annual IEP meetings that you will prep for as they come up (but not continuously, because you would go mad).

I do continuously keep shoving evidence in a binder-- completed work, both good and bad examples, correspondence from school that I find telling, notes on conversations with teachers. But I do not spend a lot of time poring over it until meeting prep time. I used to. Climbing out of my tree now.

When do they test for giftedness? I'd let that worry sit unattended for a while; addressing the LD is the best thing you can do to allow her to test well, and you're doing it, so it's not worth any further worry at this point. You can triage the worry if you want to, putting off some pieces of it.


I find I am doing the worst when I get into the hand-wringing "WhatEVER will become of this CHILD" mode, which is about the long-term future, which is impossible to predict at this point. I do best for myself (as well as for DS) when I'm following through on concrete plans that seem likely to create long-term success. We are all happier that way.

Hang in there.
DeeDee

Pemberley, you've described it perfectly - parenting a 2E child is quite the ride, a true rollercoaster of emotions. You'll find it gets easier as you move forward, but there will be times when the emotions are right out front and raw all over again. I can still remember how I felt like my stomach had dropped to the floor the first time a professional mentioned to us in a very matter-of-fact voice the word "disability". Never in a million years had I imagined that my adorable quirky obviously extremely intelligent cute little boy would have a "disability". Even now, years later, many accomplishments later, there are still days it's sad, overwhelming, frustrating. Just yesterday we had one of those days - but it was one day and it passed. I do wish so much that my ds never had to deal with any of his challenges, but now that he's in middle school I can also see that there are ways in which those challenges have made him stronger in ways he never would have been had he sailed through life and through school. Would I have purposely chosen this path? NO WAY. But all in all, it's been ok - and while my ds may never be able to do some of the things that come naturally to other people, he is going to be ok.

When our kids are young, and we're surrounded by families with young children, it's so easy to focus on school - that's what life is so much all about for everyone. When you're parenting a high-IQ kid it's full of thinking about accelerated learning, gifted programs, all that - and it can be full of parents who are all about thinking about how "gifted" there own children are. All that emphasis on school etc can really feel painful at times when you're parenting a child who struggles in some way. It's helped me a lot to put it all into context - this is one part of my child's life, and one day it will be over. It helps me to focus on just my own kids and try to not compare with where everyone else's child is at or what other parents think is important. It took me a few years to really get it, but after enough professionals had mentioned it I got it - most of ds' teachers, most of the professionals who work with him, haven't seen a kid with his extremes before and probably won't again.

We've also started to realize that there are older members of dh's family who most likely have some of the same challenges with expressive language that our ds has but were never recognized as having challenges. One has been particularly poignant for me - I don't want to go into it on a public forum, but it's made me particularly sad as it's impacting a relative who is extremely dear to me. It's not like I walk around sad all the time over it, it's just terribly frustrating to realize that there was so much her parents and teachers didn't understand about LDs just 15 or so years ago, or maybe it was the school she was at or whatever. It's just been tough to realize that our ds is getting help that she probably would have benefitted from in a big way.

I'm sorry if I rambled - my dds are in the same room with me working on an art project and making a ton of noise and mess.... so I'm having a bit of a tough time focusing lol! I hope some of this made sense.

Best wishes,

polarbear

Wow, you have very eloquently put all of my feelings into words!! I oscillate through most of those feelings each day. My DD9 has ADHD and was recently diagnosed with dyslexia. Sometimes, I find reading too much makes me feel overwhelmed and very sad on DD's behalf. I wonder, almost constantly, how she ended up with all of these diagnosis. Then I redirect my thoughts to focus on why dyslexia can and should be seen as an advantage, how ADHD makes her a highly entertaining and energetic kid, and how her giftedness means that there is never a dull or restful moment in our house. I can't even imagine how what she would be like if we could sort out each issue and make one or two go away. Each one goes into the unique and masterful making of 'her' and I would not change a single molecule in her adorable little body. But yet, I long to just fix everything for her. I want to shelter her from every bump in the road to come (and man, will it be riddled with potholes!!). I want to wrap her in bubblewrap and make everything okay for her. I want to rale at the world and God for any suffering she has endured and will in the years to come. I want to take up many hours of each teacher's valuable time and make them understand that they will never, ever in a million years see what is in her head if they choose to focus only on what she can put on a paper. I want every single person she comes in contact with to know how sensitive and insecure she is, how fragile her self-esteem. I want to be the best advocate, the strongest protector and the most badass body guard you have ever met. And I know that, ultimately, I have to send her out in the world every single day... all by herself. The best I can do to advocate on her behalf and give her the skills and courage to advocate for herself as much as possible.

This thread is the number one reason why I love and need this forum so much. How do you explain these feelings to someone who has never been through it? Hugs to you as you continue to venture through the 2E journey.

I found this amazing quote in my research on dyslexia:

�It does not matter how you learn� you have greatness in you. Your job is to figure out what your gift is and give it to the world.� Henry Winkler

We have to do our very best to help them find their gift.

This rollercoaster is an up and down ride and today I am in the downward part. The last 3 days DD has complained of "a piercing headache" at school and no one can seem to pinpoint why. I really hope we are not re-entering "the anxiety zone."

Yesterday we got her first report card from the new school. Outstanding in most areas not related to her disabilities, Satisfactory progress in all areas of the IEP, and Below Grade level or Needs Improvement in all the areas that relate to the disabilities. I can't help but feeling that no matter how hard she works or how hard she tries she will keep bumping into a brick wall. Just came from visiting school for a Thanksgiving event and several people stopped me to ask if I was ok. Apparently I looked "worried". Gee... I wonder why that would be ... {big sigh}...

Just keep working on things with her. No where to go but up! My son is gifted, hearing impaired, and has a processing disorder. I really believe that you can make disabilities better by working on the issues related to them- also focus on her strengths!

May be. In which case you will help her learn to get over/under/around the wall. She has lots of talents and there will be opportunities to use them; disabilities make things harder; but she will find a way.


Yeah, I look that way a lot too. People notice.

I think you're doing the right thing by pursuing further testing. Gather all the information, and then you'll turn that information into a plan, and then you'll follow the plan. (That reduces my stress, having a plan.)

Have you done a comprehensive vision exam lately? The headaches make me ask... though it does sound like stress. Do the teachers have information to offer you about what situations trigger the headaches?

DeeDee

I want to send a {big hug} to everyone on this ride. It is so nice to have others here who can relate.

I'm feeling a bit more empowered now that we have a phone consult scheduled with Dr. Beljan. I guess I have to remind myself to keep moving forward. Keeping with the rollercoaster analogy you have to work to move up but the down portion is just a freefall. When you get to the bottom I guess you have to start cranking on those gears to get back up again. (I haven't quite figured out about those momentum induced loop-de-loops though...)

DD had another "piercing headache" on Friday and I can't figure out a pattern. The first day she told me about it after school but didn't say anything in school about it. The next 3 days she went to the nurse. By Friday they just sent her back to class and sent me a note suggesting a visit to a neurologist about it. She was fine after school each time so I think it is definitely something related to stress. DH and I both get migraines from fluorescent lights, certain patterns, loud noises, etc so maybe it's something environmental, though. She had a very thorough eye exam with a pediatric ophthalmologist in September. "This is the best set of eyes I've seen all year." We have a parent-teacher conference on Tuesday so I guess we'll discuss then.

One thing she did mention bothering her - apparently her "take out teacher" is a yeller. Has never yelled at DD but apparently yells at other kids in the resource room on a daily basis when DD is in there. I'm not sure if this is the trigger but it could certainly be a big contributor. Not sure how to approach this one. Going to classroom teacher is my first thought but don't want to put her in an awkward position (first year at the school.) Maybe the school SW who is working on the anxiety portion of the IEP? Going to the principal would likely be the most effective but would also probably alienate the spec ed teacher... Any suggestions? I had been warned in advance that this teacher is very good but comes across as quite gruff and tends to be harsh with the boys she works with. I was told she would probably be very good with DD but since DD is so very sensitive she could be bothered by the way the boys are spoken to. Looks like that may be what's happening here.

When I think of genetics I think of card games because so many people told me that my son's pain and disabilities were just in the cards for him. The physical therapist said it, the orthotist who fit him for his first brace said it, my husband says it. I never liked card games and wouldn't play them because I preferred reading at family gatherings where the others played, but I know that aces are supposed to be good and my son has some aces (intelligence, perseverance, and his parents' and sister's support) that will help him through his difficulties.

I felt very guilty when I realized that my son inherited my sensitivities--we were told he had sensory integration dysfunction when he was seven but we couldn't get therapy because that wasn't covered by our insurance and we were barely able to afford our co-pays for my husband's cancer treatments. We were told to read the book the Out-of-Sync Child has Fun and we were sent on our way after only six weeks of OT, none of it for his handwriting. He was later diagnosed with dysgraphia that went along with his developmental coordination disorder or motor dyspraxia, mild muscle weakness, and low endurance. I think having hidden disabilities and trying to keep up with kids physically caused some anxiety but it didn't stop him from doing things until he got the scoliosis brace that limits his movement.

He has been out of a scoliosis brace for 2 1/2 months now because of waiting lists to see another doctor. I begged, I pleaded and asked to be put on a cancellation list for the new doctor and I made sure we were ready every day just in case they called. The last doctor he saw was not a pediatric orthopedic surgeon, just a regular orthopedic surgeon, but he accepted pediatric patients and it was all our insurance would pay for. His advice was different from that of the pediatric orthopedic surgeons that people on scoliosis message boards posted about. After two years the doctor my son saw said there wasn't anything more he could do for my son so I had to deal with getting our insurance to pay for the kind of doctor he really needed to see who would not automatically refer him for surgery. My son, who already had anxiety had to listen to some difficult things. He knows there is a risk of death and more disability if he has surgery. He watched his grandmother suffer for 8 1/2 years because of a complication of surgery. He knows he will have to go through a lot of pain for years to have any chance of avoiding surgery and he is willing to do this and this was a kid who was sensitive to clothing tags and had sock problems when he was younger. But he is doing well with the algebra word problems we are working on now and learning AP biology terms and he continues to read a lot of history and philosophy and books he is interested in. He is managing to keep up with musical theater. But he is in pain every day and will be until his childhood is over and he no longer has to wear the brace. It is hard to see my child in pain. I feel guilty that I couldn't afford to get better medical care and therapy.

I felt even guiltier when I realized that my son had inherited the migraine headaches which we found are triggered by something we can't control--weather changes. I know it isn't stress because the stress of hearing bad news about my son's scoliosis and watching my mother die did not trigger a migraine in either of us. We kept headache diaries for months. We couldn't find any other triggers. I have motor skill disorder symptoms like clumsiness when I have a migraine. My son was tested when he was getting a migraine but his neuropsychologist, who worked at a university medical center, didn't think it would affect the results of the tests and she didn't recommend OT because she thought he was too old at 11 for it to do any good. So again no OT so we worked on things the best we could and he did improve in those things that could be improved and he works around the rest of the problems. He gets lead roles in a children's community musical theater where he doesn't seem clumsy at all so I guess he compensates well for this disability. When I asked the neuropsychologist why he could do things like acting and dancing and piano which all require motor planning, she said kids can develop splinter skills. Since he seems to be able to develop these splinter skills in whatever he wants to learn as long as the instructor lets him take breaks when he has pain or fatigue, I think my son will be able to work around his disabilities.

I wish we could have found a better support system. I wish my son could have found a friend more like him, but at least he has online friends. It was hard going through things with an extended family that only talked to us about church and how their kids were doing so well in football and getting sports scholarships. They also talked about vacations and nice vehicles and clothes they could afford because they were not paying for medical and homeschooling education expenses and wondering how they will pay for college. My son's disabilities affect him physically so he will not be able to do a job requiring a lot of manual labor. I think because of his fatigue and pain issues he will not be able to work his way through college like I did. I think he will have to get a degree if he is going to have any chance of a good life. My husband is a year away from retirement and we still have debt because of things that were beyond our control like expensive home repairs and car repairs on my 13 year old car. It is not socially acceptable for us to talk about any of this or the academics we are interested in or books we are reading. I guess I need social skills training so that we can feign interest in their sports and vacations and nice clothes enough to carry on a conversation.

I wish I had some words of wisdom.

I feel the need to resurrect this thread...

DD will be going into the hospital in a few days for a 48 hour EEG as well as an MRI. The more I read about absence seizures the more I think we *might* have an answer. It would explain so much. Apparently ld's and "brightness" are common among kids with this diagnosis. Can anyone but the parents on this board understand how a diagnosis of a seizure disorder could come with a sigh of relief?

DD had no headaches over the holiday break from school which I think confirms that something in the school is triggering them. Now after getting her back to a comfortable state we have to get her stressed out and bring on every conceivable trigger to see if they can catch one of these "seizure" type episodes during her EEG. IF they can we will have a tangible explanation for so many issues.

The rollercoaster ride continues...

{hugs} to everyone else on the ride.

Pemberley, I (perversely) hope there are flickering fluorescents and everything else in the hospital so that whatever needs to be seen can be seen.

We'll be thinking about you.

DeeDee

Here's hoping you find some definitive answers that help you formulate plan forward!

I hope you get some definitive answers either way.

I had a FT job once in a lab where I had a headache every. single. day. Something in there was definitely triggering it, probably the lights. I always thought something was off with the air flow in there too. I still get them occasionally, but not every day like in there.

Just wanted to thank you for posting this. I am coming to this conclusion more and more every day, but I couldn't put it into words like this. Thanks again.

I agree! As a parent, one needs to still try to create an optimal environment, including any accommodations that might help.

I think it's more what you said in your last paragraph.

I read the quote as this, that you have see your child as the whole child, with the strengths and the weaknesses, not just the strengths.

I just came from spending the morning at DD's school where they spent the morning doing fun 100th day activities. It was fun but sooo depressing for me. They had to write about what they would do with $100. DD easily came up with her idea - answering the who, what, where etc. Instantly - the concept is super simple. Getting on paper though was absolute torture. Does she focus on placing her letters properly? Or does she focus on forming them properly? Or how about not writing them backwards? Or wait - how about spelling? No wonder she has headaches and anxiety...

So what do you parents of kids with both dysgraphia and dyslexia recommend? I saw the special Ed teacher as I was leaving and asked her. She agreed that we need to prioritize. That's a good idea so why do I have to ask to get them to see it that way? It seems like no matter what she focuses on there will still be something that she is doing wrong. Focus on letter placement and she will write them backwards and certainly spell them wrong. Concentrate on spelling and they will alternate in size, placement, etc. And never mind that she has a fun, innovative answer to the original question.

At least because I was there I could help with the fine motor stuff like stringing 100 fruit loops on a necklace. On a normal day there is no way she could have possibly kept track of her counting while doing that too.

I just feel so sad...

What we do is separate therapeutic activities (such as handwriting practice and fine/gross motor development activities) from academics, and use appropriate accommodations and modifications for academic work as needed to ensure that the work accurately reflects ability and effort, not disabilities.

For your dysgraphic and dyslexic daughter, for example, it really sounds like a scribe and/or permitting oral responses in place of written responses would be appropriate classroom accommodations for written work other than specific, targeted OT-directed handwriting instruction, until she can become independent with keyboarding or speech-to-text software. BTW, in-school instruction for keyboarding or use of speech-to-text software should be included in the IEP: it is surprisingly common for schools to provide Assistive Technology to kids but then not teach them how to really use it effectively.

For activities like the fruit loop stringing, the counting should be separated out from the motor component - once she's counted out ten piles of ten fruit loops (often a motor challenge in itself), then she can string them, rather than trying to keep track of counting and stringing together.

Her teachers should be instructed to clearly define the academic objective of each class activity and assignment (something that they should be doing anyway), and provide equal opportunity for her to access the curriculum and demonstrate mastery of those objectives in ways that are not impeded by her disabilities.

Ditto to everything Aculady said - I can't think of anything to add!

Re the specific 100s day activity, sometimes it helps me to also look at an assignment from the point of view of a typical student - which isn't always easy because of course we're seeing it through the eyes of our totally not-typical kids. But - fwiw - I'm guessing that the teacher didn't expect the kids to spell correctly since this is first grade (if I'm remembering correctly). Usually in first grade, my kids only had to spell correctly if they were being quizzed specifically on spelling - in their everyday work they were expected to use their sound spelling however it came out. Also the goal of these types of 100s days activities was the counting and math concepts. So yes, it's frustrating and confusing where to start, what to focus on etc overall, but try to put a simple box around this one project and see that, the overall focus was to come up with ideas how to spend $100, and your dd did that - so she was successful with what mattered for that project.

Re translating that success into actual success in getting things on paper, getting credit for her ideas etc - that's all going to be a journey (at least it has been for us). Ideally it will all be thought through ahead of time, she'll have the appropriate accommodations and instruction needed outlined in her IEP, she'll get the accommodations and instruction etc. Even when you have a great start with a well thought out IEP, you'll find that as the school year goes by you'll learn more about how your dd learns and what she needs at school, and you may have to revise/update the IEP. Many times with our 2e kids it's going to be doubly frustrating because we know their potential and yet they're struggling with such very basic skills in early elementary. Those first school years are most often filled with getting past the disabilities... it may not seem helpful to think of it now, but the focus really does change by late elementary and/or middle school to where your child will start having many more opportunities to shine in their areas of strength and the high-IQ part of their 2e will start to step forward over the challenges of the other e. Just try to remember that this is why you're so lost in all the "how-to"s of accommodating etc right now - you're laying the building blocks for tomorrow, giving your child the chance to eventually soar.

Last thought - keyboarding is so key. If I could do anything differently during those early elementary years, I would have had my ds using a keyboard the minute he entered his first classroom.

Hang in there -

polarbear

ps - do you feel like you have a good IEP in place? Does the IEP have specific goals for reading/writing? Is your dd getting pull-out help?

Thanks Aculady - I know that you home school but how do I approach the public school about doing what seems to obvious? I am thinking that DD needs to be able to orally give her response (i.e. "I have always wanted to live in a castle made of brick so I would use the money to build a castle in my backyard....") and then have the teacher point out *1* thing for her to focus on when writing her answer. (i.e. "Great. Now let's write this and try really hard to make sure that all your letters sit on the line.") First - let her know that she has successfully "completed" the assignment and then give her *1* component of the writing challenges to focus on. Again, this seems obvious to me so why aren't they doing this? Can I expect push back from them if I ask for this?

Activities like the fruit loop stringing should not be assigned to my DD without an aide. Period. She can count 1-100 orally but absolutely cannot manage manipulatives to that degree. She can string a few fruit loops to be part of the assignment but the effort it would take her to string 100? Forget it. Like I said I was there today so she counted and handed them to me to put on her necklace. Is it any wonder that she would have shut down or gone to the nurse if she was faced with this "fun" task on a normal day?

I am now wondering if we may need to ask for an aide to be assigned to her during in class work. I don't know what kind of response we'll get from that. I am also wondering if we will have to look for an out-placement at an LD school down the road.

They looked at me like I was crazy at the last meeting when I mentioned introducing assistive technology as she gets older. Right now they are focusing intently on teaching her to read and write. We bought her a computer and some fun learn to type software so she plays games at home that are teaching her keyboarding skills.

It just seems like she has SO many issues going on she can't be expected to address everything simultaneously. When I asked about having to fill in a grid with numbers 1-100 for homework "What was the objective here? To see if she knew all the numbers or to see if she could write each one?" I was told "It's all important." Yes, it's all important but it took my first grader more than 2 hours to do it. Normally her math homework take 5-10 minutes. What do I have to say to *force* them to differentiate so they are looking at her ability and effort rather than her disability?

I'm afraid we're losing her - she is beginning to shut down. And I really can’t say that I blame her…

Polarbear posted while I was typing - thanks! Yes she is receiving lots and lots (and lots...) of pull out. Help with reading, OT, anxiety and speech, plus push in for math. Between that and specials I doubt asking for an in-class aide would really total that many hours a day. Hmmm... maybe they will go for it.

At the last meeting I told them that I thought first grade was going to be the hardest thing she ever had to do in school because it is focusing on all the things that are so hard for her physically. As she gets into higher grades and content becomes more important school will become much easier for her since that plays to her strengths. Without missing a beat the principal said "Well, that's certainly optimistic of you!" Great... nice way to take the air out of my sails... This is when I mentioned the use of assistive technology and got the dumbfounded looks.

We recently hired an educational advocate who will revisit the IEP at the next meeting. He found some flaws that he thinks need to be addressed. Since I rejected the IEP last week over the hat issue we will hopefully be able to meet again soon.

This is all just SO exhausting, frustrating, demoralizing, etc. I totally sympathize with DD but don't want to feed into it. How can I keep her engaged and optimistic when I am feeling so beaten down?

Pemberley - do you have a local parent advocate who can help you through the IEP process etc? We have an advocate's group which provides advice free of charge, plus a local disability legal aide society who helped us briefly. What you wrote in your last reply are clear, well-thought out strategies - and that's the type of specificity that needs to be in an IEP, basically quantifiable attainable goals that make sense in the overall educational plan for a child. An advocate who understands what should be included in an IEP and how to write the IEP can be a tremendous help.

We also learned through our advocate and local disability legal aide center that how well IEPs are written and enforced varies tremendously from school to school within our district, and we happened to have ds at a school that was one of the most difficult to work with for parents as well as being most resistant to providing services. I think from what you've written your school really wants to try to help your dd, but they may not have the strongest organization when it comes to creating and implementing a good IEP - and an advocate might be really useful.

The other thing that happens with schools and IEPs etc is that there is a school/staff/district agenda that might not have anything to do with your dd - for instance, our district has the Federally required box to check off on the IEP form to show that AT has been discussed/considered for all kids who are on an IEP - but the school district also has a written policy that states that AT isn't provided unless (fill in the blank with some absurd requirement that didn't apply to my ds here)... we spent a lot of energy and effort fighting to get AT included for our ds and ultimately decided we needed to actually provide it rather than rely on the school to provide it. There were other accommodations which we got easily - when *we* asked for them - but the school was not ever going to speak up and offer them up without us asking first. It was basically a situation of, the school knew that legally they couldn't argue against providing the accommodation, but they also didn't want to bother with it, so if a parent didn't know to ask for it, they weren't going to mention it would be helpful even though they knew it was a typical accommodation for the disability and it would be helpful. Again, it helped us to have an advocate to see through all of this and to know what to request.

polarbear

OOPS! I posted my reply while you were replying to me - so I didn't see your reply first! Anyway, rather than erase it - I was replying to your reply to aculady - LOL I'm glad that you've got an advocate!

YIKES about your principal's remark - grrrrrrrrr.....

Re keeping your dd engaged and optimistic while you're feeling beaten and down - no good advice there from me - I'm afraid I failed miserably at that part. DS had a tough tough tough time with elementary school, and it about did him in. I think you and your dd are in a better place though because you found out early on about her challenges and you've got your advocate and you're in there doing everything you can to get her the help and support she needs - so no matter how frustrating it is for her now, she will come out of it all a-ok - really she will.

polarbear

That's probably seared into your soul now. But it won't matter. You'll educate him, you'll get DD into a better place, and he'll never remember that that was what he thought. (He'll probably even get to take credit for how well she's doing later. Oh, well.) Forgive him, and gradually educate him to get him on board with what your DD needs.


Excellent. We have found our advocate to be worth every penny we pay her. It makes the IEP stronger. It takes some load off you, too, which is important.


This is where you have to put on your own oxygen mask before assisting other passengers. You are in a marathon, not a sprint. You need to figure out how to feed your soul, and do that thing, whatever it is. (Exercise class? Trashy novel? Only you know what that thing is, but make it happen at least a few times a week.)

Your DD needs you to be in good shape emotionally, so that you are not done in by the various struggles.

Hang in there.

DeeDee

O-M-G! The last few weeks have been insane - culminating in an IEP meeting yesterday that was a bizarre experience to say the least. Warning - this is long...

DD's headaches were continuing daily and the nurse (she has been discussed at great length on another thread) actually contacted our pediatrician to say that she doesn't believe DD or us about the headaches. She asked the ped to write a letter "outlining all of your concerns." WTH? We never signed any sort of release allowing this sort of contact so it led to a very long meeting with the pediatrician to discuss the whole situation and a letter that turned into a powerful weapon for us.

Simultaneously DD's anxiety was getting ramped up big time. First a staff member, ”Mrs. O”, who DD was very, very close with informed her that she was leaving. This triggered an epic meltdown and increased anxiety that built up until Mrs. O’s final day at the school. The day after this staff member's last day DH was scheduled for surgery so of course DD had a lot of anxiety brewing about that too. Not a good combination for a sensitive kid with anxiety.

At the same time the school was preparing for a ridiculous program that they refer to as "Positive" but just like the color charts that trigger DD's anxiety (also discussed on another thread) this is also a public display of who has been good or bad. Everyone is awarded a large paw shaped sticker ("Patch") and those kids who have a history of bad behavior lose theirs. Yeah, this is positive not punitive right? Anyway, it's harder for the older kids but most K/1 kids earn them. It is rather traumatic for those that don't to walk through the halls, sit through the assembly and hear all the talk about the "Positive" event. A lot of tears that day. As part of the event each specials teacher awards one kid per grade for "demonstrating outstanding effort or excellent behavior as a positive role model." DD won this from the librarian in the fall and music teacher this marking period. There are only 4 awarded and DD has won 2 of them - probably a pretty good indication of how she behaves in school I would think. Also each classroom votes for one kid to get a big award for the same thing - these kids receive a pin, though, and the students in the class vote on who receives it. DD was nominated for the award in her classroom but didn't win. For some reason she then had a meltdown over not winning it. We have no idea what triggered it - probably the result of all the anxiety over DH's surgery and Mrs. O leaving. This happened 1 and 2 days before the departure/surgery.

It was a monumental effort on my part to get DD back on track and feeling positive about school. I somehow managed and we actually had 2 days last week without a visit to the nurse followed by a day where she went and said she just wanted her medicine and to get back to class right away. This is an awesome turn around - right? Well it was until the idiots at the school decided to strip her "patch" because of her meltdown the previous week. Really, a kid with anxiety, and who has an IEP to address it - not to mention who has won 2 awards for her outstanding behavior and been nominated for the big award for her class, is now supposed to be the child shamed. Not just a chart in her classroom - now she has to walk around the school with the badge of dishonor. Really? Seriously?

Our education consultant had met with the district the day before to work out how to get the situation over the hat and ibuprofen to settle down. The director of special services for the town assured our consultant that he would make sure the school understood that they needed to back off and then the next day they pull this. Really?

That night DD decides that this means that she will have to repeat first grade so she can "learn not to cry." The only thing we can think to do is remove her from school the day of the awards ceremony because we don't see any possible way for her to successfully navigate this situation without a meltdown. I have a blow up with the teacher when she tells me "It was a close call but we decided we couldn't in good conscience have the other kids in the class see her receive a patch when they saw her meltdown." Really? They saw her previous meltdown and you then nominated her as the best role model in the class. If one was so egregious why wasn't the other? The only difference we can see is that we hired a consultant and they are retaliating against DD for it.

So we have our IEP meeting yesterday and the director of special services was there. He had clearly told his team to knock it off and agree to whatever we asked for. The few times the iron-fisted principal tried to be obstructionist he shut her down. I asked for and received a change in lighting in her part of the classroom, for her to be provided access to the outdoors to try to help with her headaches, differentiation including having her provide her responses orally whenever possible, increased speech therapy services, etc. The district will be paying for the new neuropsych eval and consult with a child psychiatrist about how to better address her anxiety issues. The nurse was the only one who didn't play nice. She put on a show like a petulant child and made clear to everyone in the room what we have been experiencing.

After the meeting we had our consultant speak with the director of special services again - about the nurse and the nonsense they pulled with the whole "Positive" situation. He made clear that as far as we are concerned they had violated both the spirit and the terms of her IEP, had intentionally triggered her anxiety without giving any thought to how they would manage her the day of the event and prevented her from having access to her Free and Appropriate Public Education in the process. The district has promised a full and complete investigation. In the meantime, hopefully, they will go back to handling her as gently as possible.

So after weeks of very little sleep, high levels of anxiety and tears on more than one occasion I think (hope) we are back on the right track. I asked the consultant why they seemed to have caved and given us everything we asked for - was it because they realized we were right and that they had behaved badly? "Maybe. Either that or they are just afraid of you"

Let's hear it for the power of being a mama bear protecting your cub!

After yesterday, YOU deserve an awards ceremony. Kudos for advocating so well for your kiddo.

Oh Pemberley! I can't believe how the school has treated your dd - just beyond belief!!! I am so glad your dd's dr was supportive and that the school district rep was also supportive and didn't just blindly back up the school staff.

I hope this is the beginning of *much* better times for your dd in school - sending you both a big hug!

polarbear

ps - you have done an *amazing* job of advocating for your dd!

You deserve an award for not punching that darned nurse in the face yet.

I agree with the others - you deserve some kind of advocacy award. I'm so glad that it seems to have worked out - I really hope this will be a turning point for your daughter.

Thanks but not so fast... I got a call that DD had a meltdown this morning followed by a headache this afternoon. She asked to go right back to class after getting her ibuprofen and later when asked if she felt better said "Yes. Actually I'm just joking - no I really feel awful." I went to pick her up and was told the following:

She was in a different classroom when she just stopped working for a few minutes. They got her to go back to her writing and then she started to cry. They calmed her down and then the teacher announced to the class that if they didn't finish their work they would do it during recess. DD totally lost it and they got the SW who has been working with her. She brought DD to her office where DD was so upset she couldn't tell her what happened. They had the school psych (who DD had never met) and her speech therapist sit with her while SW went to find out what happened. SW finds out that the threat was directed at other kids, not DD, and they convince DD that it was all a misunderstanding. Apparently during this time speech therapist notes one of DD's "staring episodes" that I have been describing for months and demonstrated for the team during yesterday's meeting. I found this part out when I read the nurse's note after I got to the car. (And after giving the SW a piece of my mind for the Patch nonsense that triggered all of this anxiety...)

So now I have to wonder if DD sitting and not doing her work, not knowing what they are talking about when they say that she did that, not remembering crying the first time and being confused thinking that the recess threat was aimed at her was all actually her having some kind of seizure. I find it interesting that within 24 hours of demonstrating for the team what one of her "episodes" would look like someone spots one.

Before finding the note I was so angry I really went off on the SW and let the special ed teacher know about the nurse going behind our backs to tell the pediatrician that she doesn't believe any of this is real. After I read the note I found both of them and let them know about it. I really don't know why, as members of the team, they weren't told about the speech therapist seeing this especially when they were involved in DD having a meltdown and headache. Neither DH nor I had seen one of these episodes in quite a while but I thought I spotted one in school during the 100 day activities last month. It just seems too coincidental that I am in school for an hour and see one and someone reports one within 24 hours of me demonstrating it - right?

Those of you who have experience with seizure disorders - does this fit? We are supposed to do an ambulatory EEG but are waiting for an indication (i.e. an apparent cluster of these episodes, increased severity of her headaches, repeated night terror, etc.)I am still so angry at the people at school that my fuse is incredibly short. DH thinks that once one has been reported we are likely to get a bunch more reported. I am hoping that at least they become cognizant of a potential relationship between all of it. At the very least hopefully they will realize that penalizing her, like they did last week with the patch nonsense, is totally inappropriate.

Ideas anyone? After yesterday's events would you be able to back off and trust them to handle things like what happened today?

Oh gosh Pemberley - what a mess at school! I can't really answer the trust question right now or think rationally because I have my own headache at the moment (literally lol!)... but fwiw this is what happened with our dd and her seizures:

They came and went. It was just never possible to predict when she'd have one, but when she did have them they did tend to cluster over a few weeks or months of time. And those were the obvious ones that we saw. I've often wondered if there are other times when they've happened and we just didn't realize it. Hers were too infrequent to ever catch on an EEG but she has a seizure diagnosis anyway, based on our description of what happens before, during and after.

The minute I read "staring episode" above, once again, the very first thing I thought of was seizure.

Have you asked your dd about how she's feeling when (or before) the spells occur? Our dd doesn't notice anything before she has a mild seizure, but the larger seizures where she basically passes out, she has an "aura" before the seizure happens - she feels tingly in her arms and legs. You could try asking your dd if she's ever felt like that or if she sees strange lights in her eyes etc - don't do it if you think it would put ideas into her head or scare her, but we found with our dd and her various medical challenges, she experienced a number of different symptoms that she never told us about because she didn't realize there was any reason to tell us.

Gotta run - I'll come back later when I can think and give you some in put on the trust issue etc.

Sending you both huge hugs,

polarbear

Pemberly, sorry for all your little girl's troubles. I don't think I'd even be able to write it all down while it was happening. What a nightmare. I hope coming to this forum helps you.

I think that you might find the information in this book interesting, as it discusses anxiety, panic, and emotional "meltdowns" in the context of seizure disorders, both as direct manifestations of seizure activity and as prodromal syndromes.

Big sigh...

DD just told us that the teacher "told me I was looking away but I have no idea what she was talking about." She said no to all questions about tingling and auras. She also doesn't remember anything that would match up to the episode the speech therapist noted a bit later. As far as she is concerned she was just sitting there doing her work - no looking away, no pointing to the word without writing it, no problem gripping her pencil, etc that were included in the more detailed report they sent me. I sent an email to the SW asking for details - i.e. was she animated or did she appear to be daydreaming, did she seem confused, did she snap out of it or come out of it gently, etc. Any other questions you recommend I ask before I call the neurologist about it?

Interesting link, Aculady, although a bit discouraging. The book costs $200 but a few colleges in the area have access to it electronically.

This forum is SO helpful. There is no way I could have gotten half of this done without input from all of you. You have my eternal thanks!

Pemberley, I'm so sorry. You had such high hopes for this school. You did the right thing by going over their heads and forcing compliance; you'll have to be continually vigilant, I'm afraid.

Do go right back to your medical people with this new information-- it will be a good clue for them. I keep feeling like all this turbulence IS getting you closer to answers, even though it feels like it's taking a long time.

Hang in there. Thinking of you.

DeeDee

My younger dd has absence seizures. Up until this year, the diagnosis (even though it is in her record and she is medicated for them)was unaccepted at school. We were literally begged to have her medicated for ADHD, which she does not have! This school year, she has had a 24 hr eeg that she was even brave enough to wear at school. We are also scheduled to have the 24 hour video eeg. She has been through so much with all of this, but she is a trooper!

At my insistance, the school finally located an ipad for dd and is using several programs with great success. One of the teachers told me that she was glad that I fought so hard for it because it has really allowed dd to show what she can do when her dyslexia/dysgraphia roadblocks are minimized.

Do lots of reseach and know what is available to help your child. If possible see if you can try a few things at home and then you know how your dd reacts to it. For instance, if you have windows7, there is a free speech to text program. Have her try it and/or a voice recorder and have her dictate stories. If she finds an alternative strategy that she likes that allows her to minimize her frustration that is key.

Also, I know this is hard, but you have to try and minimize your level of frustration around your dd when it comes to her issues. I know that with my dd, she seems to take on the weight of all of it if I am not careful...she blames herself for my being upset about the school, she blames herself for the school being frustrated with her learning style...that is a lot of pressure on a little girl.

Good luck!

Time for a bit of a happy update:

For a while now I have been thinking that we need to find a way to reestablish DD’s “normal” school day. Instead of feeling awful and spending half her day in the nurse’s office she needs to learn that “normal” is feeling good and being in her classroom all day. After a rough start to the week I think we started to have some success.

They unscrewed the fluorescent bulbs above DD’s desk the other day and started sending her outside to help clear her headaches rather than right to the nurse for medication. It seems to be helping so I made a deal with her - if she can go 3 days without a visit to the nurse's office we will take her to Medieval Times. (She has been begging to go for quite some time.). Wednesday and Thursday she toughed it out – “I had a headache but I pretended not to." Yesterday she seemed to have turned a corner. Today - no headache at all! YAAAHOOOO! Medieval Times here we come!

Today we had our parent/teacher conference and classroom teacher, spec ed teacher and SW took detailed notes about what to look for in terms of possible seizures. All are now thinking that they may have actually witnessed some "episodes" previously but didn't realize it. We'll see if we start to get more reports now that everyone has a better idea of what to look for.

With all the emphasis on headaches, anxiety and possible seizures her actual education and overcoming the ld's seems to get lost. And forget her gifted areas… Also her performance is so uneven - she may score 26/26 one day and 13/26 on another day – it’s just so hard to actually assess her school performance. I gave her teacher a copy of the book "101 School Success Tools for Smart Kids With Learning Difficulties" (isbn # 978-1593635336). DH and I had talked to one of the authors last summer and she suggested buying the book for the teacher. I regret not doing it earlier. She was very receptive and the special ed teacher asked to borrow it over the weekend. I offered to buy a copy for anyone who may find it useful. Hopefully it will give them an idea of the best way to differentiate instruction for her.

All in all a good end to the week. Crossing my fingers that we are on the road to reducing anxiety, eliminating headaches and getting appropriate differentiation. Will keep you posted.

So glad to hear that things are looking up!

So glad to hear happy news. Congratulations!

Update: The reward system has been working and the dynamic has totally changed. DD is now spending all day, every day in her classroom! Many days she has a headache but "toughs it out." There have been more and more days now with no headache at all though. When she does feel awful the teachers have to work to convince her to go to the nurse where she immediately gets her ibuprofen and asks to go back to class. We upped her dose of Elavil last week and it seems to be working. Major improvement in the headaches - fewer and less severe than before. Most importantly we have the real, true DD back. She is happy, outgoing and fun again. Outside of school she is the star wherever she goes. In school they have been differentiating more appropriately and have added additional take out services. She is responding well to the change in lighting we asked for and seems just so relieved that she is now able to give more responses orally with only minimal writing. No more reports of staring episodes. All in all a pretty good few weeks.

While all this has been going on we still have been waiting to hear back from the director of special services about his investigation of the "Positive" incident. Yesterday we met with him. Talk about a rollercoaster of emotions!

He acknowledged that they violated the terms of DD's IEP and the meltdown she had was obviously the result of her anxiety rather than a behavior issue. He has made clear to the school that they cannot penalize her for her disability and they should not have pulled her patch. He is confident that they understand and this will not be a problem moving forward. All good things. He was unable to explain how this was not obvious to them at the time, though. I quoted (from memory) the part of the IEP they violated and the best he could come up with was that the principal “didn’t understand” that the IEP applied. Huh? He also couldn’t explain how the SW who is responsible for working with DD on the anxiety portion of her IEP and is the team leader didn’t point this out when the decision was being made. It’s great that he is accepting responsibility and has given very clear directives about how to handle things in the future but there was no indication that there is any level of understanding within the school, or anyone there accepting responsibility for how it was mishandled.

We made the point that we are convinced that the decision to penalize DD was retaliatory and done in response to our hiring a consultant. We clarified a few blatant untruths he had been told as part of their explanations. We spelled out in detail exactly what the nurse has been doing. He was pretty taken aback.

We got him to agree to put in writing that the school district is acknowledging violating her IEP. There is also a plan for him and the classroom teacher to meet with DD to apologize, explain that adults make mistakes too, and make clear to her that she should have been given her patch. I’m not sure about this one even though it started out as my idea. I think it would have been great to do in the days following the ceremony but now, almost a month later when she is in a good place, it sounds like a bad idea. I think it could retrigger the anxiety and/or she could see it as totally disingenuous. (DD is GREAT at reading adults…) Most importantly I want the people IN the school to be responsible for coming up with a plan for addressing future ceremonies since THEY created this problem to begin with. After all if they can insist on using such a punitive system that expects nothing less than perfection from even the smallest of children isn’t it hypocritical for the adults to get a pass so easily?

I was very, very forceful during our meeting. It is such a fine line being forceful and not coming across as a nut. At one point I told him that if they force me to be a mama bear they should expect me to go for the jugular… Our consultant said he thinks I handled myself well but of course I am filled with self doubt about it.

So things are most definitely looking up and the district is really accepting responsibility but I continue to feel unsettled. Things started so well at this school and then got bad fast. Do I continue to hold their feet to the fire until someone there acknowledges that they understand – not just that they are going to follow orders? Or do I just accept what is being done at the district level and move on? I just can’t stand the idea that the principal who took this stand is being let off the hook so easily. And how can I trust the SW to work with DD on the anxiety when she was part of such a colossal screw up?

Hi Pemberley,

I'd call that a masterful piece of advocacy. I'm so glad your DD is happy again.


My feeling is that you keep a close eye on things, and wait and see, knowing that you can always put their feet back to the fire if you need to. If they violate the IEP again, you can file a complaint with the state department of education; and since they admitted violating it once, they would be pretty well up the creek at that point.

Can you set up a communication system with the SW? Say, once a week she needs to tell you what she's done, and you get a chance to tell her how things look from your end? This can be an email, or by phone; I like written communication because it leaves a trail.

I guess I'm not in favor of trusting her at this point, but rather watching as closely as you can, and giving them a chance to fix what they broke. While at the same time safeguarding your DD at all times...
DeeDee