School is back in session and our kids are doing things they couldn't possibly have done last spring. Mary is bringing home good math and spelling tests, and she isn't engaging in covert antisocial behavior, as she did for most of last year. "I don't feel like I have to yack with my friends all day long." she volunteered. Meantime John is spending part of each day in his mainstream classroom. Last year he spent 40 minutes in class, story time, and then became too hyper, and had to return to his special ed room. Even in the safe haven of his special ed room he sometimes became too violent, and we had to bring him home. So much for that school day! But this year is better. He sometimes spends the entire afternoon in his general ed class. As the title of this section suggests, we are thrilled.
He still has incidents, but they are rare. He had one during the second week of school, hitting and kicking his teacher. This took place after eating fish that had been in our freezer for a week. Remember, we don't live near the coast, so the freshest fish we can buy is already churning out amines when it hits our store. An extra week in the freezer is obviously too much. You have to be so careful with fish!
The improvements at home are just as dramatic, though his frustration level still drops a little when he becomes tired near the end of the day. We took the newspapers down off the bathroom mirror, as he seems to have no trouble getting himself ready for bed. His sisters are thrilled; it's hard to get ready in the morning without a mirror. Throughout the day the kids do what we ask, and nobody yells any more. Ok, we have to raise our voice to break the zombie spell cast by the TV, but that's not shouting in anger, and the kids know the difference. Not too long ago, I feared John would never sit still to watch TV, so that's something new.
NFF: Mary was truly on the mend, and has outgrown most of her food sensitivities. However, John's improvement was only temporary. Within a month he was as bad as ever, perhaps worse. I'm writing this two years later, and he's never been as good as he was that month. What was so great about that month? We still don't know.