I am nervous as it is the first one Freyja has to attend, but kind of weirdly peaceful too. It is a step in the right direction.
We have had a pretty good week. There have been tantrums as always, but bizarrely, she has been behaving better since her baby sister has been behaving worse! Rosie is coming up to 2 years now, and just like Freyja, is becoming very much the independent Miss. That means every time I need to get her into the car, she wants to get in herself and starts screaming and thrashing as I try to strap her into her carseat. I know this is a phase she will get through, but as we are always already running late because Freyja takes forever to get ready (and so do I - Mommy ADHD!) it becomes even more stressful.
Freyja has been telling her sister to stop misbehaving and has been trying to be more helpful.
Last night was actually the best night yet, despite being the busiest. After school, she went to a beginners chess club. Despite being her first game ever, she won it! She is really enthused by the idea of taking up chess and her birthday is coming up so I think I will buy her a set and start going to the monthly chess at the library in Calgary, hopefully it is something she will enjoy. And it shows she can concentrate when she is interested in things. I played chess with my Dad at a similar age, and card games, and I loved it. Partially because I seemed to have a natural ability to remember and anticipate moves, and partly because I won - all the time - and no, my Dad didn't let me win, I just had a flair for it. Hopefully Freyja will get the same enjoyment, as she certainly seems to have the same capacity for remembering and anticipating moves in games.
After chess we went home and found she had homework. Usually, she does not get homework, but at her Parent Teacher meeting last week, the teacher commented that while Freyja is working at Grade 1 level, as she should be, she actually could probably work at Grade 2, but because of the lack of concentration, she always has work left unfinished while the other kids get theirs done, so we said "send it home with her then". They did send it home last night, and asked it be done for today. She finished Chess at 4.30pm and had to be at Sparks at 6.30pm so I was dubious, but she ate her dinner (quickly for once, and only got up twice) and then settled down to her homework, finished it and got ready for Sparks all in time to get out the house, no arguments. Apparently she was really well behaved and attentive at Sparks too, so maybe that is what she needs, more structure and things to do. Maybe all of this isn't really ADHD or behaviour issues, maybe its just a very bright kid who's bored silly.
She's been showing a great interest in space and science lately too, as well as her reading and art. Her choices from Scolastics this months were - A solar system mobile to build - A geology set with rocks and an experiment to 'make your own sedimentary rock' - A Phineus and Ferb science kit with household experiments. She's been having great fun with it all, and can't wait to put everything together. The library books she chooses are often science based too, and the other day when Lee put on a program about the Big Bang Theory, she asked him to see if it was on again and record it for her to watch. As a pupil at a Catholic School, I see her trying to have some interesting debates with the teachers in a few years (as it should be).
And so, I have been doing some reading these past few days, looking at the aspects of ADD or ADHD which can be seen in a positive light - exploration, creativity, enlightenment, and I'll add another post with some links to these and a bit about some famous people who would these days probably be classed as ADHD. This is my challenge to myself now, not to look at the bad side, the tantrums and distractedness, but to look at the good points of how she is 'different' and imagine what she could become if I loosen the reins a little....
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