Day 1 History and challenges we currently face

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3 years ago on December 5 2016 my daughter was born, at 3lbs 4 oz and over a month premature she was tiny, like a baby doll but more fragile. Having an older child whom was also premature (note… I was young at the time and gave this child up for adoption later), by more than 2 months, I was no stranger to this little human being. So begins my life with this new challenge of a little girl with so many similarities to my oldest son, along with my own attitudes I had when I was young. The first 6 months go as expected when you have a newborn, a little behind the learning curve, as a premature baby tends to be. At 6 months old she had just started to eat cereal, a struggle as she was more hungry but she couldn’t anything but tiny bites. Partly due to being brand new to a different form of food, she was easily able to choke on the food given to her. Other reasons were the prematurity itself, where she was still small and couldnt fit much in her mouth. Luckily I was already used to this and well trained for it, some firm patting on the back and the food either came out or got down. Eventually after a month this complication subsided. The following year, my daughter at one years age, her behaviors started to become more noticable as normal for children of that age. We probably could have noticed signs at that age if we looked for them, however it would be absolutely pointless, as with all kids of 1 yrs of age play, learn, eat, love, sleep. Again at two years of age everything seemed normal, we did suspect some auditory problems however, we noticed at times my daughter would continue on like she didn’t hear us calling her name. Bringing her to the doctor they did confirm that not so normal behavior and wanted to follow up, with a specialist in hearing. After all was done her hearing was normal, but why does she not look at us when calling her name, we began to suspect we may be in for more surprises. Which gets us to today my daughter is now three years old, for the last few months it has been the hardest I ever had to deal with when it comes to my children. I Just had another son, born November 5 2019, and not premature however I did have the same complications as my previous pregnancies. Now at just about 6 months old and the same weight as my daughter, my son has been growing and getting the milestones on time, if not sooner. By this time there is no doubt, THIS IS NOT NORMAL, and as a parent I have been struggling to keep my own sanity amongst these constant battles. My daughter, in short but honest terms has the temperment of a kniving little troll, apart from the unusual aspects of her behavior. This includes the way she is picking at her food, I can not for life of me get this girl to eat 75% of what I have served her. This list is huge but I’ll keep it simple, foods she will not eat: Hamburger( you already know this gonna be good), any veggie that is green, bananas( she asks for them often but then she wont eat them and eventually they turn black), eggs, rice, sausage, pepperoni( or any pizza toppings other than cheese and sauce), Jello, jelly, yogurt, ect: I could go on, however I have stopped buying things I know she wont eat. Apart from foods she will not eat, there are also times when she does not want foods she will, and I have to guess right or enter the fit storm. These fits are of course random and not instigated for example; I offer her a bowl of cereal with milk, this may be a yay moment and she gladly accepts this breakfast with enthusiasm, other times I will make a bowl of cereal and if I dare to put milk in it she will throw herself on the floor whining and crying about the milk being in the cereal. There is more yet to come, when she doesn’t want the cereal at all and cue again the throwing herself on the floor, I do want to note in no way have we given her a reason to become so self entitled because through all the fits she still gets what I give her. In the end however, she will procrastinate on what has been given to her, and either pick through it until lunch time or secretly…. throw…… it ….. away. Other normal aspects of her behavior is what any one else could expect a toddlers way is the only way or we deal with fit storm. On to the unusual behaviors and wrap this post up for the day. My first clue into the ADHD is whenever we try to talk to her, I know to sit down and get to her level of sight is a big way to grasp children and I practice that regularly. However, it is hard to grasp the attention of my daughter when she does not look at my direction, instead she looks to the side away from me. Also, instead of listening to what we have to say to her, she is constantly talking over us about random things like her shows or drinks. In example; I try to engage her when I want her to pick up someting she knocked over, I get to her level I calmly explain to her what I want of her. In response to this, she looks away from me no matter how many times I ask her to look my way. She then, while I am still trying to get her attention will talk to me about her pony show, which has nothing to do with why I am trying to talk to her. This has alot to do with problems I face in my daily activites, as I am caring for my 6 month old, I can’t get her to listen to any instruction. Can you imagine changing your babys diaper and the toddler you had just sat down to eat is up walking around flinging her food every where and no amount of talking or yelling will get her to sit back down at the table. Half of my daily cleaning is because of this behavior, it is a daily rule that she knows well its been repeated time and time again. It is not just a toddlers behavior, a toddler will at the very least sit back down for a short period of time, my daughter will continue to walk around until I have physically picked her up and sat her down. Even then not 5 seconds later she is back up, and while my attention can be focused on her not slinging her food everywhere, I still have my son who is too young to be left alone. Others may say this is a toddler and they act up, but toddlers will acknowledge when some one is speaking to them, my daughter is clearly not even in the same room 3 feet from me. Which we already know she can hear, but is she there, I do not think so. Realizing our daughter clearly has behavior/learning disablities we again consult her doctor. Determining ADHD in a toddler has its issues one being, parents pushing for medications ( which we do not want ) and two toddlers are still learning the world around them. We explain to her doctor we are well aware of her learning and express we do not wish to medicate, we simply want to diagnose and get the proper help we need to help her get ready for days when it will be a problem. We want the best for her when it comes to school or other things she will eventually have to overcome, my parnter and I both feel it would be best to start this learning process as early as we can. My daughters doctor understand where we come from and is helping us to provide a plan to address the complications of raising a child with ADHD. Finally, I can wrap up this blog post with a daily scene. Today this happened: My Daughter started whining about the show that has been on tv ( she picked it by name regular show of hers) so I stopped the show. She then began to wail like a banshee, obviously simply turning the show off was not the answer. I asked her if she would preffer to play with toys, she of course said yes!!Toys!!!, at that point I told her Ok go play with your toys, which she did. She ran off into the other room where her toys reside and began to dump the boxes out, which is when I made the secone mistake, I turned the tv off. There really was no point in keeping it on when there was no being present to watch it, 20 seconds later my daughter comes skipping back to in front of the tv. Upon seeing as it is now turned off she began to wail again and throw herself to the floor, while sobbing into her hands and quietly says “I wanna watch” to which I replied ” No. It’s play time now, no tv”. Upon hearing the word no she then flew her self harder into the floor, got up and sobbing and screaming and then racing her way back to the toy room. Tripping over her own feet as she fled, and then screaming like a banshee she got back up and continued to the toy room. When she reached the middle of the floor she again threw herself into the floor and sobbing, then rolling all around. Thank you for reading and I will continue to post regularly..