15 Minutes...

So for those of you who don't understand what having a child with ADHD is like, let me give you a snapshot of our 15 minutes of required reading:


Me:"If you take a mouse to school..."

Jacob:"No, it's if you give a mouse a cookie."

Me:"No Jacob, that's another book."

Jacob:"Oh. OK.  If you take a mouse to school, (turns page) can I play the Wii?"

Me:"No Jacob, you have to read for 15 minutes first."

Jacob:"OK.  He'll ask you for your lunchbox. Mom - I thought he was going to climb in the lunchbox, close it and write in his notebook.  I guess not. (Next page) When you give him your lunchbox, he'll want a sandwich.  That's like where you work Soundwich."

Me:"Yes it is Jacob.  Very good."

Jacob: "The mouse is in the backpack and he has a yo-yo.  Can I have a yo-yo?"

Me:"Not right now Jacob."

Jacob:"and a snack for later.  One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.  There are seven cookies on the counter.  Can I have a cookie?"

Me:"No Jacob.  You already had your snack."

You get the idea.  That was four pages.  This is on a good night when he's cooperating.  It's amazing the teacher can keep his attention in a classroom full of kids.

He's doing better this week.  He got an orange yesterday in school.  They have this really screwed up scale.  It used to be green, yellow, red, blue.  Now it goes red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink.  Red is good.  It used to be bad.  They start on green and go up or down accordingly.No wonder the kids are screwed up.

I asked him why he did so well.  He said that he tried really hard to be good after the medicine wore off.  Well that's a first.  I didn't know it was wearing off in the middle of the day.  I give it to him no earlier than 8 a.m.  So it's only lasting until lunchtime.  That explains a lot.

I asked his teacher to keep an eye on him the next couple of days and tell me when it seems to stop working.  We go see his doctor on Saturday, so we may be in for a dosage change.


Until then, we have one more day.  Hopefully it ends on a high note.