honeymoon with the new nanny OVER; RAD, the disease, on your other children

Ok so the Nanny. She has a name I assure you but for simplicity purposes and to ease reading we will just call her the Nanny. Not hired help and not a "nanny" as you may think. She is more like a family member, a team member. She is around to watch the kids, participate in family events (and actually enjoys it), hang out with the family on a social basis, you get the idea. So the start of a truly beautiful relationship began with her accepting the job a few weeks ago. She has done great. The kids have done...well ok. Of course there is the normal kid stuff of attitude, see how far we can push her, how cool is she really, will she let us snack ourselves into junk food oblivion, do I really have to do my homework? Normal stuff. As far as the RAD stuff, not too bad lately. The Nanny has done wonders with trying to avoid the melt. We did not have to teach her too much she came prepared with a plan and some experience in her belt. (Gotta love people who actually love their job and want to help! Whoo hoo) For all intents and purposes things were running smooth. We all knew it would not last. Honeymoons never do.

*

Med change/Symptom flopping/Comfort with the Nanny/Realizing RAD may like the Nanny....DANGER DANGER! KABOOM! Big feelings are so hard. Hard to sometimes explain. Hard to live through. Hard to change. The story goes a little something like this.....

*

Nanny tells everyone to get ready to go (church/therapy night). RAD gets upset for whatever reason because he does love his therapist and wants to see her. He throws a toy. Nanny takes the toy in a calm manner. RAD freaks and starts proclaiming how he will hurt people, himself, everything. He becomes violent. Nanny has to carry him up the stairs to his room to keep everyone safe. Mind you he is pushing 70lbs and flailing like a possessed rabid tiger. Up the stairs they go. Step ones too. I chose an awesomely difficult house to navigate! (good job mom---hey it was pre-RAD cut me some slack!) Nanny gets him in his room and does the typical prison shake down for shanks and projectiles. RAD is raging. Nanny remains calm, leave the room to catch her breath and stands outside listening to him. The other children and dogs are safely down the stairs awaiting further instruction. While they waited they cleaned the floors-WTH really? They cleaned! Sorry that one took me by surprise. I speak with the Nanny and we get things resolved and her prepared for another battle. She quickly calms RAD. He thinks she has left the room and stops flailing and screaming. Turns around and sees her standing there and starts again. Nanny said to me later, "Well I was not scared of him to start with and when he clearly showed me he was acting I had no fear." Smart girl. She kept her calm energy about her and stayed with him. Meanwhile mom (me) is doing 75mph all the way home through small towns because well that is what I do when things seem out of hand. I want to be there to protect everyone. Can't help it. Want to keep the flock safe and make sure that things are handled in the right fashion with RAD. I DO NOT WANT SETBACKS! Didn't have to worry. Nanny was good. Handled it right.

*

I get home and go upstairs calmly and we talk about it. RAD is calm, a bit weepy and still feeling some seriously big emotions. We calmly go through some of the issues and discuss how it made him feel, where the feeling was, how big it was, where it is now and how big it is now. It was still pretty big. We discussed restarting his brain with some jumps to clear his head. We discussed lonely kid coming out and making him miserable. He was physically exhausted. Poor kid. We talked about demanding lonely kid to leave and I asked if he was strong enough to try. He did it. "lonely kid go away" Louder baby, get him gone. "lonely kid go away!" Good job son. We can do this together I know you want to fight him. We will help you. This was not a time for a hug or affection because RAD was still breathing heavy and a bit disregulated. We settled for the only touch I can get without causing a three ring circus melt, the fist bump. Sounds silly but it works. Every time, it works. Not much but I will take it. It is the most reciprocal emotion I can get from him then so be it. At least I have one thing to hold onto.

*

Downstairs jumping was great. I think he hit around 600 jumps before he was tired. He felt like his brain was a little restarted but not all. He laid around kind of flopping back and forth for the next while. He did not get to go to therapy. Did not get to go to church. He sat near me or in front of me for quite a while. Being quite though not still. He can't sit still.

*

As his brothers came home from church and everyone prepared for bed and went about their nightly routines things got a little wonky again. My oldest (non RAD) was goofing off with the boys and RAD went into another weepy style rage. Non-violent just screaming and crying. Honestly he completely threw my oldest son off balance. Got the kids to bed. Said bye to the Nanny and my oldest came downstairs for a chat. He was crying. He was telling me how terrible of a child he was. How terrible of a brother. How he was such an embarrassment to himself. He had sent RAD into a rage and he knows how important it is not to do that. He could have gotten his little brother hurt, or his dogs, etc. It was a HARD conversation and I don't know where it came from. Mind you this is our bio-kid. We spent the first 8 years of his life filling him up, teaching him, doing all the right things as parents. He is a straight A student in private school, a model of a child, respectful, polite, kind, strong Christian and a witness to others. Honestly he is my greatest accomplishment even though I did not do it alone. He knows he is. Why the tears? We talked long into the night and I was able to get a laugh out of him and lots of hugs. I hope it is just hormones. He told me he regretted sometimes adopting and that made me sad. Although he still wants to proceed with adopting the older child we have been working on.

*

RAD, the disease, not my child, has done a lot of harm to our family unit. It hurts everyone. I don't get reminded of it often because normally I am the target, I am attacked and I look at it different. I can handle this. I will fight this. I was made to do this. He is my son. Wake up mom. Stop and consider the other children. I need to do that more I suppose. Have you considered your other children? I am sure you too have been through this before. Despite the efforts I make to take time with each one of my kids separate from the others, RAD, the disease, still puts a major road block in my way. I hope I am doing right by everyone. I don't get too discouraged often because I do have faith that this child is with me for a reason. They all are. The pending diagnosis of the little man is also for a reason. My bio-kid is for a reason. I have faith. I have faith. Without faith, there is nothing else to hold on to.