mamashark
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Posts posted by mamashark
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You sound like a great dog owner who just lives in an area that's attractive to fleas. A quick Google search brought up several types of options for yard treatment - cleaning up the yard, spraying pesticides, or using more "natural" methods. I read complaints about Borax killing grass, and diatomaceous earth can be dangerous if inhaled, so consider your options carefully. Does your neighbor have dogs? You might ask him what he does about the fleas.
No, the nice neighbor who hunts doesn't have dogs (And we didn't have fleas over the warmer months when we moved in - just when hunting season started and the deer started coming in). The neighbor on the other side isn't very approachable and has a has a pitbull that often comes to our yard...they live in a mobile home that looks like it's falling down and their yard is full of trash/junk. We have a partial fence along the property line and we're working on getting a fence across the front part to keep the dog out of our yard so I don't have to keep cleaning up that dog's poop. We're having trouble making much headway with pleasantries there. Even our plate of Christmas cookies was a bit of a dud.
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Which flea medicine are you using?
We were using Frontline then we switched to Advantage when we got the fleas so badly the first time. We also used cap star which WORKS but it's daily and expensive!
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We have a dog - and we keep her treated with a flea/tick medicine monthly without fail, take her to the vet yearly for vaccines, checkup, etc. We have a sinking fund to save for her vet visit and otherwise budget for her monthly flea meds and her food with a little leftover for the occasional treat/toy.
We moved into a new home in August, when my husband got a new job, with a half-acre of land that backs up to woods. Our new neighbor is super nice, and hunts so our kids were fascinated as he started bringing deer home to hang and skin throughout hunting season. The same time the deer started coming, starting in November sometime, we found fleas on the dog.
we flew into gear, started vacuuming twice daily, used our dog shampoo that helps kill fleas, got a flea powder and treated the entire house, washed every thing that ever touched the floor (blankets) and washed the dog bedding weekly on sanitizing wash. We used capstar and a powder on the dog, and in the end, after spending over $200 on treatments (all the money we had saved for her vet visit) we finally got rid of them. For 6 weeks we had no fleas or itching or anything.
Then we had 2 warm days. so we all spent a ton of time outside. The next day she's itching again... and yes we have fleas again.
My husband made the decision to give her the monthly flea medicine a week early, and I'm ready to cry. We can't afford to spend any more money on getting rid of fleas! And obviously they are in the yard, but how do we get rid of them there?
I feel like a terrible dog owner - we are low income but had done our best to be financially prepared for caring for our dog, and then fleas are just killing us. And we weren't negligent, we used a monthly flea preventative religiously! And I can't help but feel like we are at a point where we just can't afford a dog right now. :( I don't know how we are going to afford to get rid of the fleas again and I don't know how we are going to come up with the money to take her to the vet come spring. And this follows a huge car repair bill that killed our emergency fund.
What are we supposed to do now?? :(
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You're not going to like this idea, but I recommend that you work well ahead of your daughter in whatever text you've decided to use. You may find that once you understand it better by doing more of it, you won't hate it as much.
I did very poorly in math in high school. I had to retake both Algebra I and geometry, and I got a D in Algebra II. When I realized that I would be teaching my older son Algebra I, I decided to run through the ALEKS Algebra I course. It took about a week of intensive work (by "intensive" I mean that I did the program in all of my spare time). I then did the same with geometry the next year. With that base, I was able to back off a bit and just work ahead of my kids in whatever text they were using. I am currently doing this for BC Calculus (even though my kid is in school--the teacher is horrible), and having done it for all of the math until now means that I am prepared (though I am finding that I need to draw in resources other than the text provided by the school because it is almost as horrible as the teacher).
Some kids do well with being handed a text and told to go for it. But many others, maybe even most others, need a human to teach them and keep them on track. As a homeschooler, I felt that I needed either to be that human or find a human willing to do it. Unfortunately, finding a human to do math with a kid several times a week is usually not feasible, either financially or logistically, so being that human becomes the only option.
I may not like that option because I don't like math, but you're right, it's a good option. And one that will work. I have to take an easy school week this week because of my sons behavioral eval, so it's a perfect time to work ahead of her and learn this stuff myself. I know I'm smart enough to learn it, I had a terrible base in math as a kid, which is where my difficulties now come from... The stuff I've learned as I teach number sense is astounding.
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Sounds like it is time to revisit your long term plans for math.
When you decided to homeschool, what was your original plan how to handle higher math, if you hate math and are struggling with prealgebra? How did you and your DH envision her math instruction in the upper grades? Coop, tutor, trading with another homeschooler? Depending on what you had thought of, can you bump up this plan by a bit and do whatever you were going to do for high school NOW?
Tutor in the neighborhood?
Trade homeschool classes with another parent ("you teach my kid math, I teach your kid French")?
Find a homeschool coop?
Can dad take over the math instruction?
Math is a difficult subject to teach oneself, and I would not expect a 9 y/o to teach herself from a book.
If there are no other options, you will need to spend more time on math to study ahead so you can work with her.
Parents have learned alongside with their kids, up to pretty very high level.
Thanks for this! It was a helpful reminder.
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Is this your oldest? Could she stay up a little later than the others to do math with Dad after they're in bed?
It is my oldest but she's an early bird and usually asleep by 8pm with wind down time and reading from 7-8. She is the one who turns out her light and goes to sleep that early, too, it's not my mandated bedtime for her.
I'll have to talk to my husband, maybe he can do 30 min. With her in the evening and I can review problems the next day or something.
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I might try to talk her dad into teaching her math... he just doesn't want to because he is only home from work a couple hours before the kids (We have 4) bedtime and would rather spend the time playing with them.
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what is she using for math right now?
The college of redwoods pre algebra text.
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We have finished Barton level 2 and are starting level 3 today! She's reading! like, actually reading! :party:
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My dd9 has been doing prealgebra and loves it! She eats up each concept and opts to spend extra time solving the harder problems once she understands each concept. She talks about how much she loves it, and I love seeing her enjoy math since we've had a rocky road getting to this point.
BUT
I have to teach it to her. She can't just read the text and figure it out, because she learns best with discussion style teaching. Thrives on discussion style teaching. And I hate math! I barely understand the prealgebra and struggle to explain it even with the explicit teaching in the text and I get so frustrated when I can't explain it properly. I find myself avoiding math and now after Christmas break I am dreading getting back into it!
And I have no money. Like, literally no money - we just spent our entire emergency savings on a new power steering assembly on our van. So I'm stuck with the math we've got and I've got to just suck it up and keep teaching it. :glare: Grumble.
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My dr. is working to balance my hormones which have been out of whack for my entire adult life, basically, and we are using bioidentical hormones and some supplements and working to get everything in a more appropriate range. One of the "symptoms" of my hormone imbalance was what you might call atrophy of my chest area. I tend to be able to get away without wearing support, ever, because unless I'm wearing a tight shirt you can't tell. Well, as the hormone therapy is working, I'm finding that I'm growing... and am feeling a little overwhelmed at the prospect of buying bras because I don't know how much I'm going to grow or how long it might take, and doggone it bras are expensive!!!
Anyone have any experience with this issue? Or any ideas on how to find a bra that's actually comfortable without having to buy a new one once a month while we are getting my hormones stabilized? I'm finding some of my easy outfits aren't as easy to get away with anymore now without the support, which has me a bit bummed.
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Sounds like a time to bring in ABA. Are you homeschooling too, so he's having behaviors when you're trying to do things with other kids and deal with him at the same time?
yes, I found a place near me that takes our insurance for ABA but I have to have a diagnosis first and they won't evaluate him. I've spent several weeks trying to figure out how the process works because it took forever to get people to call me back!
Yes, I homeschool too - if I allow him to be self-directed he doesn't throw fits. If I impose on him with requests or try to get him to do something I've got a 50/50 chance of a fit. Yesterday he was fine until dinner, which he promptly threw a fit and ran away before even sitting down. Our 9 year old was able to talk him back to the table and he ate the entire dinner, which was nothing short of miraculous! Then he started finger flicking his cheek while talking about wanting to tell Nana and Gramps on skype that he ate dinner...followed later by him avoiding skype the entire time we were on. I had to call them back after saying goodbye when he ran to the computer a minute too late to talk to them. But trying to talk him into coming sooner caused him to shut down - grunts, turning his head away, running away with a car to play with.
...and at the moment he has forced himself behind me in my chair, pushing on my back with his legs and crying softly "no sit" over and over because I told him he can't have a hot dog right now.
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People are of this confused idea that autism behavior is abnormal, but in reality basically anything a person with autism does, other people do. It's HUMAN behavior. It's the combination of all the behaviors, when they do them, etc. that makes them fit the criteria for the diagnosis. Uniquely Human | Dr. Barry M. Prizant Prizant talks about this.
So you don't need to judge the behaviors. Just write it all down. Yes, write down everything repetitive, everything unusual. My ds used to untie my shoes. You might be like ok, big flip. But he did it EVERY TIME, every single time I would come to wipe him. And that thing would rotate. So he might do that for a month or two, then the repetitive thing would move on to something else. None of it was necessarily stuff that people would say oh clinical, but it was this overall picture of the frequency, the need to do it, and having the repetitive behaviors and and and and.
And I hate to ask, but you're saying he rubs himself, not a binkie or a blanket or something? Why are you letting him spend so much time on his bed when you suspect autism? You set a timer and you say hey we're gonna take a 5 minute break and then we're going to go for a walk. When my ds is withdrawing, it's not a sign to let him withdraw. If he needs a break, give him a break, but then we're going to work on reconnecting, building bridges, getting back together. Too much time alone like that is not good for my ds. When he's yelling to leave him alone, it's my ds' cue that he needs MORE of something, not less, that he's feeling disconnected or overwhelmed and needs something to get him back to stable and connected and ready to go forward.
Are you getting an OT eval? Sounds like he needs a sensory diet.
The concept that autistic behavior is human behavior is something I learned when my older daughter when to OT. We used the How does your Engine Run program with her (and I've tried it with my son but it kind of failed miserably) and I realized how much I do to regulate my own engine, but just do it in a more "appropriate" way.
Honestly - regarding why I allow him to spend so much alone time in his bed when I suspect autism? It's because I don't know what to do. I am overwhelmed and in need of direction and when I allow him to spend his time self-directed, I have fewer fits. He spends a lot of time playing, too, and I add sensory integration as often as I can with jumping and swinging and other typed of activities as suggested by an OT.
... I got interrupted and am on the phone now, sorry if this seems disjointed and unfinished!
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I'm filling out the paperwork for my son's eval (he's 4, turning 5 end of Jan. his eval is the first week of January - I keep willing the phone to ring so that she can get us in sooner, but at least it's on the books). And as such I've been noticing little things that my son does that I've never paid attention to before, like when he is flicking his fingers against his cheek in a repetitive manner... it's subtler than "hand flapping" but...
Anyways I started thinking today about how he will lay on his bed on his tummy and rub on his lovie.... the Dr. told us this was normal behavior when our eldest daughter did this (she said they're too young to get pleasure out of it but didn't really give us much other than to not worry about it...). The dr. said that it's not a thing they necessarily need to grow out of but that it's important to teach children privacy and only in bed, etc. as they grow older. Our daughter grew out of it, but I don't remember what age - it was kind of gradual and she's 9 now. It seems to be a bedtime thing, often, and some days, like today, he spends a lot of time in his bed. Does this behavior rate in the category of stimming? Should I include it in the paperwork? Or is the Dr. right that it's "normal" behavior?
BTW: we don't go to this Dr. anymore - and she is the reason we are only now getting around to the evaluation. She told us his behaviors were normal, even when I voiced concern at appointment after appointment. My husband believed her for a long time until I was able to prove to him that he was not outgrowing behaviors that he should have and he is now seeing how different our 2 year old responds to the same types of things and he agreed to an eval. Thus my wondering if her advice on the rubbing is accurate.
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Thank you, this is very encouraging!
oh honey, my heart hurts reading this. You did NOT cause this. You are not the lax mom. Man have I been there...feeling that way. Heck, still happens. But you are doing what YOUR child needs.
And I HATE that church is hard. It is. Our low point was when DS (before diagnosis) sucker punched a random stranger in line for communion. We never went back to that church!
But I did the WRONG thing I think, and stopped taking him, rather than work out how to accommodate him. He now is an agnostic and I have a lot of regrets. Maybe he would have been agnostic anyway, but I will never know. I wish I'd done whatever it took, including bringing toys, sitting in the back, snacks, whatever it took.
He also didn't participate in sunday school, until I started teaching his class myself. But then I decided I needed a break and stopped. Sigh. And I DID need a break, but that meant he stopped going.
Anyway, probably nothing triggered this other than growth, hormone fluctuations, etc. It just is. Hugs.
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Yes, it is my understanding that this clinic can diagnose Autism, as well as other issues. They have behaviorists on staff, as well as psychologists and a variety of therapy/ABA/etc. available including the ability to come to our home if necessary. I will look for other good places and see what their waiting list looks like as well - thanks for the book recommendation.
Is this with a clinic that can actually diagnose autism? It's hard when there are long waits. :(
Technically your ped can diagnose and get you a referral for a behaviorist. Around here, we can get a BCBA/behaviorist to come to our home. Some BCBAs work under psychs and can help you sort through diagnosis that way too. For us, it was really helpful to have someone in our home. It got over that hurdle of having someone only see him for snapshots in novel situations and not knowing what it was REALLY LIKE with him.
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Thank you for these tricks - I'll look into that tincture!
He sounds pretty overwhelmed, frankly. Even if he's done the activity before, if he has a growth spurt or realizes the demands are challenging and he's feeling overwhelmed, he'll begin to pull away.
It's only going to get harder. You definitely want to be pursuing evals. Btdt. Sometimes my ds is amazing, and sometimes it's like OH MY LANDS.
Mom trick. I give him Calm Child (herbal tincture) before things, and that takes the edge off enough that he can usually do it. I also build in high motivators and increase supports. It takes time to pair. We were JUST getting church working better, then they decided to "graduate" him and change the teachers and tell him, grrr. He still hasn't gone back. But at least he sits in church now, nicely. The biting has calmed down and he'll just use his bag and his strategies.
Anything involving waiting can be hard. Anything where the language demands exceed his ability to participate can be hard. So like in the main service he was struggling, and it was half music, stuff he couldn't understand. They now get us the songs ahead so we can pre-teach, which helps.
This is a long-term thing, so you definitely want evals and want help. You might get on waiting lists for more places and then cancel if you get into something sooner.
After church he was exhausted. He wasn't throwing fits, but was tired and needed down time. He is like this after most outings, but always more so after church. We pack a bag of matchbox cars and he plays contentedly with them ... I was feeling frustrated with that this past Sunday, because sitting on the floor playing instead of going to class was categorizing me as the crazy lax mom who can't get her kid to go to class. No one says that or criticizes me, but I guess that's why getting a diagnosis would help, then I'd have an "excuse" so to speak, to bend the rules. And I'd feel better about bending them. I hate that nagging feeling that I'm being so lax with him that it's allowing the behaviors. (This is my MILs opinion and things got REALLY heated when I brought up the possibility of an evaluation - this was months and months ago.) I'm to a point now where I know we have to own this as parents, and I'm ready for professional help to do so.
Sorry to ramble on here. How was his behavior *after* church? My ds used to come home and be under tables, in closets, really stressed and frazzled. For us, that wasn't worth it. We decided to take a really non-confrontational, pairing approach. We bring in tons of supports, have really clear demands (we're going to sit in this one service, I don't want to have to leave, this is the consequence if we have to leave, if you bite me or hit me we will have to leave), and just get through it. It has taken 6-9 months, but he's gradually chilling. Now he can go to the service, sit through it using his bag, stay calm, and come home and be calm. No under tables, no stressed out, no flapping and fleeing and bolting. So that's really good!
So look at the picture as a whole and bend a lot of rules. My ds has a really nice, high value church bag. Like I put a gallon bag of legos in there. I don't care if no other kid takes a gallon of legos into church, lol. My kid does, because that's the support he needs right now to stay calm and pair and associate it with good things. And I take really, really high value food treats. A behaviorist will look for motivators for your ds to see what motivates him. My ds is very food motivated, so a high value treat is very powerful. I'll even take 3-4 treats. Like a tub of special treats (cereal cups for $1) AND pieces of candy to dole out AND cookies/donuts afterward for in the car AND a treat in the car on the way to church AND a starter treat for when he's in the service before the singing starts. For real.
For my ds, we had to ramp up the supports that high to get him calmed down. Then, as he's gotten more comfortable, we've been able to fade some of it. LIke he doesn't have to have the in car snacks both ways every time now. I'm still likely to do it, but it's more like fun surprise rather than MUST, if that makes sense.
Church is really, really hard. It's not enough to win and get his butt in the door, because then it's all paired with negativity. When my ds went through his drop everything phase, we decided to let him. Then, after a few months, we slowly worked on adding things back at his tolerance. He has ASKED, as in initiated for himself, to go to something at church. That was a shocker! Now it was really hard and language-based, meaning I'm not sure how much it's his reality. We're trying. We have a few weeks off with the holidays, and then it will resume. But I'm just saying that goal of peacefulness *can* work for some kids.
Before, when he was going to SS, what worked was to say he could choose to be with me that day or go to the class. I had hoped he would pair with some of the kids, but we never got it to work out. Some of the kids he likes who like him aren't there regularly enough for that to work. Pairing him with a worker or a buddy can be a strong technique.
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So we had a behavioral evaluation for our son (turns 5 in January) scheduled for August, but it got canceled for a couple reasons... then his behavior began to improve so we put off rescheduling. I'm reaching a breaking point again as his behavior is spiraling down again, and am waiting for a call back to get on the schedule for mid January.
I am struggling with feeling like I'm failing at this somehow. In church yesterday he didn't want to go to his class at all, I had to physically carry him (and unpry his fingers from the door jam) into his class, then we sat in the corner of the room, him on my lap unresponsive. The last 10 minutes of class I was able to get him to the table to do the craft.
He then later in the morning had a complete melt-down and shut down unresponsive again. Grunting, and turning angrily away from anyone who said anything to him. He stayed curled in a ball on the floor under the chairs in church for probably 20 minutes, until the band started up (and we had brass up front this Sunday, and he loves watching the brass players) so he stood watching, keeping his distance from any contact with me.
And this is typical behavior again. I feel like I walk on egg-shells all the time, never knowing when the next issue will happen, and am at a loss for how to manage the behavior.
I'm reading the book Freeing Your Child From Anxiety by Tamar Chansky, but only having small success with it.
I just don't understand why the behavior had begun to improve, and now we're spiraling downward again. My husband and I have racked our brains to find anything that we changed - but the downward spiral started related to NOTHING. not the time change (which happened several weeks later), not candy from halloween (which was again a good week or so later), no changes in diet, no change in routine, no change in belongings, no change in siblings, no change in teachers at church, no change in sleep habits, no change in clothing (we figured out he doesn't like polyester and changed to 100% cotton, but several weeks after the downward spiral started).
*sigh* I guess we just need to have the evaluation done.
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I'd been beating my head against a wall after completing Barton 1 because I was too cheap to get level 2, and was trying to make a variety of other curricula work. I finally sold enough stuff to buy levels 2 and 3. Yesterday I started level 2 with her. Today - we actually had FUN as we played games and finished lesson 1.
And I saw so many encouraging things - like how she wanted to read - and was working out the words faster than me when I would pause before reading something during our game time. To see my daughter smile while working on reading is AMAZING! I'm sure we have many more difficult days ahead, but I feel so relieved to have the tools that I know will work. And am so encouraged by the progress I've seen in just the past 2 days of getting back to the Barton method.
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OP, FWIW, I just ran your first post through the folks in the Guidance Dept at our high school to get their thoughts on the mandatory reporting bit. They were in unanimous agreement that for PA (my state), this legally should be reported by someone like myself. Their only "if" statement came if the lad had been outside in a fenced in yard or something similar where he wasn't in the "true outdoors," but you answered that in your last post. He was on the street. Injury could have happened.
I don't know what state you are in (and state laws can differ I think), but that's it from here as our law is interpreted by my school folks who deal with these issues.
Oh, and adding again that the first action of anyone investigating is not to remove the child from the parents. The first action (besides investigation) is to try to get parenting help - again - at least in my state. It sounds like that mom could use some. The lad could possibly use some too.
Thank you for taking the time to check that for me, I appreciate your help and concern!
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Thank you for the thoughts, I'm glad I got opinions on both sides so that I could see the different perspectives of the situation.
The child was probably outside for no more than 5 minutes, and it was on a small city street. My concern is not that he would have been snatched by someone, but that he would get hit by a car. His behavior escalated from the time outside but another mom was able to get him calmed down and participate in the rest of the evening. This child is not a runner, but hitter an biter and yes, I think there may be something clinical going on with the child (but also with the mom). One of my concerns is that the home life is a question mark for me, dad never comes to anything. (Not saying anything bad about the dad, I just don't know him or how supportive he is for mom).
Some of the history that I have been told about this kid include some other sort of eye-raising things, like leaving him unbuckled in a running car which enabled him to drive the car through a nearby fence... but no one was hurt and it was laughed off. I am honestly concerned about the child, and just wanted some perspective for what I saw as a disturbing situation. The way I saw it happen, it crossed a line for me, and I've seen a lot of "mean" parenting without being concerned for the child's wellbeing.
I am going to talk to my husband about it again, and I might seek guidance from our church elders in how to handle the situation as well.
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I don't think the OP has any obligation to condone abuse done to her and sweep it under the carpet.
I didn't mean to suggest that she did. If what I said implies that, I apologize!
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I would report that. You seem to be assuming that his behavior is the trigger, but it is likely the reverse, that abusive parenting is causing his behavior.
Ok I understand what you are saying, but part of me feels like as a friend, I should try to talk to her first. My husband's role as a mandated reporter aside, shouldn't my role as the friend be to address with her what I see?
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Out of curiosity, why is your husband not reporting it as a mandatory reporter?
I am one and would feel the need to report such an incident if I saw it. That would let the "experts" decide if it's an issue. I'm pretty sure (but not positive) even if he heard about it from you he's supposed to report it.
Personally, if I knew what I would say to the mom wouldn't change a thing and would just make her angry, I wouldn't say anything to her. One can't have a real discussion with a closed mind. But by reporting it I would be doing what I could to try to help the overall situation.
I don't know why he's not reporting it ... he expressed anger over the situation to me later and I gave him information on the history of this woman and her kids. He didn't say much else about it, so I don't know that he's not going to report it, I guess.
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I would try to make amends with visits outside of Thanksgiving. Making amends with your aunt doesn't mean accepting what your brother did as right, it means loving your aunt. If your aunt isn't willing to love you back without you bringing your daughter into the home of a child molester, then she's the one who isn't willing to make amends. I would be honest again, because it can't mess things up more than they already are, and tell your mom and aunt the reason you won't be coming but express love and a desire to have a good relationship outside of that issue.
:grouphug: :grouphug:
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Fleas
in The Chat Board
Posted
I'll look into those medications, thanks for the recommendation.
I realize that emergencies happen and we had an emergency fund of $1000. we just were hit with two issues at the same time - our van's power steering system failed and we had to spend $1500 on that... so our emergency fund is gone now. We have had the dog for something like 5 years now, and in the past whenever we've had a health issue we had the money in emergency to cover it. I just feel like we're backed into a corner now without any emergency fund left because of the van and am feeling frustrated - I don't want to go back to credit card debt, we worked hard to climb out of that!