Sweet Shoppe Designs

A KCB mashup for challenge 21, write a novel on your page.

Kits: Here Comes Trouble and All-Star, Kristin Cronin-Barrow, SSD
Template: Kickers 5 Rectangle, Jennilyn Designs, Funky Playground Designs
Punchy Edges, Julie Billingsley, SSD
Font: Complete in Him

Journaling :
When it comes to you and mischief, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. No, that’s not quite right. Looking back at the photos, it’s funny. In the moment, laughter is rarely my first reaction.

You have a long list of mischievous deeds and enormous messes to your credit. When you were 2 and loved to dump toy bins and garbage cans, it was frustrating but normal. A few years down the road, at 4.5, we’re starting to get concerned. Some of your messes are accidental and no big deal; you’re world’s messiest eater, and more ends up on the floor and your clothes than in your mouth. You spill drinks and drop things frequently. You forget to clean up one toy (or 15) before moving onto the next. Some of that is the apraxia and a need for therapy to work on hand strength and dexterity, some of it is just you. Whatever the cause, the accidental messes can be frustrating, but they aren’t really a big deal, just part of life with you.

What concerns us is all the deliberate mess-making that you still haven’t outgrown. Thankfully, garbage cans are pretty safe around you these days. But eggs? No way. If we don’t hear you open the fridge and immediately come supervise, the eggs and any other spillable foods are history. A couple of weeks ago Daddy had a gallon of milk in the blue room while he ate cereal. He turned his back for a minute, and you’d dumped the entire gallon all over the carpet. Cups meet the same fate if you’re in a bad mood. If you’re mad or tired, you dump bins of toys one right after the other, emptying shelves in seconds. If you’re bored upstairs in the morning, you may empty your dresser drawers and throw every article of clothing you own around your room. Leave you alone in the bathroom and you unroll all the toilet paper, flood the place while splashing in the sink, or squeeze toothpaste all over. I’d like to think that some of it is an inquisitive mind, but you’ve got to know by now what happens when you throw eggs on the floor! How many eggs must be smashed before you get it out of your system?

Sometimes we wonder if you have a problem with impulse control, but it doesn’t quite fit. You may not seem to think before you dump or smash something, but you don’t jump from high places or put yourself in danger the way a child with too little impulse control does. You run away in stores, but not into a busy street. You don’t engage in many of these behaviors when you’re at school. All of those distinctions argue against ADHD or impulsivity.

Is it sensory? You’re being evaluated for sensory processing disorder, and I know that sometimes you make certain movements or noises or play in different mediums (like water or sand) for the sensory input. That accounts for some things, like being unable to resist the lure of splashing in the sink. But that doesn’t explain the dumped bins or scattered clothes; you aren’t playing in them after you dump them.

Are you bored? That plays a roll when you’re getting into early-morning mischief like emptying your dresser, but there are also plenty of times when boredom is clearly not the cause.

I think sleep deprivation is part of the answer. We put you to bed at an age appropriate time (bedtime starts at 7, lights out by 8), but no matter what we do we can’t get you to sleep long enough. You wake around 5 am most mornings. If we put you to sleep earlier, you wake around 1 am and take a few hours to go back to sleep. If we put you to sleep later, you sleep only a little later (ex: putting you to sleep 2 hours later may lead to you getting up 45 minutes later, thus making you even more sleep deprived than usual.) We haven’t figured out the cause or the cure, but all of your problem behaviors are much, much worse when you’re tired. When you’re well rested, you’re like a different child. I wish we could figure out how to help you be well rested, sweet, and helpful every day. But what if there’s something else we’re missing, something that you need therapy or medicine for? What if whatever we’re missing comes back to bite you when you start kindergarten? You’re much better behaved at school than at home, but if you start acting like this at school you’ll be teased. You know I adore you, and most of the time you’re so sweet and affectionate. But the bad days...they’re driving me crazy. Lots of questions, but no real answers. I hope we can figure out how to help you soon!