Kaleidoscope

There are so many good things going on.  Mark is learning and he's happy.  Lately he's really liked "school" time.  So much so that he will pull out and set up the magnetic chalkboard when he thinks I'm not moving fast enough!  This is a big change for him and I'm thoroughly enjoying it.

He's still in the middle of another hormone surge.  One of the ways we discovered to identify one is a continual low grade fever with no other symptoms/illnesses.  That explains a lot of things that were going on with him.

He's become more curious and adventurous in some things.  The example from this morning is his Kaleidoscope.  I bought him a metal one quite a while back.  I showed him how to use it but he was more interested in drumming on the metal cylinder.  It was in the toy basket in the living room.  Today I looked over at him and he had pulled it out.  He was actually looking through it and twisting the end!  I stopped and watched him as he did this for several minutes before stopping.  He had a big grin on his face!  And he put it away! 

And Quiet bear has become a fixture.  Quiet bear is a purple beannie bear.  Mark saw it and fell in love with it.  It's deep purple and very, very soft.  And the soft didn't change after washing.  Mark, until recently, snuggled it for sleeping and occasionally played with it.  But lately he's been carrying the bear around with him - a lot.  I've had to make extra sure to check and make sure the bear isn't left outside when we go inside in the evenings.  Oh, and it's Quiet bear because that's what Mark named him.

On a different topic, Mark has been changing his own clothes lately.  It's creating a lot of laundry.  At the same time it's letting me teach him about what's appropriate to wear in different environments.  But there have been two things that really amuse me. 

The first is his impromptu changing after climbing out of his little pool.  He's never been bothered by wet clothes before but apparently is now.  And he's realized that he can do something about it.  Most of the time he goes inside to change and I have to watch to grab wet clothes off the floor.  But occasionally.....well let's just say he's getting in streaking practice.  But at least he is heading straight for the house to get new clothes as soon as the wet ones come off.  Fortunately, most of the time, he is going inside before the clothes come off. 

The second is him snagging clothes off of the clothesline to change.  I don't mind that he's changing his clothes.  But he's changing completely in the backyard!  Fortunately he's doing it quickly.  Yesterday he had done it in the time it took for me to walk back in to the washing machine and come back out with more to hang.  He had maybe a minute to do it.  Also, happily for me, the outside most line was covered in blankets and towels, so no one could see what he did.  Maybe I need a third line to hang towels on so that he won't see the clothes!  But again, this isn't something that occurs frequently so I'm just going to have to correct it as it happens.  And I'll keep making sure that he changes in appropriate places whenever I catch him doing it, in or out of the house.  He's picking up a lot of stuff intuitively lately so I don't think it will be long before he's got this learned.

I'm enjoying the changes in Mark.  I think he's enjoying the changes as well.  He seems to be comprehending a lot of new things.  Or making connections that he's had problems making in the past.  On the last doctor's visit he did everything his doctor asked.  (ear, open mouth, etc.)  We were both amazed.  We think it may be because he had to go to a couple of doctor visits for me and saw what I was doing.  Again, new connections.

Our life is like a Kaleidoscope nowadays.  It probably always has been.  But now he's seeing the pieces and angles and making connections.  Or maybe it's that he's seeing the pieces differently and making new connections.  Whichever way it is, it's wonderful and beautiful to see.

Migraines

Mark was pulled to homeschool because of health issues.  Some of those issues have abated.  He is no longer getting sick every week or so.  (He missed 25 days of school from August to January due to illnesses!)  In fact, since leaving school Mark has only been sick once, and that was an outer ear infection caused by swimming.  That's really good news!

But another issue was migraines.  The migraines had abated for the most part with only occasional flare ups that I was able to track to external stimuli.  Mainly, fluorescent lighting and echoing noisy environments.  But the last week or so has also proven that the hormone swings seem to "assist" in triggering more migraines.  The triggers are the same but during a hormone swing his tolerance of the triggers is drastically reduced.  This is both good and bad news.  Bad news because it means that while he's going through the hormone swings migraines will be easy to trigger in certain environments.  Good news because it hopefully means that when the hormone swings are gone the migraines will be drastically reduced.

Some of the other issues, like losing his balance, had disappeared as well but have reappeared with the hormone surges.  Actually, have reappeared with the migraines.  As if the migraines are actually why he's having balance problems, which is possible.

And this is the topic today because the stress of a new environment (co-op) and the fluorescent lights at the doctor's office triggered a migraine that had Mark curling up in my bed with all lights out and blankets over his head.  After about an hour of that he started playing in my bed, and now he's up and playing.  But no lights are allowed on in the house right now.  And he absolutely refuses to go outside, even to play in his pool.  And for most of the afternoon, he wouldn't eat.  Hopefully he'll be feeling better by tomorrow morning.