#14.5/31 Addendum

Now that I've had a night to sleep, I still can't see yesterday clearly.   I am pretty sure that hormones (of the female type) were not directly guiding Hannah yesterday.   She is usually grumpy and mean when she is a few days away from the start of her cycle.  Yesterday she wasn't grumpy, and not particularly moody; we had that last week.    Yesterday she just didn't (or couldn't) listen.   My clue came while we were at the orthodontist in the afternoon.   She loves him.  But she didn't process much of what he said to her.  He asked her a couple of questions and she didn't even turn her head to listen to him.   I can understand her tuning ME out, but not Dr. B.  And he was telling a joke, one of her favorite things. A bad joke.  Her specialty.

I'm glad that I went back to the chair with her.  I had had enough of her by that time and was considering letting her go back for her adjustments by herself just so I could have a few minutes away from her in the waiting room.

So I'm leaning towards the theory that she wasn't intentionally disobedient, but that there was something that was clouding her processing.   By evening time, she seemed back to normal.   She had her first music class with a new teacher, improvisation and "singing".  She loved it.  In my earlier fury I had declared all media off limits for the entire day.  So she happily got out her fancy water colors and painted the evening away.  It was a nice way to end the day.

If she starts a cold in the next day or two, I'll know what was happening.  Otherwise, it will be one more unknown childrearing experience.  Thanks for your thoughts and support.  Getting feedback, knowing I'm not the only mean frustrated mommy out there is very helpful.

#14/31 Ugh

Most days are good.

Some are lousy.

It's not been an "on" day for Hannah.   She just isn't listening.  My interpretation is that she's ignoring me.  Which doesn't make me happy.   In fact, it makes me pretty angry.

I can get angry quickly, if I've got a reason to.  And yes, I overreact.  And I'm loud.

I'm sure I am scary to the one who receives my wrath.  Nobody likes to get yelled at.

And yelling doesn't really solve the problem.  But it sure feels good to be the yeller.

When I yell at Hannah, she gets quiet.   She will sort of try to fix whatever it is that she's messed up, or try todo what she's instructed to do.  But she will never, ever apologize.   At least, not in a reasonable time frame. I'm sure that tomorrow I will hear a heartfelt apology.   But that doesn't make things better today.   It's really frustrating.

Frustration.

Yes, I do get frustrated with Down syndrome.  Why can't Hannah understand something today when she understood it a few days ago?  Why does everything have to take sooooo long?   Why can't I be more patient?

I actually am pretty patient with her.  Of course, we both overdose on each other on occasion, with just the two of us together every weekday.

And now, I can't tell if Hannah's having trouble today because of some neuronal glitch caused by excess genetic material, or if she's just behaving like a typical adolescent.   Is there a real reason for her behavior today?  I mean, is there a physiological reason?  Or is it just a random adolescent mood swing that makes her unaware of any one else's existence.

Am I asking too much of her?  I don't think so.  When I say, "Take a quick shower" she usually gets right down to business.  Today she had two reminders to get out.  I was busy with other things and was ticked off when she was still wasting 25 minutes of water (we're on water restrictions in our county).  After that, she was careless with her laundry.  Not sorting correctly (she does know how to do it--she's been at it for 8 months), not using the right settings.    Then there were several other lapses. Nothing huge, just totally annoying.  I expect my children to respond to a question.  I expect my children to obey a command (the FIRST time).  Generally, my expectations are met. Today I'd give an instruction, and she obviously chose either a) to not listen  /or/ b) couldn't process the information.

Now that I've settled down some,  I think that the answer must be b.   And where does that leave us?  Stuck with a faulty main frame processor, with no means of servicing it.

And that is what frustrates me.  I don't want to "fix" her.  I don't think there's all that much "wrong" with her. I wouldn't know where to begin imagining what she'd be like without that volunteer chromosome (that one that grew without intent).  But that chromosome is inexplicable.  I wish it would give out an error message, telling me the status of the processing unit.  Is the WiFi slow today?  Are there too many tabs open?  Is she using Internet Explorer when she should be using Firefox or Chrome?

I know just a few days ago I wrote that I couldn't tell what is Down syndrome and what is Hannah.  And I still don't.  When I wrote that post, I was content with Down syndrome.   And now I'm frustrated with it.

It happens a couple times a year.   A little burnout on both of our parts.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And now, to not leave you in despair, here is a little story that happened yesterday.

At dinner, James asked her what she liked at school time today.   She couldn't remember a specific thing (retrieval of information is difficult--it's in there, but won't always come out of the mouth or pencil).  I prompted her with a few cues (Look at the other end of the table (where we lazily left out all our schoolwork)! Look for something red!   It's a c---).

Aha!  She said, "I liked using the count-you-later!"

I guess when you use a calculator you are really going to count those numbers later.