Today's Doctor appt did NOT go as hoped.

We don't have a car any more, so I have to rely on rides to get to appointments. Today, my father took AJ, Gianna, and I up to the doctors for AJ's appointment. This was supposed to be a medicine recheck appointment, just to make sure the dosage and medication is correct. I have yet to see any changes, so I anticipated we would up his dosage of at least the Adderall. No dice.

We discussed a few things. His lying. He's been stealing lately. $5 from my wallet. Some change that was in his father's pants. $1 from someone at school (sorry that he took your ice cream money, Morgan). Lying about how he's acquired this money. Lying about his activities. Dr N told him that the lying and stealing need to stop. He's a wonderful man, and my kids love him. I just hope AJ respects him enough to listen. I informed him of how AJ had a tantrum and told me he wanted to kill himself.

While that is quite disturbing, it wasn't all that shocking, honestly. We just assumed it would have happened later on. Maybe when he was in his teens. Not at 5 years old, We discussed the appointment he has with the mental health clinic. While AJ is slowly spiraling out of control, there is nothing that we can do at this point. Well, technically there is, but at this point, the best course of action is to let the mental health clinic get their hands on him, and see what they recommend. It seems like a LIFETIME away, though. I would have loved for Dr N to up his dosage or something, but I trust him. He's a good doctor, and I bent backwards and sideways to ensure that my kids saw him. He knows what he's doing.

The concern is that we keep changing his meds, and it's upsetting his body. Because he's been on so many different medications in such a short time frame, he may not actually be given enough time to get used to them and have them take full effect. I fully blame myself for this. I keep expecting immediate results, and get upset when I don't see them. There are others who have had great success with the combination he is on now- Adderall and Intuniv. And here I sit, watching my son struggle. His temper is flying, he's talking back, he's mean, lying, stealing, and I just don't know what to do. Easy solution is to see about another medication. Dr N says we need to stop. Keep him on what he's on now. It's only been about 2 weeks since he started. I do need to give him more time. My issue is that he's been on Adderall for a while with no change. Months. I do think that his dose needs to be increased from 5mg to maybe 10. But I trust Dr N and we will wait and see what the clinic wants to do.

Today, after his appointment, a friend was supposed to come over. Her daughter also has SPD, so she knows what I go through with AJ on that front. Unfortunately, her daughter was having a hard time today, so they didn't make it. AJ was NOT happy about that, and immediately pitched a fit. He started flailing himself, yelling, screaming. I told him to get upstairs until he can calm down. He didn't like that, and started telling me that he did not want to go to his room, and he wasn't going. I had to remind him that I am the parent. I was not asking him if he wanted to go up. I was telling him that he was going up. Stomp*stomp*stomp up the stairs he went. Slamming the door. I did tell him that he is not to come out until I tell him. He gets 5 minutes of time out, and his time does not start until he's quiet. After 10 minutes or so, I assumed he had fallen asleep because he didn't respond to me when I called to him. I didn't hear any noises, nothing. About 5 minutes later, he storms down the stairs, screaming his little head off. Apparently, he smashed his face into the wall in an attempt to loosen his teeth so they fall out. He wants money, badly, and since he already got yelled at for stealing, his solution was to knock out some teeth so the tooth fairy comes. Too bad she doesn't come if you intentionally knock out teeth!

Fast forward a few hours. Dinner is done. I went upstairs to get the older two so that they could come down and eat dinner. While I was upstairs, I asked AJ where he smashed his face. He pointed to a part of his wall that would be impossible for him to have smashed his face there. If he did, he would have had to tilt his head to the side, and bend sideways. No, that didn't happen. I know it didn't. After some prompting, he FINALLY admitted to the truth. What he had done, ladies and gentlemen, was bite his pillow, and pull on it repeatedly. Over and over and over again. Hard enough to make the bottom right tooth loose. And of course, since he did this before it was ready to be loose, it hurts. Well, sorry kiddo. Not my fault. Guess you're going to be in a pain for a while.

I'm not sure how much longer I can take of this. The 31st is so far away. If I had a car, I would drive him there myself, and demand he be seen sooner. But I can't. I'm just tired of waiting. I'm tired of living every day anxious and scared to see what the day holds for us. AJ is very quickly losing his self control, and I am very quickly losing my patience. I will no longer tolerate his back talking and him disrespecting me. While I will not be randomly beating my child, I do believe spankings may need to come back into play. I did spank him once today. He stood there in shock that I actually spanked him. Maybe it was the nudge he needed to know that I wasn't playing games anymore. We'll see.

I'll end this here because it's pretty long, for one. And for two, AJ woke up just now. He's crying again about his tooth. At least, I think he is. I don't speak whinese, so I am not 100% sure. Hope your day went better than ours!!