Little Prince's Last Few Months

Little Prince has adjusted to being a big brother wonderfully. He is kind, gentle, loving and playful with Princess Lollipop 99% of the time! And usually we can catch that 1% of not so very nice before he hurts her!! Princess Lollipop ADORES her big brother and I can see her following him into all sorts of mischief in the future, oh boy!! She squeaks and squeals when we pick him up from school, and spends the time waiting for him shouting "Brud Brud" (her way of saying brother lol) and he greets her with a hug and kiss (even when his school friends are watching - I can only have kisses if they aren't looking lol).

Although Little Prince seems to completely adore his new sister, he does seem affected by her arrival in other ways. He complains that no one ever plays with him (we do!!) and is quite jealous of the attention Princess Lollipop gets. At Christmas he wanted to open all of his own presents and hers too! He is very possessive of the things he has grown out of, and we have only been able to give Princess Lollipop his old toys that we had stored away in the attic. The ones (like board books) that have stayed on his bookshelves are still adamantly his! He also gets very upset at any perceived unfairness, if Daddy brings home something for me or one of the girls he will have a tantrum or cry as though his heart is breaking, even if he got something (and no one else did) the day before!

Little Prince's behavioural issues seem a lot more obvious and harder to deal with at the moment too. I'm not sure if he has got noticeably worse, or if I am so much more exhausted and don't deal with him as well?!? And this could all be exacerbated by the fact that he finds December hard to cope with - all the routines at school are out of whack, he gets worked up about the School Christmas Concert (he hates lots of people looking at him, he had a speaking part and coped very very well, I'm very proud of him) and he is completely over excited about Christmas on top of all of that! Then his birthday is in January and we send Letterbox contact letters to his birth family in February (and it will be Princess Lollipop's birthday) which always brings out a lot of questions and worries for him. Thinking about it, its such a lot for him to cope with its no wonder he has his "moments"!! Poor lad! His "moments" have included breaking the pull light switches in both the upstairs and downstairs bathrooms in one day!! The upstairs one was fairly simple to fix, but the downstairs one needs a whole new switch fitting, which means turning all the power off and with working long hours Mr Messy hasn't had chance to do it yet - so we are showering by candlelight!!! Before Christmas he found the tins of Roses and Quality Street chocolates I had stored on top of the wall cupboards and ate most of them! He poured loads of the expensive conditioner I have to use on Princess Lollipop's hair down the plughole! And has lost both his DS and his mini iPod, they must be in the house somewhere but I have NO CLUE where!!! Its not all negative, honest, he is still the loving, funny energetic little boy we adore, he's just harder work at the moment lol. He decided last term that he no longer needs to take his comfort blankie to school, and in the last few weeks has taken to leaving it in his bedroom throughout the day too :-) My little man is growing up :-)

Due to the intensification in Little Prince's behaviour I chased up his appointment with the ADHD/Externalising Behaviour Specialist just after Christmas. Unfortunately it seems that his original referral, sent in early October 2009 had not been received!! I then had to negotiate between the two specialist's secretaries to try and rectify the situation. It wasn't made any easier by the fact that one of them seemed more interested in making sure it wasn't her fault than trying to sort it out!! They eventually confirmed that Little Prince was now correctly logged into the system, but can give me no idea whatsoever of when he will be seen :-( We had been told by his referring paediatrician that he would probably be seen in Jan/Feb 2010, and the thought of getting help after Christmas is all that got me through the difficult month of December :-(

After taking the advice of the school nurse (like a health visitor but for school children) and GP on Little Prince's nocturnal enuerisis we started Little Prince on Desmopressin (a medication that mimics the hormone vasopressin that supresses urine production during the night). The medication worked for the first two nights and then didn't work again, despite switching from one form of the medication (desmomelts) to another (desmopressin tablets) and despite doubling the dosage to the highest dose. Little Prince is so motivated to be dry, but his body just isn't co-operating :-( He was so pleased and proud of his dry nights, and then so very very upset when he was wet again :-( The school nurse was upset for him too, she said he had so much going on for him that she was so hoping that this would solve one issue, and give him such a boost in self confidence too! After talking with her and the GP again, we agreed to give the medication a break and try again after Little Prince's 7th birthday. Little Prince took this to heart and on his 7th birthday insisted that he wasn't wearing the "Dry Nites pants" and would be dry - and he was :-) I've bought a couple of waterproof duvet covers and let him go for it! He has had more wet nights than dry and has started to wear the "Dry Nites pants" again, but this is REAL progress :-) And its showing him that his body is getting "growed up" enough to learn to be dry and he is thrilled :-) We are seeing the GP again next week to see if another course of desmopressin would help.

But looking on the bright side - he IS now in the Specialist's system and will be seen in due course :-) He CAN now manage a whole day at school without blankie and without melting down about it :-) He IS a fantastic big brother :-) He HAS spontaeneously started to be dry some nights :-) He HAS received two "Head Teacher's Awards" at school for wonderful behaviour and trying so hard with his work :-) He HAS achieved his 20m swimming certificate :-) And he is and always will be my special little man :-)