My Gage; he is complicated.

No surprise to anyone out there with a routine-craving child that we’ve had some difficulty with re-entry into the real world since returning from the fabulous NYC trip.

Gage has had a considerable amount of trouble getting into the swing of things relating to school and home. Other than that! He’s a been a jewel!

I think Gage is challenged by the following…re-entry, being off routine, seasonal depression, regular depression, social awkwardness, lack of appetite (from new med), lack of ability to sleep, sensory issues, and a defiance/impulsive disorder. He seems very angry and sad right now. I guess it’s the one step forward, two steps back.

We’re tightening up the reins on the behavior mod program and encouraging strongly in different ways to get it under control. The psychiatrist said it’s not out of the realm of possibility for the need to increase Gage’s anti-depressant. We’ll be checking back in 2 weeks from now. She also recommended we get him up an hour early to have enough time and energy to eat a hearty breakfast. We started that last Thursday. And by “we” I mean Julian, because I do not work well with 6am. We still don’t get a along. Waking up early helped Gage eat better, but we didn’t see much improvement in his behavior/focus on those two days.

I can go on about the challenge of parenting Gage, but let’s face it; it’s Sunday night and I don’t have the energy. So let’s just take eating as an example. Gage doesn’t eat meat (with the exception of an occasional hot dog, do we count that as meat?). And his okay-to-eat food list is small, at best. I’ve had to get a little creative lately because on Concerta he’s lost 5 pounds of the very precious ones he put on since his transplant.

Gage will eat…bananas with peanut butter, peanut butter straight, milk, cheese, apples, broccoli, watermelon, PB&J, peanut bars (see a theme?), peanut butter crackers, yogurt, sunflower seeds, almonds, pecans, a few select cereals, occasionally hummus, cheetos/cheese crackers, pancakes/waffles, poptarts (strawberry and brown sugar) and let’s see. That’s about it. Oh, and pumpkin pie. Let’s all agree that we won’t tell Gage it’s Sweet Potato Pie. Somehow that sounds healthier to me. Because that’s been his entree for about 10 days straight. Photographic evidence…(click to enlarge, because it really is that strange)