I got a call the other afternoon from one of the Girl’s teachers. ANY midday call from one of her teachers is a source of immediate panic, and my mind started racing. Unlike most parents, however, I don’t start envisioning what horrible things could have happened to my daughter. No, I start envisioning what horrible things my daughter might have done to someone else’s child.

This time, however, there were no injuries. My daughter’s teacher sounded somewhat hesitant to explain the problem.

“Well, the Girl brought a roll of duct tape to school.”

OK, she’s been a duct tape freak her entire life, so this isn’t too surprising. Did she tape some kid to the ceiling?

“She spent the day duct taping all of her notebooks and binders.”

OK, again, not too unusual. She likes to cover things in duct tape.

“It was very distracting for the rest of the class.”

Aha! She was wrapping her things in duct tape during class. Her teacher had apparently asked her to stop at least five times, and finally took the duct tape away from her. This lead to a discussion of how our daughter tended to sketch and draw in class instead of, oh, doing the classwork.

I bring this up not because it’s unusual, but because it is so utterly normal. It touches on most of our ongoing issues — a) taking inappropriate things to school, b) getting her classwork done, and c) doing what she’s told to do. Or perhaps more accurately, NOT doing what she is told NOT to do.

She is still taking Vyvanse, and it’s been very helpful, but it doesn’t provide the kind of control she needs to get her homework done and avoid issues at school. We tried going to the next higher dosage, and she started getting migraines of unexpected ferocity, so that’s out. Since it’s not doing the whole job at the lower dosage, we’re shifting to another medication.

Atomexetine, sold under the brand name “Strattera”, is a newly-approved medication for treating ADHD in children. Unlike Ritalin, Adderol and even Vyvanse, Strattera is not a stimulant. Instead, it is a norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor. Preliminary studies seem to indicate that it is effective in increasing attention and decreasing impulsivity.

As with any drug, there are potential side effects: loss of appetite (not necessarily a bad thing), increased fatigue and drowsiness, and a very small chance of liver damage and increased thoughts of suicide. Just want to keep my hand in for Parent of the Year.

It can take 3-4 weeks for Strattera to become fully effective, so we’ll see what happens. One thing I know for sure, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate impulsivity and ADHD symptoms from the “normal” behavior of a 12-year-old girl.

We’ve been seeing more and more attitude from our little angel, including excessive sarcasm, sulking, and the kind of generally adolescent behavior that makes them so much fun to have around the house.

Last night the little darling got her door taken off it’s hinges. Again. Sigh. Six more years.

Do you remember Pirate Baby’s Cabana Battle Street Fight 2006? Well if you liked that, you’ll love Kings of Power 4 Billion %, also by Paul Robertson.

Of course if you hated Pirate Baby, you’ll hate this even more.

This video is NOT for the squeamish. Click to view.

Courtesy of No Fat Clips!

Nine years ago the Wife and I spent the wee hours between midnight and 8:00 am in a hospital room having very different experiences. She was in back labor, and hoping to avoid the necessity of a second Cesarean delivery. I was holding onto hands and feet as necessary, supporting as necessary, and waiting for it to be over.

The midwives in attendance told us they were very impressed with how well we worked together through labor. Well, the Wife and I have always worked well together under pressure. It’s when we aren’t facing an emergency that things get rocky. But I digress.

My son came into the world differently from his older sister in almost every way. She was born in the evening, he was born in the morning. She was born at the beginning of winter, he was born in the spring. She was pulled from my wife through an incision, while he arrived the more ‘old-fashioned’ way.

And they have continued to be very different as they grow. The Girl has always been aggressive with her intelligence, asking probing questions, and gravitating to adults more than to her peers. Her brother has always been content to remain in the background, watching. Watching and noticing. He’s frighteningly observant, and puts clues together amazingly quickly. I can’t begin to tell you how many times he’s been watching me play a video game, and he spots a clue (or the hidden passage, or the enemy’s weak spot) before I do.

He likes to know how things work, and he delights in assembling complicated machines and models. When you add in the fact that he has a better intuitive grasp of mathematics than I do, it becomes pretty obvious that if he isn’t headed for engineering, it will only be because he finds some career that fascinates him even more.

Today is his birthday. And since the girls are gone this weekend, I can celebrate his birthday my own way; my favorite way. Not with a big party, and not with expensive presents. Instead, for one day, all the questions that usually get answered “NO” get answered “YES”. Can you have a root beer float? YES. Can you rent some video games? YES. You want pepperoni pizza for dinner? YOU BET. You want a haircut?

Yes, he wanted a haircut. His hair has gotten quite long and shaggy lately, which he hates. So I got him into the hairdresser and we buzzed it all off. The little bugger looks like he’s about to start boot camp. I doubt if his mother will recognize him. He loves it. And I love him.

I think he’s had a pretty good day. Happy Birthday, big guy.

I have NOT been enthused about the new Speed Racer movie. For one thing, it represents yet another beloved childhood memory that’s been painted up like a prostitute and abused by the Hollywood system. For another, the clips I’ve seen of the movie look like some sort of LSD-induced Grand Mal seizure sponsored by Pantone.

But THIS clip, this one actually looks like it’s from a movie, not a music video, and miracle of miracles it also manages to resonate with some of the magic of the original series. You remember the series, don’t you? The steering wheel, with all those lovely buttons? The sharp *TWANG* of the jacks launching the Mach 5 into the air? A car with freaking buzzsaws that pop out of the front end? It was the coolest cartoon ever.

Maybe I’ll watch the movie after all.

It’s that time again. It’s Free Cone Day at Ben & Jerry’s:

Ben & Jerry’s will be handing out free ice cream cones from noon to 8:00 pm. The line will go around the block all day long. In general it’s pretty orderly, except when the B&J employees are actively encouraging the folks in line to shriek “Free Ice Cream!!” Oh, how I hate those employees.

One thing worth noting, I followed the pedicab in the picture up the sidewalk. Yes, he was riding on the sidewalk, which is just wrong for a couple of reasons.

First, the pedicab is terrifically wide, and so it pretty much comes down the sidewalk like a bulldozer. Second, riding on the sidewalk is typically prohibited. But more importantly, I have the generally unpopular opinion that if you want people to acknowledge your right to ride your bicycle in the street, then you have to stay the hell off the sidewalks.

Bah. I’m mostly just being a curmudgeon. Hey, free ice cream!

Let me thank all of you that took the time to comment on the post about “Johnny”, the four-year-old wandering our neighborhood. For those of you that are still curious about the situation, there have been a few new developments.

Although I do not have the cojones to do so, our neighbor across the street took Johnny home the other day and spoke to his mother. Yes, it turns out that the woman we thought was his caregiver was in fact his mother. So with respect to the hope that somehow this was a case of inattention on the part of a lax caregiver, that theory has been shot down.

I was not part of that conversation, and so I cannot say with any certainty exactly what was said therein. What has been passed on to me was that the mother was not particularly concerned about little Johnny’s safety, and didn’t see anything inappropriate about letting him have the run of the neighborhood.

I heard this from my wife on the same day that Johnny and I played a game of chicken on the main street of our neighborhood. He was on his trike, I was in my minivan. He was coming down the middle of the street, and as I approached him head-on in my van, he showed not the slightest reaction. I had to come to a complete stop, and slowly drive around him in order to reach my house.

Since then he’s still been out wandering the neighborhood once or twice. If he’s not playing with the preschool gang that roams our end of the street, then he’s hanging around near the teenage boys that are practicing their skateboard stunts to the accompaniment of thumping music. He left an empty 1-liter bottle of Mountain Dew on our lawn, and I shudder at the thought that he drank the whole thing beforehand.

I feel completely helpless, and this is a stressor that I don’t need right now.