p3. In the Middle of the Night…
So just what does my kid do in the evening when she isn’t sleeping? Let’s start with the innocence of a three year old.
After my second daughter was born we left our small home and went to suburbia. This was an incredible thing to Da, better than a new baby sister. After a few days of having a sibling, she proclaimed that she thought she was nice, but could we send her back now? This was all put aside when she discovered there were other kids her age living right in the same circle.
My husband is the kind of guy who likes to keep his life on a schedule, this included getting up early, 5 am, to exercise before work. The first week in our new home he would check on Amanda to make sure things were OK and to double check that she hadn’t again loaded all the stuffed animals in her baby sisters basset, just in case she wanted to play with one.
The third morning, Tom was mortified that he couldn’t find Da anywhere. We both went on a search from the second floor to the basement and she was nowhere to be found. Amazingly our neighbor who lived across the street was walking her over from his house. It turns out she had let herself in their back door which was kept unlocked for taking out their dogs at night. The neighbor told us they heard some scattering noise and humming, they thought for sure they were catching a burglar. He and his wife knew they were alone in the house since their daughter was visiting her grandparents, and the noise didn’t make sense. Thank goodness they did not keep guns.
They discovered the sound was coming from their daughter’s room and slowly approached the door to nab the burglar with surprise. Da was the one that surprised them, since she was sitting in the closet playing with the toys; we have no idea how long she had been gone.
It would be such a great thing to say now that this is the experiences we had in the evenings with our daughter, but unfortunately it is not. We had periods of her leaving through a window in the middle of December in a pair of shorts and not showing up until the police found her three days later. An attempt with a Junior Boarding school for 5th grade would have her hitch hiking with a trucker for an adventure. (I will discuss the education of our daughter). Our cable bill would be huge from the ordering of “Adult” movies. The fax line would be used to sneak in phone calls in the late night, much to the frustration of the parents on the receiving end – they could not contact anyone since it was a dedicated line, so harassment charges would be filed with the police.
The incidents are numerous and teeter from life threatening to silly, but the above all took place before she was in the 8th grade.
As an adult, her evenings without sleep have been horrifying for a mother to discover. A week spent in our justice center (jail) before sentencing was especially frustrating to her because she could not have her Seroquel, which is an antipsychotic that she used as sleeping pills.
Mothers and fathers of bipolar children do not get much sleep in the evening either. In addition to the phone calls and searches, there are the tears, nightmares and worries. Parents do not feel grandiose.
After my second daughter was born we left our small home and went to suburbia. This was an incredible thing to Da, better than a new baby sister. After a few days of having a sibling, she proclaimed that she thought she was nice, but could we send her back now? This was all put aside when she discovered there were other kids her age living right in the same circle.
My husband is the kind of guy who likes to keep his life on a schedule, this included getting up early, 5 am, to exercise before work. The first week in our new home he would check on Amanda to make sure things were OK and to double check that she hadn’t again loaded all the stuffed animals in her baby sisters basset, just in case she wanted to play with one.
The third morning, Tom was mortified that he couldn’t find Da anywhere. We both went on a search from the second floor to the basement and she was nowhere to be found. Amazingly our neighbor who lived across the street was walking her over from his house. It turns out she had let herself in their back door which was kept unlocked for taking out their dogs at night. The neighbor told us they heard some scattering noise and humming, they thought for sure they were catching a burglar. He and his wife knew they were alone in the house since their daughter was visiting her grandparents, and the noise didn’t make sense. Thank goodness they did not keep guns.
They discovered the sound was coming from their daughter’s room and slowly approached the door to nab the burglar with surprise. Da was the one that surprised them, since she was sitting in the closet playing with the toys; we have no idea how long she had been gone.
It would be such a great thing to say now that this is the experiences we had in the evenings with our daughter, but unfortunately it is not. We had periods of her leaving through a window in the middle of December in a pair of shorts and not showing up until the police found her three days later. An attempt with a Junior Boarding school for 5th grade would have her hitch hiking with a trucker for an adventure. (I will discuss the education of our daughter). Our cable bill would be huge from the ordering of “Adult” movies. The fax line would be used to sneak in phone calls in the late night, much to the frustration of the parents on the receiving end – they could not contact anyone since it was a dedicated line, so harassment charges would be filed with the police.
The incidents are numerous and teeter from life threatening to silly, but the above all took place before she was in the 8th grade.
As an adult, her evenings without sleep have been horrifying for a mother to discover. A week spent in our justice center (jail) before sentencing was especially frustrating to her because she could not have her Seroquel, which is an antipsychotic that she used as sleeping pills.
Mothers and fathers of bipolar children do not get much sleep in the evening either. In addition to the phone calls and searches, there are the tears, nightmares and worries. Parents do not feel grandiose.
posted by ewschott at Wednesday, September 15, 2004
1 Comments:
My child is seven, and behaves similarly. I had never considered BiPolar....neither have any of her doctors.
:(
With you in love,
H
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