Ouch!

I wish I would have taken some cute pictures of the last couple of days, but I didn't.  :-(  The weather has finally warmed up enough to get outdoors.  Earlier this month our family caught such a huge case of cabin fever that I swore if the temperature hit 40 or higher I would take my kids on a fitness walk and also to a "local" park for an hour or more everyday.  I put local in quotes, because I am willing to drive up to 30 miles away if we can schedule a play date with friends.  I haven't been ultra physical during these outings, just pushing the kids on swings and a merry-go-round.  I do hurt in my arms and back tonight though.  I guess pushing the kids is no P90x, but it is still doing something for me.  For the most part, these outings have also calmed my children that fight their ADHD and have given my daughter and me a lot of good outdoor moments to discuss as we think about our history reading which is about Native American tribes right now.  I think the exercise may have been needed to work off the Native American fry bread recipe we made today.  The recipe was in the book.  We had to try it, didn't we?

He's Doing His Job!

He's doing his job, and it's working!  Look at that happy girl!  Sarah has been fighting pretty severe depression and anxiety for a while now and that includes an inability on her part to sleep.  Boy, nothing makes anxiety and depression worse than never sleeping.  While we are working with several doctors including a sleep doctor, we decided to try using a dog to help her.  The reason we got Achilles was to see if having a dog and training it to do some emotional support or service dog services could help her.  The medications she can take are addictive and interact unpredictably and we would prefer to use as few as possible.  If Achilles can calm her enough to sleep without taking more meds, then we will be thrilled!  I am happy to report that Achilles is happy to be Sarah's buddy and sleep with her at night (and sometimes during the day too).  Sarah has been falling asleep before 10 pm and waking on her own around 7 am.  She is feeling much better and we are so excited.  I was hopeful, but did not expect such quick and perfect results.  I hope this continues!  This guy is such an answer to prayers for our family.  He has even started noticing if her mood starts to go south and immediately goes to her and nudges her with his nose.  That is something we were hoping to train him to do in the future so we are so giddy about him showing a natural instinct to do that on his own.

Sarah is feeling ill today.  We are weening her to a lower dose of antidepressants as she has been having some pretty severe sores showing up on her body and has periods of swift mood swings where she is inconsolably sad.  She is on the maximum dosage of her antidepressant now that her ADHD medication has been changed and working well, I think it is causing more harm than good to be on such a strong medication.  It is an addictive medication so decreasing dosage must be done slowly and there is some pain involved.  She is handling it well and if you know her, will definitely recognize that even though she is in pain, this is the happiest we have seen her face in 17 months.  

On another note, it is Sunday and I think it is an appropriate time for me to express how grateful I am for my family.  Heavenly Father knows me and knows that being bored is torture for me.  We have been blessed with such a fun family.  I love all of their personalities so much!  It isn't easy keeping up with them, but what excitement and joy they bring to my life everyday!  Even though it is a bit warmer out today than it has been, I still don't want to go out much and I'm blessed to be inside with these guys and their loving personalities.  I'm never short on excitement or kisses in this house.    

Stuff To Keep Him Busy

Just a short post about my most recent attempt to keep Leo busy.  Colored Rice!

Cars love it!

Superman is a fan!

.....and at least sweeping the kitchen is more colorful.

Public Humiliation

Anytime we go out in public, it is a given that one of my children, usually Leo, will do or say something that ends in my public humiliation.  Many years ago before Tripp was medicated he took his favorite toy to the store.  It happened to be a plush toy from the movie Toy Story and its name happened to be Woody.  Tripp also had a hard plastic toy of the same character.  He distinguished between the two toys by calling the plush toy, "wiggly Woody", and the plastic toy, "hard Woody."  Anyway, we were walking through the grocery store and Tripp starts running off with his toy.  I start yelling, "Tripp, Tripp, Tripp!" and then received the normal disgusted looks of other shoppers who assume that I'm such a bad mother that instead of trying to stop my running child, I merely cheer for him to fall.  About this time Tripp rounds the corner to the next aisle and Leo, who was about a year old, figures out how to stand up in the cart.  Fearful that Leo will fall out of the cart and hurt himself, I decide that for the time being I have to let Tripp go and attend to Leo.  I get Leo all strapped back into the cart and we went looking for Tripp.  We found him in the next aisle over chasing down a nice elderly woman frantically waving his toy at her yelling, "do you want to see my wiggly Woody?! Wanna seen my wiggly Woody?!"  And the looks of disgust from the other shoppers turn into looks of horror as they expect to see a 5 year old flasher.  (Or so I imagine, I'm too ashamed to look at anyone's face at the store.)

This was Leo at the grocery store today.  He was a dog.  It required crawling around and barking.  I noticed that this particular store had a nice floor.  I looked at it a lot as I was avoiding eye contact with everyone else in the store.  But, Leo wasn't the major humiliation of the day, it was Sarah.  My father recommended we try watching this British show "Black Mirror" on Netflix.  It is very interesting.  Kind of like a Twilight Zone for technological savy times.  The episode last night had an English princess being kidnapped and the ransom was for the Prime Minister to have intercourse with a pig on live TV and then the show revolved around whether or not he was going to do it and if anyone would watch.  At no time did they show a person having intercourse with a pig.  But as our supper guests were getting ready to leave the house tonight, my daughter says, "are you going to watch that show where rich people have sex with pigs again?"-----by the way......my guests.......were church missionaries.

The Daredevil I Can't Control (and neither could you)

Today Leo is a ninja!

Leo is 3 1/2 and a daredevil.  Of all my kids, he is most likely to end up in the emergency room.  I'm grateful for the trips to the ER and urgent care, because the alternative would be my worst fear.  We can't keep Leo from being a daredevil and getting hurt but we do our best.  Leo has ADHD but is too young to be medicated for it, but he also has sensory issues.  He is "sensory seeking"  here is a list of symptoms found on Brain Balance Center's website: 

Hyposensitivities to sensory input may include:

• A constant need to touch people or textures, even when it’s inappropriate to do so

• Doesn’t understand personal space even when same-age peers are old enough to understand it

This is Leo right now telling me, "watch, watch, watch, watch mom!"  He's totally in my face.

• Clumsy and uncoordinated movements

• An extremely high tolerance for or indifference to pain

• Often harms other children and/or pets when playing, i.e. doesn’t understand his or her own strength

• May be very fidgety and unable to sit still, enjoys movement-based play like spinning, jumping, etc.

• Seems to be a “thrill seeker” and can be dangerous at times

I don't think Leo is more clumsy than other 3 year old children, but he definitely exhibits all of the rest of the symptoms.  Leo has gotten staples in the top of his head after falling off the arm of our Lazyboy recliner and hitting his head on the heat register, had surgery for getting an infection where he had his hand smashed in our car door, and we are watching him now to see if we need to take him to the ER for a possible broken foot.  Last night he was standing on one of our kitchen chairs (the tall kind) facing backwards with his feet pointing down through the bottom rung.  He leaned over too far and tipped the chair over.  It looked like he landed directly on the tops of his feet which were smashed under the weight of both him and the chair.

This is the chair

I really expected to see bones coming out of the tops of his feet from the looks of the fall.  He was screaming very loudly and rolling round.  I could tell his feet were in extreme pain.  We live 40 minutes from urgent care and it was snowing and the roads were 100% covered in our area.  I watched his feet for a while.  There was light swelling on one of his feet but no bruising and he was able to bear weight on the other foot.  I decided not to risk the roads to take him to a doctor last night.  This morning, I'm wondering again if I should take him.  He needed ibuprofen for the pain last night as he could not sleep.  This morning he is telling us that it hurts, but it isn't slowing him down much.  He is limping, but is definitely a ninja.  After a quick Facebook poll, I have wrapped his foot in an Ace bandage and given him more pain reliever.  He is happy to be a ninja right now and I'm happy to not expose him to dangerous flu germs at the doctor's office.  I hope I'm making the right decision.  

Leo waiting for emergency surgery after the cut on his hand got infected.  Daddy was TIRED (and scared)!

Leo getting help from a wonderful big sister after surgery.  

Leo is such a danger to himself that as I typed this, his daddy removed both a knife and an extremely sharp cheese grater from Leo.  Tripp already experienced a cut from the same grater.  It was suggested to us by a psychologist (a wonderful one that I love) that Leo should be medicated as soon as possible for his own safety.  Unfortunately, we have to wait 4 more months until he is old enough to take the medications.  Pray for us to help him stay alive until then.  Our biggest problem now is that he gets overwhelmed at stores and will jump out of moving carts and run in to the parking lots.  He is fast and has outrun 4 adults trying to catch him in a busy parking lot once.  He runs unpredictably darting here and there.  I imagine his head exploding like one of Gallagher's watermelons when he is eventually hit by a car and it terrifies me so much, I have decided to not take him to stores until he can be medicated.  After watching a video about sensory overload and stores, I understand why he runs from them.  Here is the video I saw.  It affects at least 1/2 my family including my husband who breaks out in a cold sweat seeing just seconds of it.  

Tip of the day - we learned the hard way from Leo's older brother Tripp, that you should not name a child Tripp if they have ADHD and tend to run from you in public.  Imagine the looks I got from strangers and other parents as I spent 2 years running after my son in public places yelling, "Tripp, Tripp, Tripp!"  They all thought I was cheering for him to fall.

Second tip of the day - never judge a mom who puts a leash on her kids and never say, "can't you control your child" to a mom.  Sometimes they can't and as much as you think that you could, you wouldn't be able to either.

Exercising the (demons) Wiggles

We are in love with Achilles!  Even Max is getting kisses (or Achilles likes the taste of baby snot.  If so, he should be in heaven because it is pouring out of Max's nose like the chocolate in one of those fancy party fountains......I have a story about one of those too - another time)

I was educating myself on husky dog ownership on youtube (and getting sidetracked by videos of people popping gross zits and finding bot flies in their head) and there were several videos of huskies getting bored and eating their owners' couches.  All the videos highly recommended walking and walking and walking huskies - for the safety of furniture everywhere.  They also recommended brushing your dog.  One owner brushed out so much hair that he could me a dog hair angel (like a snow angel) in it afterward.  After seeing this guy brush that much hair off of his dog in his kitchen, I decided to do daily brushing outside after the walks.  I don't really want that much hair in my kitchen.

So, even though it was bitterly cold today, we walked.  This guy has a lot of pulling power and the 2 miles I walk don't make a dent in his energy levels.  I think I need to attach a sled to him and have him pull the kids around.  Seriously - I will be looking into this.

 After contemplating the inversely proportional relationship with husky walking to house destroying, I realized the same relationship exists between Leo walking and mommy destroying.  So I walked my Leo too.  It occurred to me on this walk that Leo doesn't have ADHD.  Leo is just a husky.  But - less brushing, more wiping.

New Addition

We got our newest family addition last night - Achilles the dog.  He is a 7 year old red/white Siberian Husky.  So far all has been going well.  He has been wandering around trying to get acclimated.  He would like to play with the cats or the dogs down the street and I think he has been contemplating jumping our fence to do so.  As of right now he is not allowed outside without supervision so he doesn't get to adventurous.  The main purpose of us getting a dog was for Sarah.  She can't sleep at night and it is our hope that Achilles sleeping next to her will help.  She did sleep better last night, but there were complaints of Achilles sleeping in Abby's bed too much.  Sarah is working on training Achilles right now which includes a 2-mile walk every morning.  Today they did well practicing stepping off the path and sitting and holding on to the harness as runners go by.  Both Achilles and Sarah did very well and I was so happy to see Sarah take a walk.  I also used the time to walk my Leo and run off some of his energy.  I think the walkers/joggers might enjoy if I had a harness on him as well as he has been known to jog after a couple for a quarter mile.  Luckily Abby was a long as well and she kept Leo busy playing "eye spy" and learning how to skip.  Unfortunately, Achilles is not worn out from the walk and seems a bit bored.  I know eventually "bored" can turn into "destructive" so I'm trying to keep him busy.  He is not too interested in his toys right now.  He did bring a giant braided chew bone with him, but isn't wanting to chew it.  I've been shoving things in the grooves of it hoping to get him started, but so far he just licks them out.  I tried bacon grease and peanut butter.  I need to find a chew toy he likes.  Hmmmm.........  I wonder if a chew toy would keep Leo busy as well.  Or maybe I could get Achilles into Minecraft.  That seems to keep my other ADHD children busy.

Excuse the messy floors.  We've had lots of toys out for everyone this morning!

Spider Venom and Secret Agent Cars

So.....Tripp has been into our hall closet this morning.  He "loaded" his toy shotgun with the rest of the baby powder so it will smoke.  As I was cleaning that mess up, I see him run by with a latex glove.  Playing doctor at a new level?  Get ready for your rectal exams brothers!  No, it is more likely that he is going to fill it with water in the bathroom sink as he has done countless other times (whenever the gloves fall of the top shelf and he can reach them).  So, I go screaming to the bathroom, which now has the door locked and Tripp is yelling, "I need privacy to use the bathroom."  Yeah - right.  So I get him to open the door and I rescue the glove from the sink.  I go on and on telling him that he is not to touch the gloves.  Daddy likes to use them when he is cooking and they cost big money and he is not allowed to used them unless he is de-boning a chicken.  His response?  "Or if there is spider venom."  What the?!?!?  How can I argue with that?  Obviously if we run into a giant spider in the basement and it is spitting venom, we will be allowed to use the gloves.  Mental reminder - maybe have Tripp take a break from watching Eight Legged Freaks.  Then in the next breath he says, "Wouldn't it be great to have a secret agent car?"  Again - I'm not going to argue that.  I think I would like a secret agent car.  Maybe with its own glove dispenser.

*Side note:  The gloves are not diamond studded and cost "big money".  We actually spend very little on gloves, but I always tell the kids that they are wasting my money.  I'm not sure why.  Kind of a parenting remark I got from my parents I guess.  Like, "don't make me turn this car around!" or "I'm going to spank you until your butt bleeds!"  My dad never did spank me until my butt bled, but more on that later.......

Love the Medicine!

Well, now that I am used to my son being medicated for ADD, I have to admit that I love it.  Most of my fears are gone although sometimes it still doesn't feel right to have to medicate him and if there is ever another way, I will be interested in learning about it.  My son has gone from being super active to being quiet and thoughtful.  Now, there is nothing wrong with active at all, but the type of activity that he was demonstrating had something wrong with it.  You could tell that it just wasn't right.  He still gets like this late at night when his medication has worn off.  He eyes dart around the room and with a big smile on his face, he races around doing anything and everything he has ever had the impulse to do.  He doesn't focus on one activity, instead racing from one thing to another knocking things over and throwing things.  When he does something naughty like knock over a sibling or break something, he is immediately upset by it and apologizes profusely and you can tell that he is frustrated with himself.  He can no longer tell me what he is thinking or have much of a conversation at all.  Even if I get on his level and look him in the eyes, his eyes can't look back at me, instead darting around the room.

Most days, my son never gets in trouble anymore.  He is 6, so he makes mistakes here and there, but I've never seen a little guy try so hard to be good all day long.  When he does make a mistake, he is distraught about it often breaking down in tears and curling up in a little ball to have a little cry.  I don't have to raise my voice, I just tell him what he did wrong (this week was running his finger around the plasma screen TV to see the colors change) and when he finds out he did something wrong it just breaks his little heart.  He tells me that he likes his pills because they help him be a "good boy".  He is proud of the way he behaves when he is medicated and he should be.  He has gone from a little boy that I can barely control so I didn't take him to public places much, to a little boy that I can count on to sit quietly for an hour or more if need be (especially if I hand him the right toy - usually my iPod ;-)).

He can also communicate with me now!  I get to hear everything that is going on in his head now.  Sometimes he is still a little slow to get it out, but he loves telling me all sorts of things and will talk all day long about anything that is in his head.  It can be exhausting!  I sure love it though!

Lastly, his test scores at school jumped, doubling and tripling in a matter of weeks.   He was so stalled out on his sight words and then after medication, passed four months worth of words in one week.  Because we didn't medicate him until the last couple of months of Kindergarten, he has a May birthday, and he isn't too big for his age, we have decided to have him repeat Kindergarten.  He could go on to 1st grade, but I know he wants to feel smart and like he is at the head of his class so I'm hoping to boost his self esteem and let him feel that success he craves by letting him try Kindergarten again.

All-in-all, medicating Tripp has been a wonderful decision.  The school, his teachers, and his principal have been supportive, even saying to me that they didn't want to see his personality change (he has always been super friendly and caring - even when not medicated) and they expressed concerns about his lack of appetite (one of the side effects of the medication).  They worked one-on-one with him several times per day to help catch him up.  At one point before trying medication, I considered homeschooling him to help him out, but when I went to the elementary and saw what they were doing with him, I realized that I couldn't have done any better at home.  He goes to a very caring school and I am lucky to have such support for my child.  I also feel lucky that we have a medication that is working and that he likes for the time being.  I understand it may not always go so well as he grows and changes, but at this point, the medication has made it possible for Tripp to be who he wants to be, and that is all a mother could every hope for.

Ok - Getting Used to This

Well, today was the third day our little guy was on his medication.  It was much better than day 1, but there are still some adjustments.

The good:  Tripp is definitely concentrating better!  Yeah!!!  He is much more focused.  He even asked to write his teacher a letter today and asked me how to spell some of the words.  In the past, he has hated writing!  I'm so glad to see him make an attempt at this!  In spite of spelling everything for Tripp, I still couldn't read anything he wrote, but at least he tried.  This is a huge step for him.

He also played with Trios and Legos for hours and hours on end today.  He likes both of these activities so this isn't too out of the normal for him, but he did spend more focused time on it than usual.    He also didn't use any negative attention seeking behaviors today.

Tripp went to bed at a reasonable time last night and did't seem like he was wound up before hand.

The bad:  Tripp is acting like a preteen drama queen at times.  The things he gets upset with and his overblown reactions (many times in tears) remind me so much of the pms that seems to appear in my 11 year old daughter once monthly.  Today there was a crying meltdown because one sister whispered to another sister.  Tripp doesn't usually show tears, but they have been flowing strong since he started his medication.  

Tripp is up late again tonight and is wound up, but the girls have a friend spending the night, so I can't blame it on the medication.

The hope:  I'm starting to find some hope.  What if Tripp goes to school next week and is able to learn!  What if that happens?!  I'm very excited at the thought.  I think I have given up on his ability to learn.  It is becoming quite clear that he will have to retake kindergarten, but with a May birthday, that is not that big of a deal.  My real fear has been that he will still not learn the second time, and then what do I do?  I'm starting to have hope that we may move forward soon.  I have not felt good about medicating my son, but what if it actually works?  What if he can learn and he starts to feel like part of the class and successful?  That would be such a blessing!

The fear:  My major fear is that harming my son more than helping him.  He is too young to tell me accurately how the medication makes him feel.  I hope it isn't deadening his brain or anything.

It's Official?

Today was Tripp's doctor appointment.  It's official.  My son has ADD and took his first prescription medication for it today.

A little history:  His kindergarten teacher wasn't allowed to tell me that she suspected ADD.  I always thought the school would let us know so maybe I let this go on for too long. I didn't realize that they weren't allowed to say anything until I asked when I was at a meeting where she told me that the school was going to set up a behavioral modification plan for Tripp and that he was being redirected 30-50 times per day in class.  She did say, "Tripp reminds me of my son, who has ADD."  I'm glad she did.  It gave the push I needed.  Then I remembered the doctor asking me at Tripp's 5-year old well visit last year, "Are we worried about ADD yet?"  I had blown it off at the time.  He was being super crazy at the doctor's office that day.  He usually is at the doctor's office.  It is one place that really sets him off.  I was just chalking it up to him being "all boy" and having a bad obedience day.   I guess the signs were there, but I haven't had personal experience with ADD except to see it in the high school students that I teach.  Honestly, they always just seem to need more discipline at home and I thought a diagnosis of ADD gave parents a reason to not enforce simple discipline in their houses.  I feel like kind of a jerk for thinking that now.  We have certainly tried both positive and negative reinforcement techniques with Tripp include varying levels of discipline.  Nothing seems to work for more than a day or two.

Major concerns that led me to medicating:  Let me start by saying that I work in and Tripp attends a stellar school.  Many of the teachers have master's degrees, but more importantly, it is a small family-oriented school.  With only 660 in the entire K-12 district, we are all housed in the same building and we are very close knit.  Tripp's teacher was also the kindergarten teacher for my two older daughters (super well behaved, "A" students - so much different than Tripp) and I have taught both of her students as high school science students.  I don't feel like there could be a more caring option for my son.  That being said, being redirected 30-50 times in a 7 hour period has got to be damaging to a person even if it is done in the most loving manner.  Tripp desperately wants to be a "good boy".  He wants to be recognized for being good.  Unfortunately that opportunity doesn't present itself in a classroom where 17 other students are trying to learn and Tripp is distracting them every 5 minutes.  Tripp is very social and super sweet, but can't seem to control himself to be quiet at the right times.  While I understand the need to redirect him, the long term damage to his self esteem by being redirected 30-50 times per day is not acceptable to me as a parent.  If medication can help him succeed, then he can have it.

Tripp is falling behind in his school work.  He does ok in a couple of areas, but simply won't do quite a bit of his work, getting distracted by other things and leaving his work blank.  Again, I don't think this is helpful for his self esteem.  He is bound to recognize at some point that he is behind the other kids and that will make him feel bad.  If medication helps him to keep up academically, then I think we should try it.

Major concerns about medicating:  As an educator, I am a big fan of Ken Robinson who believes that our current educational system is not working for many of our students.  His ideas are fantastic.  Check out this link to his TED talk:  Link  and this one to another great talk by him illustrated by RSA: Link.  One point that he makes that I really agree with is that we shouldn't have to anesthetize children  so that they can learn sitting still when they can learn perfectly well in other ways.  For instance, Tripp can't be successful doing a simple addition worksheet, but if I had pieces of paper with numbers on them laying on the living room floor and I told him to jump on to the answer for 1 + 3, he would learn how to add quickly.  I think he would also learn if I connected the numbers a lego construction project or to a small woodworking project.  He excels in both, but standardized testing does not test on this, they only test in worksheet format so that is the way the schools have to teach it.  Even if I wanted to teach my own students this way, it wouldn't help them on their standardized tests, because that would be a format they would be unfamiliar with and funny enough, if I become a better teacher by teaching the student they way they learn best and then the students score low on a standardized test, I will be considered a poor teacher.  I understand why Tripp's wonderful teacher can't teach to the way he learns, but do I really have to medicate him because of this?  There really isn't anything wrong with him.  He just learns better when moving.  In fact, sometimes he can't think unless he is moving.  Does that mean he needs to have his mind numbed to the point that he will "sit still and be quiet"?  I clearly believe that medicating Tripp is wrong, so why am I?

Why I am trying medication:  The way it stands now, Tripp can't be successful in school without some kind of medical intervention.  He has had tons of non-medical interventions.  Nothing is working.  So, the very clear answer to me is to pull him out of school and teach him myself.  It is very clear until I look at my budget and fear the devastation it would create to our grocery budget if I quit my job to teach Tripp.  So do I feed him or do I teach him?  If medication works so that I can stay at my job, I guess we will go that route although I will feel guilty about it forever.  It medication doesn't work, then there will need to be another solution and I will be looking for that.  There are a couple of months left in the school year so we are giving this a shot.

Day one results:  We are on spring break so I don't know how the medication (Concerta, 1/3 the maximum dose for his age) affects Tripp in an academic setting.  He spent the whole afternoon playing outside with his sisters.  I did notice some differences in the interactions with his sisters.

1.  He did not negatively seek their attention much.  Usually when he is bored, he likes to mess with his sisters to get a reaction.
2.  He did not get angry with his sisters when they weren't sharing properly.  Usually he reacts with anger when they are playing unfairly.  Today he reacted with hurt and tears when his sisters were being a bit greedy with something that they weren't dividing fairly.  He also seemed much more emotional overall, crying several times today which is actually pretty rare for him.

The major effects were noticed this evening as the drug was supposed to be wearing off.  He has been overly stimulated and a bit overwhelmed with some irrational fears.  He is needing to be cuddled a lot and he can't sleep even though it is now a good 2 hours after his bedtime.  He is talking nonstop and currently worried that a bandaid may suck up all his blood and kill him.  He is insisting with tears that he will be unable to sleep tonight unless he sleeps in my bed.  I have offered him a sleeping bag next to my bed, but that isn't comforting to him.  Currently we are on the couch so he won't wake anyone with his constant talking.  My plan is to help him fall asleep and then move him to his bed so that I can go happily to my bed, but he isn't showing any sign of letting up.  He is currently insisting that I tell him what will happen if the Big Dipper falls to Earth.  I have explained that it cannot come down to Earth and is instead moving farther away from Earth.  That answer is not acceptable to him.  He keeps saying, "No mama, we are just talking about it even if it won't happen."  I don't want to explain to him that the Big Dipper is made of a fireballs bigger than our sun and it would mean certain death for the entire planet considering his current state of irrational fear.  Well, now he is discussing the likelihood of cat zombies.  I'm hoping that sleep comes eventually..........I'm so tired.........I love this little man and his creativity even if it is hurting to keep my eyes open at this point.