A Week, Briefly (9/27/21)

 We took Brother to the hospital first thing Monday morning after he tried to choke himself, and Sir Walter Scott had to cut the yarn off his neck with a knife.

I was on the phone with his psychiatrist when it happened, and her words were, "Take him to the hospital immediately.  Press the acuity of the situation and his history.  Do not tell me that they sent him home today.  He must be admitted."

Then he had a positive covid test . . . he was completely asymptomatic.

 

Which meant he was admitted to the regular hospital with a 24/7 sitter while he waited for a psych+covid bed available.

And I spent hours scheduling covid tests for the rest of us  . . . the rest of us were completely asymptomatic . . . and notifying anyone with whom we'd come into contact for the past week.

 

Then I spent hours getting those tests completed and responding to concerns.

Sir Walter Scott and I also spent hours traveling back and forth between the hospital to visit Brother because he was literally just sitting in a hospital bed in an isolation room getting zero therapy, playtime, or healthy stimulation.  We brought Legos and other quiet toys, but he still spent 6 days and nights watching cartoons.

All of our tests came back negative.

Every. Single. One.

We requested a re-test for Brother because we suspected a false positive.

His new test was negative.

But the hospital would not admit to a false positive, and the psych hospitals would not even consider the idea of a false positive, so we brought him home on Saturday afternoon--having never gotten any therapy or help at all.

The one thing we did get was finding out that his meds are not the problem.  He was compliant and calm all week long on his full med regimen.

On the other hand, we found out that Beowulf is completely intolerant of clonidine; he jumped into such a violent state after his first dose that he broke windows, attacked me with a stick, walked on broken glass, hid in the van, and a bunch of other stuff that I just don't have the energy to record.

It. Was. Bad.

It took a 911 call to get him into the house (Sir Walter Scott was at the hospital with Brother, so our resources were spread too thinly).

His psychiatrist agreed to remove that med from his regimen and return to his old one.  Immediately, he returned to his normal level of difficulty . . . which felt like a vacation of blissful peace after that day.

All of that is to say, we had a rather challenging homeschool week.

We did have Morning Meeting each day.

We did have bedtime reading twice; we're quite enjoying The Three Brothers of Ur.  The characters are well-developed, and we are making friends with them.

 

We read a dozen or so pages from Dinosaurs of Eden, and the kids continued to explore library books about dinosaurs.   

Here are a few of the dino books the kids enjoyed--most of these are silly picture books, but they've been joyful and have inspired further study.

In that stack above are 3 books about Argentina or written by an Argentine author (Impossible).  Impossible is hilarious!  It's a great lesson to parents about the true nature of toddlers.  

 

We also started Who Was Che Guevara? for our study of Argentina, and Squanto, Friend to the Pilgrims for our American history study.

Ladybug completed 3 math lessons.

Baymax completed 2.

Mister Man completed 1.

The rest of the younger kids completed none.

 

Mister Man helped Baymax practice reading with a Warriors novel! :)

 

Nature Angel worked incredibly diligently on schoolwork.

 

Little Princess watched a variety of NASA videos and discovered a monthly lesson called What's Up?  that teaches about observing the night sky.  She also did a little bit of other school work.

 

Belle got her grade sheet for her first speech -- 97% and a "Wow!" along with a couple of constructive criticism comments.  She has begun research for her next speech, and I made her apply for a few scholarships and start the college application process.  

We're settled in for a good weekend of General Conference.