From the Beginning

Well, I have to admit, I've come to a standstill on what to write and how to go about this whole blog. Perhaps I rushed into it without out planning it. But was led to write this blog. So I've decided to start from the very beginning with Jay, and go from there. Perhaps this will help some see something they took for granted in their loved one and be able to get help before it gets too out of hand.

Jay was born a happy child on Christmas Eve none the less. When he was born, I thought wow, He's a Christmas baby, God must have special plans for him. What a delight! He was bald for quite some time but had the pretties blue eyes. Then his blond hair grew in. What a handsome little boy he was. Always full of smiles. I don't remember him fussing or crying much at all. In fact his delivery was very easy. I can still see his sweet smile when he was little with his fine blond hair and blues eyes smiling. How lucky we were.

He went to preschool at Grand Forks AFB. He was loved by his teachers. He had such a great attitude and personality. Oh and he had a little sister with red hair and hazel eyes that came along 15 months later. She was a bit different, hard delivery, colicky, and fussy the first couple of months, then turned into a happy go lucky little girl as well. Although she did have the red headed temper. :)

Jason then went on into kindergarten at the base. He was doing well. His teacher loved him and talked about how helpful he was and well mannered! Yeah! We had a wonderful son that we were so proud of. We were so blessed to have two beautiful children; a boy and a girl. Life didn't get much better than this. They both were happy, well adjusted, well behaved all around good kids.

Then we moved to Germany. That is when things started to change. Just a few months after moving there, Jay started to change. He became a bit irritable. I became frustrated. One night he decided to take off on me. His dad was working 24 hour shifts out at the base. We were living in an apartment on the economy. I was scared to death. It was dark, and we didn't know anyone there, nor spoke the language. I called my husband and he came home and found him.

Thank God nothing happened, although it could have turned out a lot worse, as he told me recently that there was guy under the bridge where he had ran to. The Lord was definitely looking out for him. This is when he joined the cub scouts. We were praying this was the ticket to happiness for him once again.

After almost a year in the apartment, we moved on base. Jay went to school on base. We started getting calls from his teachers that Jay was being a disturbance during classes and was not getting his home work done. They told us that he was a good boy, and smart, but was just hanging out with the wrong kids.

This continued on through 4th grade. He did have one teacher that loved him and felt there was something going on but couldn't put her finger on it. She tried hard with him. The rest of them eventually labeled him a bad child with parents that didn't care. Believe me, this was very frustrating. No one had any advice. No one suggested a possible disorder with him, nope, he was simply a bad kid that needed disciplining and a dad that was home more. What??? We spent a lot of family time together while there. We done a lot of family camping trips and always had a great time. So what was the deal with school.

Oh, and a big thing in school. It drove the teachers nuts, as it would take him forever to complete an assignment, and he would write so small that it was hard for them to read it. He was very, very articulate. This is quite common in bipolar people. Plus his dad is a huge perfectionist as well.

So here we were with a boy that was struggling through school, was starting to become a handful at home towards the end of our 4 years there. Was not well accepted in scouts after awhile because of his behavior problems. Thankfully his den leader was very supportive and tried hard with him. We were blessed with that fact.

We did however start to worry about our parenting skills, or should I say, I did. I thought, my gosh, what are we doing wrong? We have a girl who is doing outstanding in school, well behaved, involved in church--mind you the rest of us weren't at that time--and was not a problem at all. How could we have a child that is doing good if we are bad parents.

I will end it here now and do the next segment on our return to the states. This is where things really took off, but...not right away. This segment here is a warning signal to parents or of friends even. If you see someone starting to struggle and there is no real logical reason for it happening, this is a time to get that person into a psychologist. Get them checked and help then. What do you have to lose? Hopefully there is nothing wrong and they are just going through an adjustment phase. But it is worth checking into to make sure rather than putting that person and others involved through the torment that follows if you don't do anything about it. Not to mention that during this beginning phase, it is very frustrating to them as well.