The moon and the stars

Many people know that while I absolutely adore my daughter, she has not always been the easiest child to parent.  I love her all the way to the moon and stars and back one hundred million times (one of our bedtime expressions of love).  But she can test every limit of my patience and push me to the brink of parenting disaster in ways that I cannot even describe.  And she's only six years old.

In preschool she had a number of rough patches with behavior issues.  We had tantrums that rivaled anything I'd ever seen.  John had tantrums too at that age, but with the exception of when he had been on a steroid medication, they were all very age appropriate and typical.  No concerns.  But Kara on the other hand....  We coped as best we could.  We managed to get through them.  It wasn't pretty.  But we survived.  Until we weren't managing them as best we could.  And I could feel us all losing ourselves in her tantrums.  It became a problem.  A big problem.  As I've heard therapists say, it was causing a major disruption in our normal lives.  That's the turning point.  That was the point at which we decided to seek help.

First stop, the pediatrician.  By then of course, we already had some ideas of what the issues could be.  Not autism, but other developmental issues, learning issues, ADHD, executive function issues, all kinds of problems were circling in my worried brain.  After a lengthy meeting with the pediatrician, she ordered a full gamut of blood tests, which I was convinced were overkill and not going to give us any answers.  She clearly wasn't sure about it either, but wanted to start there.  She seemed focused on the possibility of the behavior problems being related to Restless Leg Syndrome.  Really?  No. Way.  I was a bit frustrated at her suggestion.  How could my rock star sleeper child be a victim of RLS?  Didn't make sense to me.  At all.

So we moved forward and did the bloodwork.  Which was AWFUL.  Kara screamed.  And thrashed.  And sobbed.  It took three nurses and me to hold her still and the lab tech to draw the blood.  It was horrible.  For her and for me.  But we survived.

And sure enough, the one test that showed an issue was her iron levels, and thus a diagnosis of RLS.  Well, yes, once the results came back it started to make more sense to me.  She is one of the most picky eaters I have ever known.  She eats virtually no vegetables.  We are vegetarian, so she doesn't get a lot of meat.  I avoid iron in their multivitamin as she has always been very prone to constipation.  Yes, I imagine her iron levels would be extremely low!  And they were.  So we started a chewable iron vitamin, four tablets per day.

That was almost a year ago.  My daughter is now almost a completely different child.  She still has the occasional tantrum.  What six year old doesn't?  But she is happy.  She is funny.  She can go along with things that she's not always so happy about without having a major day-stopping meltdown.  She still does require more sleep than her brother, but now we know she's getting good QUALITY sleep.  We went on vacation over spring break with another family for the third year in a row.  After the trip, as I reflected on the week, I realized that she had been the best behaved child on the trip!  I have never been able to say that about her.  Ever.  I was so proud of her.  And so thankful that life has gotten so much better for her.

She is a little ray of sunshine when she is happy.  Her smile can melt my heart and her laugh is positively contagious.  Who knew that iron vitamins could make such a difference for our family and for her?  Not me.  But I thank my lucky stars every day now that we do know.  Because I love her and her smile and her laugh all the way to the moon and the stars a hundred million times.