Also....

The Blogger platform now gives you stats. I only rarely look at them, but tonight I was playing around with them.

One of the features is that it will show you how people got to your blog through keyword searches. We've all done this, right? We're not sure what the name of something is, or how to describe it, so we type a bunch of words into the search function of Google and hope for the best.

The keyword search that brought the most people to this blog is "she and 3 hes." That makes sense.

The rest were all tied for 1 referral. Most were variations on the title of the blog. But my favorite two?

• What do agnostics do with rabbits?

and

• Most words spoken in a day guinness record

What does that even mean?

Bad Blogger!

I haven't posted since April 16? Bad blogger! And I left you on such a sad note!

I have a couple of funny Ryker stories, but first I'll tell you that Jack has had a couple of very good weeks since I last wrote. We see his new therapist a week from today, which will also help (I hope), but he seems to be managing things a bit better recently. Go Jack! Also, I went to give him medicine the other night and the dosing on the label said that his weight was the equivalent of a 9-10 year old. HA!

Okay, on to Ryker. He renamed our family last week. This is not news to those of you on Facebook, but I should post it here for posterity's sake.

He kept calling me Dadda, which is fairly normal for him. I reminded him that I'm Momma, and he asked if we could rename our family. Sure. So I'm Dadda, and Dadda is Momma. I was following up to then. I asked what his name was. He stuck his tongue out, then moved it side to side going "lalalalalala." Good. Then I asked what Jack's name was. Without missing a beat, he said "Music Teacher." I want to be a 3 year old. Seriously. How much fun must they have, up inside their own head?

And apparently he gets really worried about other people's children. I don't think he trusts adults. I was home one day from work with him, and we went with Nicki up to the school to get her son from morning kindergarten. Nicki runs an in-home daycare and only had one baby that day, and that baby's mom happens to be Nicki's son's kindergarten teacher. Are you following? It doesn't really matter I guess ... Well, yeah, actually, it does. Go back and re-read until you are following ... Okay? Okay. So we have the baby in the stroller as we head up there. We gave her to her mom for some good cuddle-time when we arrived, and then her mom said that she'd just walk her back to Nicki's in a bit because she had time before her afternoon students arrived. Sounded like a decent plan, so we left the stroller for her too. We started to walk back home, and Ryker immediately began bombarding us with questions about where "that baby was" and why weren't we taking her back, and where was her "baby cart"?

And tonight I was talking about there being an adorable boy in the backseat of a car I was trying to help jump this morning (long story), and he goes "what did you do with that 'adorable'? You take him to your work?"

We used to call Jackson "Officer Jack" because he was so concerned with safety. I think Ryker might need to be dubbed "Child Protective Services Case Worker Ryker," although that doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

Jack's Anger

I've touched on this periodically on the blog, but here's an update on Jack's anger stuff.

Since he was born, Jack has had trouble controlling his anger and frustrations. He was colicky for the first few months, and has cycled in and out of it since then. You can SEE him getting angry, and see that he is unable to control it sometimes.

He is trying, he really is. I had a good talk with him the other day about it. I asked him why he doesn't get so mad at school (his teacher said she had never seen the rage we see at home). He said that he gets mad at school but doesn't want to scream or make angry faces because he doesn't want to be embarrassed, so he just keeps it in. I asked if it just feels safer to get it out at home, because he knows he won't be embarrassed, and he said yes.

That's pretty impressive self-control, if you ask me. He's 6.

Anyway, it DOES come out at home. Oh boy, does it. And here's the bad part - it comes out in ways that are pretty self-degrading. He says mean things about himself, and says that he'll hurt himself. HUGE red flag, obviously, although Chuck and I both think he says those things because he knows they are BIG threats and BIG words and that they get our attention - and my attention in particular. He hasn't ever hurt himself, but I refuse to test that theory.

So today we took him to see his pediatrician to talk about it. I was so proud of him. He spoke very eloquently about it and answered all of her questions. What a sweetie.

We're going to see a therapist out of the same offices that works with kids. We're also probably going to call this other clinic that does more integrative approaches to pediatric psychology. That sounds awesome to me.

I feel like we're being proactive, which is good. I just want my sweet boy to be calm and happy. That's all.