Adventures in ADHD - Installment 2 - Side Effects: take I

Last night, we sent Styles to bed with kisses and a smack on the butt like we normally do then we turned on the TV for some adult entertainment in the form of "Anthony Bordain: No Reservations". About a half an hour later, Styles comes crawling out of his room complaining that he couldn't sleep and that the TV was keeping him up. This from the same child who has been sleeping through the night since 2 months old and could sleep through a fog horn. Wow. The side effects have begun. I turned to Kyle after we tucked him back in and said, "do we want to treat the ADHD or have our son back who can sleep through anything?" Of course we want to treat his ADHD but it was a shocker to have one side effect checked off of the list, day one.

Styles took another 10mg today and although I noticed a slight calming in his manner, it wasn't enough to make a stark difference and I could have been imagining things. It was, afterall, a very rainy and boring day indoors where Styles spent most of the day on his DS and reading.

Tonight he is with his Grandma J and Grandpa Steve and they are on the look out for side effects. Luckily, they've been through this before with Kyle and they know what to look for and what to expect. Styles will get another 10mg tomorrow and if there is still little to no difference, he will be increased to 20mg on Tuesday. I hope that his lighter sleep is the only side effect that we have with him. Or better yet, that if this drug doesn't work, the next one will.

On a lighter note, Kyle and I both woke up at 4am last night (this morning), to some knocking around in our room. We both sat up at the same time and looked at one another. I sent him out into the hallway to check for the source while I stayed in the room. I suddenly saw our little hamster, Cabbage, scurring under our shoe rack. I yelled at him to get back in the room and catch the little devil. She would NOT be cornered back into her ball so I crawled out of bed and caught her in a towel then returned her to her jail. About 10 minutes later, we heard another scurrying noise and knew that she had gotten out again. So we went back into the living room and sure enough, found her running around the living room. We tried to move her cage and it fell apart so we put it back together (the right way this time), and placed the hamster back in her little home. Upon awaking this morning, Cabbage was still in her cage (now that it has been put back together properly). We did, however; discover red fuzz from our rug inside her loft apartment. Apparently the little monkey was running in and out of her cage getting fuzz to make herself a nest before she ventured all the way back to our bedroom.

Through all of this, Styles slept soundly and there was quite a bit of loud talking going on during the chase. So perhaps the side effect isn't as bad as we had initially thought...