The evil ADHD

She's so cute isn't she!

I love her to pieces and am never truly angry with her. She is very mild-mannered, always wants to please, and is the peacemaker in our home.

So if I'm going to vent a frustration, here it is--the evil, skulking, ever-lurking-in-our-lives ADHD!

Now I'm not saying Ellie has ADHD. Perhaps I'm in denial. I'm not ready to have her tested, medicated or labeled with it yet. Let's just say the tendency is there--and I would like to banish ADHD from ever rearing it's ugly head in the vicinity of our home again!

This afternoon, I picked Ellie up from school and she informed me that when she opened up her backpack, her homework was not in it--but that the teacher would give her (some) credit, if she turned it in Monday. This is homework that she worked and slaved all week on with me by her side. I of course asked the oh so useless question, "well, why isn't it in your backpack?!"

She replied, "I thought it was in my backpack."

This is not the first time this has happened--or even the second or third. This is a constant struggle! When we got home and started looking for it, we found it on the floor of her room--all stapled together, ready to turn in, signed, sealed, but not delivered.

I can picture the scene. Paul helps her staple the papers together, hands it to her and watches her walk toward her room to put it into her backpack before leaving this morning. She gets to her room, is distracted by some toy, the bracelet she's wearing, or something outside the bedroom window; she sets the papers down and continues on her path of distraction until Paul calls her saying it's time to go. She grabs her backpack--without having put the papers in it--and they head to school.

I know, I know, you're sitting there saying, "she's eight, it's normal, it could happen to anyone." But all the time??????? I ask her put her jacket away. I watch her pick it up and head toward the coat rack. I turn to finish what I am doing. When I look back a moment later, the jacket is on the floor again maybe six feet closer to the coat rack and Ellie is browsing the books on the bookshelf. This may be repeated as many as 4 or 5 times before she can complete the task without being sidetracked. These occurances are happening several times a day!

Getting the homework from the desk to the backpack and then to school is a daily battle that I fear I am losing more often than not. Ellie is not a defiant child, nor does she argue with me about doing homework or other tasks--she is simply highly distractable, like most of her siblings and father before her who have been diagnosed with the unmentionable.

Still I'm holding out some hope that this is a stage she will outgrow...please, please, please!!!