"Has he started his new medication yet?"

That was the note in my son's planner yesterday from his teacher. This question will be added to my never-ending list of "Things I never thought I would be asked."

Such is life with a child (or two) with a diagnosis of ADHD. Each of two of my kids has a different version of ADHD. One has the typical "hyper" characteristics of ADHD. The other one has the "sneaky" characteristics of ADHD.

Once the meds start wearing off, usually around 3:30 or so, my son has great difficulty sitting still. He has to read for 20 minutes each day so I have him eat his afterschool snack while he's reading in hopes to get in on the tail end of the meds. By the time he actually gets his snack organized, finds his book, has hugged me a zillion times, told me all about how he learned to flip his friends over his shoulder at school, yada yada yada, he will finally sit down at the table across from me to do his reading. But does he sit up properly and read his book? Of course not. He slides down the chair, rocks back on it, lies across several chairs at once, gets up to check the timer, lies/sits upside down to read his book...you get the idea. And all this in 20 minutes.

My ADHD daughter however, will sit quietly and one would think she is working hard on her spelling assignment. It seems as if she's reading in the workbook, then writing things down in her duotang. But all the while she's pretending. She's very good at it. Obviously her meds wear off as well, but never consistently. Some days she can focus for most of the evening, and other days it's as if the meds aren't there at all. However she does focus well on little tiny things such as pulling a loose thread on her hoodie until the whole thing starts unravelling. Or finding a pair of scissors in her desk at school and cutting perfect little cuts into her clothes. And she has no recollection of these events. Some may call that lying, but I swear she could pass a polygraph exam. She is totally unaware of her behaviors at times. This has improved with age, and higher doses of meds, and she can now acknowledge that it could only be her that has done these things. That is a HUGE improvement. She struggles socially at school and I think that drains her of all energy. At least at home she doesn't have to pretend and try so hard to fit in. She must be exhausted after a day in a typical school classroom.

But I must stop blogging now and set the timer for my son's reading. Yes, it's 4:10 pm and he's been home since 2:55 pm. Welcome to my world.