I always thought it would be cool to be like Nancy Drew or Trixie Belden–sadly, I never really got the chance.

I’ve been playing detective recently, though.

While in the throes of his ear infection, Charlie was having a most-terrible time. He was up at funny hours and when he was up. . . he was furious. The screaming was off the charts terrible and one night I just sat there on the couch and told my husband, “it didn’t used to be like this.”

It’s only taken me about a year to realize that my happy-go-lucky little guy has developed an anger issue. I’m not sure exactly when this happened–it’s been a crazy year. There was pregnancy, the Parvo virus that both scared me to death and robbed me of any energy I might have had. There was bedrest, and then the premature birth of the twins. I was, without a doubt, distracted.

But some “clues” have availed themselves and I think that I am piecing something together here. . . I think.

When Early Intervention came by, Charlie’s old OT met a smiley, engaging Louis and remarked, “he’s just like his brother.”  I was reminded that Charlie was once a smiling, easy-to-please baby. What happened? For the longest time I just assumed that this was growing up–but I’m less sure of that now.

And there’s the biting. Charlie’s arm is probably permanently calloused from all the self-biting he does. He bites he other arm as well and sometimes his wrist. It’s not something I discuss very often because truthfully, there’s no answer. He bites constantly.

Perhaps the biggest change, however, is how he responds to little disappointments. I sing a song–a song he likes–but not the right one? He bites furiously. Dinner not to his liking? Whining and crying. Up in the middle of the night? Screams of displeasure.

Like I said, it didn’t used to be this way.

And then the other day I was reading a friend’s blog and she was discussing  in particular she was looking back over her blog and seeing things in retrospect that she didn’t see when they were happening.

So I went back and looked at my own blog and noticed something–we switched to Keppra at the end of 2009, and at the beginning of 2010 I wrote about the arm biting.

Hmmmmmm.

Keppra has a bad reputation in the anger department, but I love how much more alert Charlie is on Keppra.

After some Internet research, the first line of attack is to try a vitamin supplement to see if that makes a difference. If not, we may be looking at trying a new seizure med. Again.

I do hate having to make these kinds of decisions. Piles of research have led me to the conclusion that there are NO good seizure medications–they all have terrible side effects. Keppra had one of the shortest lists. I hate the idea of trying a new medication. I hate that I have to pick one at all. This is basically the definition of being caught between a rock and a hard place.

So here goes nothing–maybe some vitamins will do the trick.

Studying African Animals