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Despite a yucky virus that made its way around our house last week (knock on wood, I was the lone one spared), things have been extraordinarily ordinary. I love it.
Within the ordinary, though, there is still the extraordinaire.
Let’s start with Chee and her piano lessons. A couple of months ago Chee asked me to teach her to play songs on the piano. Sadly I had to tell her, Mommy doesn’t know how to play the piano (which was my Aunt’s and passed down to me to keep in the family). She has always enjoyed banging around on our piano and I’ve always planned to have both of my girls start piano lessons at a young age. Around 5 is what I imagined.
But then Chee said she wanted to learn how to play songs. I asked her if she’d like to take lessons from a piano teacher and she was rather exuberant in her Yes!! I kept asking for about a month and she kept at the exuberance. So I did some looking around and found a teacher. Chee’s very early into the lessons with only a few down and last week was missed due to the aforementioned virus.
Of course I was worried about how the lessons would go, and I forewarned the (young and enthusiastic) teacher that Chee might not sit through a 30-minute lesson and so we were just doing a trial. How wrong I was.
So far it’s safe to say that Chee loves it. LOVES it. Her only stipulation is that I have to sit in the room too. Fine, by me, and I think it’s better to watch so then I can help her with her practicing during the week.
Speaking of practicing, she practices every single day. All I have to do is tell her not to forget to practice her piano and she’ll spend, easily, 15-20 minutes doing her lessons over and over again. And then my little reader keeps turning the pages and is working on upcoming lessons. She reads the text and follows the visuals to learn the next thing (much of what she’s learning right now is hand position and using fingertips and high notes and low notes). It’s fun to watch. Her teacher is going to be surprised this week when Chee has the next two lessons already down.
It’s exciting to witness Chee learning. I can almost see her brain as a sponge, soaking it all up.
It’s equally fascinating to watch Ess. She’s a little sponge too. Sometimes that sponginess worries me and I question whether she’s doing something quirky in her own right, or if she’s imitating her sister. However, this past week has shown us that Ess has her own little Sensory issues. I noticed about a year ago that she didn’t like long sleeves and she seemed annoyed with the popular, snug-fitting pajamas.
As time has gone by, she is getting more and more particular about her clothing, especially socks and shoes. Today she refused to wear a coat (lay on the floor crying till I took it off her). Tonight it was tears about going into the bathtub.
It feels like a pattern of sensory defensiveness is emerging. As such, I started brushing her skin tonight (she calmed down instantly). I am going to ask Chee’s OT next week if she concurs that that’s okay to do with Ess. At this point I don’t think she has SPD nor do I think she needs OT. But, she definitely has some Sensory Issues going on and I don’t want to let it get unbearable for her … if that might be the direction it’s headed. Even though she is not developmentally delayed, I still need to take the sensory stuff seriously and be proactive.
I hoped to write more about the extraordinaire that we’re seeing in our house, but this post is long enough.
Soon I will write about how well Chee is communicating and all the positive things we’re seeing from her.
Stay tuned.
It occured to me that I have slipped into a terrible habit of using Chee’s echolalic speech as a crude barometer of whether the GFCF diet is having any effect on her.
I call this a terrible habit because echolalia is not all bad. When I first started Googling the term, somewhere between 18 months and two years ago, I ran across a brilliant post about one Mom’s relationship, if you will, with her son’s echolalic speech. If you’ve never read MOM-NOS’s Dr. Strangetalk post, I encourage you to drop everything and go read it. But then come right back here to me.
(Incidentally, that post, on that blog, is the very first time I ever read anything on a blog. At the time, still massively in denial mode, after poking around and seeing the A word over and over again, I ran screaming away. I didn’t go back to her blog again for many months. Obviously, I’ve learned a lot since then.)
As I said, echolalia is not all bad. Today, I found a very interesting article (Got Echolalia?) written about it which gives an excellent explanation of the Gestalt language learning style. It perfectly describes the way Chee has acquired language. Perfectly.
Here’s a summary paragraph taken directly from the article.
Prizant indicated that for many verbal children with autism, language acquisition progresses from the predominant use of echolalia with little evidence of comprehension or communicative intent to the use of echolalia for a variety of communicative functions, later followed by a decrease in echolalia co-occurring with an increase in creative, spontaneously generated utterances. Pronoun reversals, stereotypic utterances, and insistence on certain verbal routines, all common characteristics of language use of verbal individuals, may also suggest a gestalt strategy in acquisition and use.
Echolalia serves a purpose. I’ve known this for a long time and been comfortable and accepting of Chee’s echolalic speech patterns. So why suddenly am I wishing it away? Why am I watching for it to decrease and so hopeful that the diet will play a part in that?
Because Chee is not just echolalic at times. Sometimes she’s extremely repetitive. My husband says it’s like she gets caught in a verbal loop and can’t get herself off. This manifests itself especially at times she is stressed or sensory dysregulated.
In the weeks leading up to us beginning the diet, it seemed that Chee was doing this constantly. We might be in the car and she’d ask me the same question over and over again, 30-40 times in a row. Or she might walk around the house repeating a phrase, the same phrase, endlessly. It would be very difficult to engage with her and nearly impossible to snap her out of it. This was constant in our house. There was still typical echolalia and typical conversation, but there was also deep repetition. Moreso than the others.
I wonder if that type of repetitive speaking is a kind of verbal stimming.
Since we began the GFCF diet, the repetition is what has disappeared. But not her echolalic speech. It’s definitely still there (as evidenced by her recent bout of frequently peering in to the freezer and yelling, Honey, I can’t find the peas.).
When first noting changes I was seeing upon implementing the diet, I said her echolalic speech all but disappeared. I was confusing that with her repetitive speaking. It’s important to me to make the distinction because, as I said when I began this post, I had fallen into a terrible habit of using echolalic speech as a barometer for how she’s doing on a daily basis.
That is the wrong barometer (as is “measuring” her on a daily basis, I know that). Echolalic speech is not something I’m seeking to eliminate. I couldn’t do it even if I wanted to. I wouldn’t ever dream of attempting to change her learning style.
The jury is still out on how long we’re going to continue the GFCF diet. I can’t stand the guesswork involved anymore, so yesterday I took Chee to see a doctor who was recommended by Chee’s OT. She’s an ENT who does food intolerance testing. She has treated several ASD kids and has seen various levels of improvement in all of them. After we get the results of the test back a nutritionist will create a rotation diet for Chee that will initially remove all of the offending foods from her diet, and then eventually slowly reintroduce them. Food intolerances can be worked with – strict elimination isn’t permanently necessary. Whew!
The test will also let me know if she even HAS any intolerances to begin with. If she doesn’t then I can drop the diet and know that her recent weeks of lightening speed development has just been Chee. All on her own.
I’m really hoping that is the case.
Because there’s a pizza calling our name. It has goat cheese and mushrooms and big chunks of garlic on it.
Mmmm.
When Chee is in her weekly Occupational Therapy appointment, I will sometimes skim through the books in the parent library. That is, if Ess will play by herself for more than 30 seconds. Sometimes I get lucky, sometimes not.
Lately I’ve been skipping around in The Sensory-Sensitive Child and I stumbled across a chapter about the home environment and how, often, kids with SPD just “let it all hang out” at home. Home is the safe place where siblings cut them some slack and expectations are not as high.
Reading this, I had one of those A-Ha moments.
Lately Chee has had me a bit bewildered at times. Other than one issue at school, she’s been doing great there. Really great. Behaviorally, she’s a compliant little dream (please know that comment is laden with sarcasm and eyerolling). She is actually behaving well, though.
She’s mostly pretty good when we go to people’s houses or to the store. Mostly. As good as you can expect any four-year-old with SPD to be. Or any NT 4-year-old for that matter.
Then there’s home. Home can be a totally different story. Can be I say because there’s nothing consistent going on here. At home there are times she’s just totally, one hundred percent, O-F-F. Off.
Want examples?
Saturday we had friends over for dinner and she was incredible with them. Talkative, engaging with their 2-year-old son, pleasant at the dinner table (even stayed through the whole meal). A model child.
Before our guests arrived, however, and after they departed, were … not so model. She threw several tantrums and was seriously defiant. Not listening to us at all and very physical (i.e. seeking behaviors). I can’t now remember all that she did, but I do remember, before the guests arrived, wondering if the night was going to be a total disaster. And after they left we wondered, What the hell happened to Chee? Where did she go?
Sunday was similar. We went to her teacher’s house for a class party and to ride her horses. The kids each got to take a spin around the corral on the horse. Chee had a very hard time getting focused to get dressed and out the door. She wouldn’t stop shaking the banister. She was just O-F-F Off.
We get there and she was superb. Talkative and engaged with another little girl. They held hands and jumped together. They ran around playing together for a long, long time. I was so impressed. Shocked. I’ve never seen her play this long with any one child before. She was fully engaged with her. My husband and I kept exchanging wide-eyed glances.
Afterwards, however, more of the same from the morning.
Sometimes I let myself get stressed from her behavior at home. I worry and fret and wonder what it’s like for other people at home with their kids and why does it seem like it’s always so hard for us. We do certainly have good times together, but she can and does make things difficult at times keep me on my toes.
Reading the brief passage in the book about home being a safe haven for an SPD kid to just be was a lightbulb moment for me.
That she can behave happily and respectful when we have guests, or when we are guests, or when we are in a public setting, is something to applaud.
That she feels safe and secure and loved enough to just let it all hang out at home, to show her disjointedness and whackiness and out-o’-sortsness in front of us, that is worthy of a standing ovation.
My heart smiles knowing that our home is the safe place that it should be. For all of us.
In my post a few days ago about Sensory Processing Disorder (in support of October as SPD Awareness Month) I said that I would write about managing SPD on a daily basis.
I should caveat that I am writing only from MY perspective with MY daughter. I’m not an SPD expert, I just play one on my blog. Or not. Really, I’m just a Mom who’s got a kid with SPD.
In our house the most signifanct aspect of dealing with SPD has been the Sensory Diet. For those that don’t know, a Sensory Diet has absolutely nothing to do with food. (Unless of course crunchy food is part of your sensory diet as it is ours.)
Here’s a good explanation of a Sensory Diet from the Sensory Smarts website (which is written by the authors of Raising a Sensory Smart Child – which would be a great addition to one’s SPD library).
The sensory diet, a term coined by OT Patricia Wilbarger, is a carefully designed, personalized activity schedule that provides the sensory input a person’s nervous system needs to stay focused and organized throughout the day.
What worked for me to establish an appropriate and effective Sensory Diet was careful observation of Chee followed up by discussion with her OT. I noted times of the day and certain activities that triggered negative behaviors from her. I talked to her OT and she made suggestions of activities that would help her overcome those.
Chee’s Sensory Diet includes a significant amount of deep pressure touch and heavy work. Hugs are prevalent. I also do a lot of Chee Sandwiches and I actually encourage her to jump and crash on the bed. We try to play games of Simon Says where we do bear walks and wheelbarrow walks. Ess will climb in a laundry basket and Chee will drag her around (that’s heavy work). I try to do joint compressions on her several times a day. I’ve recently resumed the brushing protocol because Chee found the brush and wanted me to brush her skin.
In addition to the aforementioned, I also make sure Chee eats crunchy food with each meal. She used to drool a lot and seemed unaware that her face was messy with food. This is because she was under-responsive to that stimuli. I need to “wake up” her oral senses. Chee also seeks input to her mouth in the form of biting when she is frustrated. Not biting humans (fortunately) but rather clothing and toys. Eating crunchy food provides great sensory input to her mouth. Luckily, she loves carrots, so she usually eats raw carrots with both lunch and dinner. Just a couple of sticks is enough. At breakfast she eats dry cereal which is a little bit crunchy. I have found a very crunchy GFCF cracker that she likes and that also works its way into her diet daily. Oh, and potato chips. That’s her snack daily at school. Since she’s been on the GFCF diet, I have to pack her snack. I let her choose and she chooses potato chips every day.
These kind of activities help Chee to organize her nervous system and manage sensory input. The hope is that as she gets older, she’ll learn when she needs input and do whatever it is she needs to do to get organized. I already see that beginning to happen.
It’s hard to put into words what the Sensory Diet does for her, but it’s very easy to recognize when I’ve been slack. She’ll start rolling around on Ess, she’ll hit me when I tell her no, she’ll lay on the floor and kick the wall.
The toughest part, for me, of SPD is trying to determine whether she’s displaying typical 4 year old behavior or whether she’s out of sorts. Lately she’s become very defiant. Four year olds across the world are defiant. But sometimes her defiance is rooted in feeling out of sorts. Sometimes it’s not. That particular aspect of SPD has been challenging to manage. We are working our way through it, though, using a bit of trial and error.
I am finding that if she’s regulated then she responds to discipline. If she’s dysregulated then she falls apart and her defiance escalates into screaming. A heavy duty bear hug will usually calm her down. I still try to follow through with the discipline if I can. If not, we will talk about it. Honestly, I don’t know whether that is working. All I can do is try to be consistent. As my mother so eloquently told me last week, Defiance is normal and sometimes you just got to ride out the tough times.
My husband and I believe that Chee’s Sensory Diet is vital to helping her have a good day. Vital to helping her feel safe and calm so that she can learn and communicate.
Finally, I’d like to direct you over to Elizabeth at Three Channels who has a nifty list of bloggers who are writing posts about Sensory Processing Disorder. Click on over there to check it out (it’s in the upper right hand side of her blog).
I can’t do wordless. I just can’t.
But I can do brief. Took Chee out last night to look for a new headband for today’s school picture. She found this mask and our shopping was done. All she wanted to do was meow and pretend she was a cat. She was thrilled to have found a kitty cat “costooooom” and was so persistent about asking me to buy it for her. How could I say no? The girl has never expressed this much interest in me buying her any kind of thing before. When we came back home she immediately ran and stuck her face in our real cat’s face and kept telling him, I’m a kitty cat too.” The whole thing was a spectacular display of age-appropriate kid stuff.
We’re just a little over a month into the school year and already Chee’s team is wanting to talk about the big question we have to answer. To Kindergarten or not next year? Chee has a summer birthday and it’s not uncommon for kids to wait until the summer they turn six to start Kindergarten. In fact, around these parts, special needs or not, everyone waits. At least everyone I’ve asked (no small number).
Last May, Chee’s team seemed pretty certain the best course of action for Chee was that she would attend a 3rd year of preschool with an IEP. While I would prefer that she go on to K next fall, I had accepted that she probably would benefit from that extra year. The gift of time.
Imagine my surprise when the notes and emails from Chee’s teacher indicated the team is discussing this and feels that it may be better for Chee to go on to K next year. She said she will still need special ed services which would require a diagnosis. I asked if the school can provide the evaluation and diagnosis and her teacher responded that they can administer the ADOS.
So, I take it to mean that Chee would need an ASD diagnosis to receive services beyond just speech therapy.
At her class hayride last week, I had the chance to ask her what special ed services would look like for Chee, and she said she thought she would need some help from a special educator during Reading Center and Writing Center to make sure she completes her tasks and stays on track. And possibly for transitions.
I asked her teacher if she thought Chee would need a 1:1 aide for the whole class and she said definitely not. She told me they would likely front-load Chee with as much help as possible and then peel back where it’s not needed (it’s easier to take away services than add them, she said).
The other thing she told me was that the kind of social difficulties Chee is having (lack of peer interaction) is not something that would necessarily improve with a 3rd year of preschool. My only thought on that is that she must be having SOME peer interaction as every day the communication notebook tells me that Chee played this game or that game with so-n-so kid with no adult facilitation. Obviously she’s making progress in that area.
Next week I’ll be observing a Kindergarten class so I have an idea what it looks like at the beginning of the year (rather than in March).
At this point, I’m not sure what is right for Chee. I have a lot of questions swimming around my head. Questions about Autism diagnosis for educational purposes. Questions about the social ramifications of sending her before she’s mature enough. Questions about her being challenged enough in preschool. What do they do with a child in Kindergarten who is reading years ahead of her peers?
I’d love to hear from others who have wandered in this same territory. Did you give your child the gift of time or send them on to K? If you did send them on to K, what kind of special ed services did you get and was it enough, too much?
Any perspective will be appreciated.
Before I get into what I want to write about, I want to call out a few posts from the blogosphere that have dealt with the topic of Sensory Processing Disorder in support of October as Sensory Processing Disorder Awareness month (you know you’ve made it as a disability when you get your own Awareness month).
Patty at Pancakes Gone Awry posted a wonderful letter from Carol Stock Kranowitz (SPD guru and author of The Out of Sync Child). She has also written two other posts (so far) that were informative and honest.
TongguMomma, the hilarious and reluctantly insightful mom to The Tongginator, wrote about SPD and the Adopted Child.
Hopefully I’ll have more links to share about the fascinating and frustrating world of Sensory Processing Disorder in the days to come.
On to the main event now.
I discovered a wonderful GFCF recipe blog (not just recipes though, she writes about her ASD daughter too). Erin, the writer of this blog, cooks the way I like to eat. She’s awesome. And in particular, what is really awesome, is her recipe for GFCF Chicken Nuggets (I use coating mix #2). Even if you’re not GFCF, this is an excellent recipe. Yeah, you’ll have to buy rice flour and potato flour, but so what! They are soooo good. And worth it. Even Ess, who disdains all protein that is not a hot dog, scarfs these babies down.
I also made Erin’s Cod and Potato Pancakes and they are as good as she proclaims them. My husband can’t wait for me to make them again. Chee and Ess ate them, too, although not as exuberantly. And I have made her Kofta Kebabs (with ground beef instead of chicken as we eat enough chicken). Again, my husband and I loved them, the girls only tolerated them. They neither seem to be beef eaters, so we’re just giving up. It’s not necessary.
The diet has not been *that* difficult for us to implement. We don’t eat much in the way of boxed food, preferring to make most things from scratch. That’s not to say I don’t like the occasional convenience foods (I miss my frozen pizza margheritas), but for the most part, we avoid prepared foods (which tend to be contain added gluten).
I have simplified our repertoire of meals. I can’t figure out a decent way to prepare beef that they will eat that does not include cheese (tacos being the only way they would eat it before), so I’ve just eliminated it. The girls will eat pork if it’s fixed with sauerkraut but, frankly, I can only stand to eat that meal occasionally, so it’s not in the regular rotation.
That leaves us with chicken and salmon. I know a variety of ways to fix chicken that does not involve gluten or casein and that the kids will eat. Fortunately, they love salmon fixed just about any way. I have modified my salmon patties recipe to make it GFCF (don’t ask me for it as I haven’t written it down yet and I’m just winging it each time). Both girls and my husband and myself enjoy regular seasoned and baked salmon. It’s a staple in our diet (wild-caught only, preferably sockeye).
Along with our chicken/salmon dish we have a vegetable and either rice (brown or white), potatoes (sweet or white), or Quinoa pasta (which I love and will probably eat forever – it’s so much better tasting than the standard whole grain pasta we were eating before).
Lunches have been harder to navigate on the diet. Our previous lunch fare was your typical kid stuff. Grilled cheese sandwiches, peanut butter sandwiches, cheese quesadillas, etc. All of that is tossed. I have actually started buying lunch meat (which I’ve never given to them before) so they can have ham once in awhile. I’m not happy with that, but for now it’s working. I am also going to buy these frozen salmon burgers I have seen at Costco. The girls and I sampled them there one day and they were met with approval. They would be a convenient thing for me to pop in the oven for lunch. I have tried Dr. Praegers Veggie Burgers but nobody liked them. Once a week I let them have hot dogs (Hebrew National) and at least twice a week we eat apples and peanut butter. They love it!
Breakfast is pretty simple. Chee eats Rice Chex and strawberries or an egg and a piece of bacon (and strawberries). Ess and I are not GFCF so we still eat our Cheerios or our Hot Cereal (we share…). On Fridays Chee doesn’t have school so I make GFCF pancakes. I will admit that right now I’m using a box mix, but that’s because the one recipe I tried turned out dis-gus-ting and I’m seeking a new tried and true recipe (anyone?).
Surprisingly snacks haven’t been difficult either. I bought an Air Popper to make air-popped popcorn and we all are enjoying (sometimes twice) daily batches of air-popped popcorn drizzled with melted non-dairy butter and lightly salted. In addition to that, Chee eats raw carrots and strawberries as her snack usually at school. Or potato chips. The girl loves potato chips.
The variety in our diet has gone way down, but no one is complaining. Least of all me. It’s so easy to know that I’m either going to make chicken or salmon for dinner, that it’s going to be rice or pasta or potatoes with it. I barely even have to write a grocery list as I know I just need to replenish my staples.
We’re saving money because we’re not eating out anymore, but probably spending more on things like GFCF cookies and and ice cream. We don’t eat them often, but I like Chee to be able to have a treat now and again.
That’s how the diet has been working for us. I can’t complain. Everybody is eating well.
And Chee is progressing wonderfully. Her OT told me today that her development has been lightning speed this past month. It’s true. It has been. She’s remarkable.
Watching her develop almost makes me forget how badly I am craving pizza. Almost.
I recently learned from Patty at Pancakes Gone Awry that October is Sensory Processing Disorder Awareness Month. She, and several other bloggers, including yours truly, are going to blog about their experiences with SPD and at some point I imagine there will be links collected and shared.
If any of my readers wishes to blog about SPD, please do so and let me know via comment or email, and I’ll make sure you are included in the list of collected links.
My daughter, Chee, has SPD. One thing I have learned in the 15 months since she was diagnosed (right when she turned 3) is that no two kids diagnosed with SPD look the same. In addition to that, SPD in one child might look this way one day, and then a totally different that way another day.
Many people, myself included at one time, think that SPD is when kids are particular about their sock seams, get irritated by clothing tags, or have intense, frequent meltdowns. Chee’s first SLP said to me that the hallmark symptom of SPD is frequent and intense temper tantrums from which one has trouble calming down.
Based on that, I said, Nope, Chee does not have SPD.
However, I followed her suggestion for an evaluation which ended up leading us to a wonderful OT at top-notch institution.
Much was learned.
I learned that we have two more senses in addition to the traditional five. The proprioceptive and vestibular senses (you can click on the links for simple explanations).
Those two senses make up the core of where Chee has her challenges. The dysfunction in her proprioceptive sense, which refers to body awareness, manifests itself in being a Sensory Seeker. Chee loves to crash. She seeks pressure, particularly in the form of bear hugs, from us frequently throughout the day.
The dysfunction in her vestibular sense showed up as gravitational insecurity. Chee was 3 years old before she would willingly climb a ladder to a TALL slide and slide down on her own. Bounce houses (aka inflatables) she wouldn’t have anything to do with those until this summer, when she was almost four.
I also learned that often times what looks like bad behavior, what looks to others like a kid who has parents that don’t know how to control her, is actually very much related to Sensory Processing.
The best example I can give of that is when Chee goes shopping. Chee loves to shop. And for the most part, shopping with her is fine. She is pretty good. But Chee is totally a wanderer. She has a very, very difficult time staying with me at the store. She can walk alongside me, but I have to be in hyper vigilant mode to keep her focused on a) keeping one hand on the cart; or b) looking for something on the shelf for me. When we get to the checkout, I try to always do the U-Scan lines because then she can help with scanning our purchases and bagging them.
I know this is not typical behavior. I pay special attention to kids at the store and I’m always amazed at how they just walk behind their parents, or alongside the cart, without hardly a sideways glance from their parents.
I’m even now observing with it my own daughter. Ess, who is not quite two years old, is desperate to be allowed to walk like a big girl in the store. She doesn’t want to ride in the cart anymore. The couple of times I have allowed her to walk have been surprising. But really not. She walks right behind me. She follows me through the aisles without trying to run away. Her biggest transgression is picking things up off shelves and saying, in her cute little girly voice, Here, we need this! and dropping it in the cart.
What Chee does, this running and running though the store, this is not some failure to control on my part. In fact, I think she does as good as she does, and has improved so much, because I have worked so hard to keep her focused when we’re shopping. It goes without saying that I am exhausted when we’re finished shopping together.
How and why this is related to Sensory Processing, I know not. I do know that I have heard similar tales from many an SPD parent.
Probably the most significant thing I have learned about Sensory Processing is that it’s not the end of the world. I remember asking Chee’s therapist when we first began OT, Can Chee overcome this? And she said, emphatically, Absolutely, yes, she will overcome this.
Sensory Processing Disorder is frustrating. It’s confusing. And it certainly takes some time to understand how it manisfests itself in your own kid. But there is hope. Lots of hope.
As part of SPD Awareness Month, I will write another post this month about what I’ve learned when it comes to managing daily life when your child has SPD.
Stay tuned.
Things are loud in our house.
L O U D
There’s the almost two-year-old who is discovering her Voice and loves to hear herself scream. There’s the Sensory Defensive Seeking Defensive Seeking 4 year old who loves to hear herself scream drown out her sister’s screams.
Do you see where I’m going with this?
Chee is all over the board with her sensory needs, particularly with sound. One minute she’s covering her ears and yelling at me to tell Ess to stop crying. The next minute she’s trading terrible roars with Ess, competing to see who can be the wildest thing.
Times like these I repeat my tried and true SPD mantra: This too shall pass.
Until then, I am practicing the fine parental art of tuning out.
And I upped my arsenal of ibuprofen.
Despite what I might wish to the contrary, it’s not all recipe searches and label reading over here in casa goodfountain.
And while I’m impressed with Chee’s conversational abilities, delighted at her interest in listening to music again, and thrilled with her decreased echolalia – I have had it up to here with the sensory seeking.
There’s the biting (toys, clothes, pillows, not bodies thankfully). There’s the hitting and kicking that we hadn’t seen in some time. And the body slamming. Let’s not forget the wall kicking.
This time around, this particular sensory phase seems to be concentrated in the lower body (biting not included). It was her head, for awhile, that was craving all the extra input, but I’m not seeing as much of that as I am the legs and feet now.
It’s tough to be on the receiving end of those sensory-seeking feet, let me tell you.
I’ll tell you what’s nice though. Having been at this whole Sensory Processing thing for about 15 months now, I’m starting to worry less. Occasionally I can actually recognize when something is likely a passing sensory-related phase, and not a dramatic oh-my-god-why-is-she-doing-this behavioral issue. Like the current round of hitting.
When she went through a hitting phase before, I thought it was the end of the world. That was probably one of the darkest periods for me, as Chee was quite the hitter.
This time around though, she’s not just hitting (and kicking), she also doing the body slamming and the biting and (and this is new) she lays on her back and lifts her legs straight up in the air and thumps down on whatever is near. Woe to the person or feline who happens to be in the way.
To confirm my suspicions that this is indeed sensory-related and not just abhorrent behavior, I made doubly sure to get in consistent sensory diet schtuff today (I smushed a lot of Chee sandwiches) and there was no biting, no body slamming, and no kicking or hitting.
Yay for me and Ess!
Now if I could just convince her that she should use the toilet to pee every single time (not just when it’s convenient), life would really be grand.
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