Distracted by nature...

Katie to me last Saturday when it was so gorgeous out: "Momma, sometimes, only on nice days, I just get so distracted by nature."

Still so much to learn

Reading another excellent book on SPD tonight (Raising a Sensory Smart Child by Lindsey Biel, M.A., OTR/L  and Nancy Peske) and realizing how much more I still need to learn about this condition.  Feeling disgusted with myself for being so impatient with both my girls at times for things that seem so simple to me but may be beyond their control. 

Specifically, a section about motor planning problems (dyspraxia), the authors are explaining that it takes these children many more repetitions of a physical action to master it, and still "every task that required him to use two hands in coordination had to be taught separately.  Even when he finally learned to pull his pants up, he was utterly lost when putting his socks on, although it was basically the same process, because like other dyspraxic kids, he had trouble generalizing skills and applying them to other situations."   I remember losing my temper with both of the girls at various times in almost exactly this sort of situation, "You've got your pants on already, why is it taking so long to get those socks on?!?" etc.  Lord, please teach me patience and help me to see them the way you see them.  They need my support and understanding, not more criticism. 

Earring Issues

My poor baby!  Katie woke up this morning telling me her right earring was 'bothering' her when she tried to turn it.  I had a look and was horrified to see that she had pushed the back on so tightly that it had dug into the skin and was bloodily encrusted to it.  Checked the other ear and it was the same so I insisted we take them both out immediately, which was quite traumatic and, I'm sure, painful, as they both look like they could be a bit infected.  Cleaned them out well with peroxide and applied Neosporin liberally to keep the backs soft.  

Feeling like an awful mother for letting this happen, though, how could I have known?  Why on earth didn't she say something sooner!! I can't go even a few minutes with an earring back too tight without adjusting it, how did she keep quiet?  Usually she is more than vocal about every little hint of discomfort!  Only explanation I can think of is inadequate tactile input, like she literally didn't feel it the way others would.  Poor thing.

Fear Where Others Find Fun

Picture an average kindergartener going to a cousin's birthday party.  She looks forward to it with great anticipation, but problems arise where there is supposed to be fun.  The party is at Pump-It-Up, an indoor inflatable play place, and for extra fun, it's a glow-in-the-dark party, so the lights are off and instead there are star-like sparkles and disco lights flashing.  It looks really cool and the pumpin' music completes the scene.  While the cousin and his friends tumble down the inflatable slide and bounce houses, Katelyn is paralyzed with fear.  She cries and clings to me, insisting on being held, and begging to go home.


Katie has always had a serious fear of the dark.  Having difficulty with vestibular input, she can't sense where her body is in relation to her surroundings, so she usually relies on her sight to clue her in, but can't in the dark.  She finds the flashing lights disorienting  The music everyone else finds fun feels like an assault to her sensitive ears, as do the screams and squeals of fun from all the other kids.  While Katie loves the proprioceptive input of bouncing and jumping, she only feels safe doing it on her own terms, with no one else around to bump into her or wiggle the inflatable unpredictably.  At a party, though, she can't get the bounce house all to herself, so she just sits in the corner of it and screams if anyone else gets too boisterous.  Every movement feels to her like being tossed on a stormy sea.  She is in perpetual fight-or-flight mode as her body tells her she is in great danger.

Perfectionism

There are some of Katie's struggles that  I find hard to connect to the SPD, and this is one of them.  One of the reasons I still wonder if I shouldn't have her in for further evaluation somewhere.  So, other professionals reading this, let me know what you think.

Katelyn sometimes holds herself to a very high standard of perfection on certain tasks, and then completely loses it if/when she makes a mistake.  Take valentines, for instance.  Katie was so excited to pick out cards for her first valentine's exchange, and the day the class list came home she sat down immediately to begin writing in the names.  Katie actually has quite good handwriting for kindergarten, and for a child with SPD, whose fine motor skills are often poor.  But, inevitably, she would get the first few letters too big and not have room for a last letter, or decided a certain letter didn't look the way it should, and her world was fit to end right then and there.  Wailing and gnashing of teeth ensued.  She'd throw down the pen and scatter the cards, crying that it was "all ruined now" and she'd "never do this right, never!".  Thank goodness we had more cards than we needed, because she could not be convinced that any of the mistakes were salvageable with a little correction, but had to start over on them completely after a good 30+ minute cooling off period.

Same sort of reaction last week when she drew pictures for her dad, step-mom and step-brothers to take to them when they went for the weekend.  She made one for each, though they were not as elaborate as some of her usual drawings, and sure enough on the last one there was a spelling mishap!  Tears, tearing and crumpling of the offending paper ensued before she could be calmed and induced to try again, but then she'd lost the marker she'd been using, and none of the other colors would do, as they would not match, so she melted into a puddle again!  Good old Melanie finally found the original color, and all was sorted in the end for delivery the next morning.  But, about half an hour into our drive up north there is an ear piercing screech from the back seat, the cause of which cannot be immediately deciphered through all the crying, but turns out to be that she has somehow forgotten one of the pictures at home and it is an inconsolable loss.  We remedy the situation with a quick stop at the nearest store for paper and markers, and the universe is in balance again, after a few more stifled sobs.

I don't know why she is so hard on herself this way sometimes, but it is the most heartbreaking thing you'd ever want to see.  The level of anxiety she lives with on a daily basis is just so much higher than most kids her age, and I don't know how to help her.

Other Auditory Symptoms

• Runs away, cries, and/or covers ears with loud or unexpected sounds.
• May dislike going to movie theaters, parades, concerts, etc.

Not 15 minutes ago Kate deafened me with an ear piercing scream when one of their little neighborhood friends knocked on the door.  That is one specific unexpected sound that gets her every time. (Highly irritating in the spring and summer when kids are constantly coming around!).

Katie likes going to the movies now, but the first time I tried to take her to one (Kung Fu Panda) was an utter failure.  The loud theater volume and giant screen were too much for her about half way through, but Melly was enjoying it, so I had to walk Kate around the empty theater hallways for a good 45 minutes to let Mel see the end, peeking in on her every few minutes to make sure she was ok all alone in there.  Another of the trials of single parenting!

We've actually been to two movies in the last month (a record for us!) and though Kate is excited to go, she does complain that they are too loud at first and petered out on them about half way through.  She wanted to leave Rango about midway through, and then insisted on snuggling on my lap when I said we couldn't leave.  She buried her head in my chest and fell asleep.  I chalked that up to her having been up too late the night before.  But then last weekend we went to HOP, and half way through she got really restless again.  She had insisted on bringing her "blankie" because theater temps are famously erratic, but she ended up using it to cover her head and trying to snuggle up on my lap again.  Just realizing as I write this that maybe this is a protective response to being overstimulated by the theater experience, since she has more than enough attention span to watch full length movies at home. Hmmm....

Symptoms- Frequently asks people to be quiet; i.e., stop making noise, talking or singing. Appears to "make noise for noise's sake".

Here she can be such a contradiction.  She does ask us to be quiet a lot.  She cannot stand either me or Melanie singing, though we're not really any worse than anyone else.  And sometimes she's just in a snit and can't even stand to hear us talk.  Her play with her baby dolls frequently involves the whole household needing to adhere to a strict silence so her "baby" can "sleep", and breaches of this order can result in reactions equal to that of mothers of colicy infants in similar situations.

On the other hand, she makes so much noise herself that I sometimes fear I'll lose my mind!  She has not really ever learned to whisper, and has none of the usual social inhibition that others naturally feel in quieter environments.  She loves musical instruments and what she lacks in skill with them she makes up for in gusto and persistence.

It's one of the ironies of SPD that the very stimulation they cannot stand from the outside, they often can't get enough of if they create it themselves.  It seems like they're experimenting with that type of stimuli in ways that feels safe because they are controlling it.  It's also known that sensory disregulation often means that they don't experience the same stimuli the same way every time.  What is too loud today may seem too soft to hear tomorrow.  That's what's so stressful for these kids, their world is completely unpredictable!