Once you told your Grammie Kathi that you wanted to be good, and you didn't know why you couldn't be. We thought for a long time you were just "all boy" and that maybe you were just really, really tired at the end of the day when you couldn't slow down. After a while, once you passed through your terrible twos and the "even worse three's" you still were non stop. It started to appear that there might be a problem.
In fact, I thought there was a problem well before that. By well before, I mean when you were one year old and displaying little quirks that we were sure weren't normal. You wouldn't make eye contact, you didn't want to be held, you wouldn't let us brush your teeth, you didn't really play with toys. I researched Autism. I was afraid. Your Dad was worried. I talked to the Dr. she didn't take it seriously, you know, me being a new Mom and all.
At two years old I went back to the Dr. explaining that you were unusually active. The diagnosis was that you were "a boy". That we needed to be more consistant. In part this was because you were only having problems at home and I reported no problems at school... because none were reported to me.
A year later I was back. Explaining that something was off. That it wasn't normal for a little boy to be as active and frenetic as you became in the evenings. That it wasn't sleep deprevation, and it wasn't just me not being able to handle my own child. Again she was going to lecture me on consistancy until I said the words, Sensory Processing Disorder. Then she said that she could recommend someone and did. They had a year long waiting list for diagnosis.
While I was trying to find more information to help you, I started getting reports of your bad behavior in school. I was confused by this since I had not had any reports of bad behavior any of the previous years. I called to speak to the Director of your preschool, because I thought that if all of a sudden you were misbehaving this badly, that your new teacher, (who, later we came to love) had expectations that were too high. Imagine my surprise when the director informed me, (without any compassion), that the year before your teacher had been in her office several times about your behavior. No one had ever mentioned this to me. Imagine my fury. And suddenly, it all started coming together. Holy shit. Maybe it wasn't just me.
The Director was going to call me back to let me know why I was never informed of any problems you were having, which she never bothered to do. That didn't matter to me, since I wasn't going to bother putting you back into that preschool the next year, but more importantly it was the missing piece of the puzzle. And it spurred me into action.We had you evaluated by the school system, which turned out nothing useful since you had no problems in congnitive areas. In fact you showed to be quite bright in several areas. They did think that you should be evaluated for a Sensory Processing Disorder.
Through a friend of a friend that had a Sensory kid, we found a private office that would evaluate you without a year long wait. During your first screening I was told that you obviously had sensory issues. I cried... from relief.
Yesterday, your Dad and I went for your full evaluation. They reported that you have a Sensory Processing Disorder (Sensory Seeking), Dyspraxia (Fine Motor Skill Delay) and difficulty sequencing actions. I'll get more into the details of it all later, but in short, after about 9 months of Occupational Therapy you'll be just fine. I can not tell you how relieved we are, not for our own sanity, although that's some of it, but because soon it will be easier to be "good".
Because it took a whole lot of me ignoring bad advice from other people and trusting my instincts. Because when I told you in another entry that we would always fight for you, I wasn't kidding.
I'm so glad your mine,
Mommy
