Back to our Routines

Well...another week has gone by. Fortunately, the snow is almost gone at our house! We are all very tired of the snow and have major cabin fever. I think we are all very tired of each other as well.

Most of our Christmas plans were cancelled this year. We had planned a trip to Lincoln City to spend time with the Mitchell side of the family. Mom and dad have been in the area since Thanksgiving waiting for Christmas. Little did we know that the snow would change everything! Stan and Sheila were not able to fly in from CA, fearful that they wouldn't be able to leave the Portland airport to continue flying onto Puerto Rico. So, we thought we'd just take the boys down to Portland and stay with my sister and her family (and my mom and dad) for a few days. The roads had melted a bit and froze nicely that night. On top of that, Kelly's tummy wasn't feeling too good and he was making frequent jaunts to the bathroom. Needless to say, those plans were cancelled. Defeated and ready to go back to CA, my parents left Portland today to try to make it back to their home. How sad...all this way, all those plans...and no Christmas!

On top of it all, I don't do well being confined to home 24/7. By Saturday, I was completely losing it! If one more child, person or animal demands my attention (or whines)...I'm going to lose it! I needed out of the house...so off to Fred Meyer we went, thankful for the breath of fresh air.

I'm glad it's Monday...the start of a new week and the start of our usual routines (yeah...even moms need them). Hope you all have a great week and a safe New Year! Kari

Home Again...

Arghh...after getting about 8 inches of snow this weekend, we are housebound once again. Daycare is closed, so mommy had to cancel her lofty plans to work. We had a very lazy morning, with lots of snuggles and watching lots of TV and videos. For about 1 1/2 hours, Carson, Logan and I laid on the couch...Carson in my arms and Logan at my feet. Logan fell asleep for about 45 minutes (as did I) and Carson joyfully watched episodes of Handy Manny, The Ants Movie, etc., We were in complete heaven. We ate some lunch, then ventured outside to build another snowman (since the last one has been knocked down). Carson was all over this idea, Logan had better ideas and decided to play with daddy's tools in the garage. We did venture over to the neighbor's abandoned house next door to do some "step sledding"...Carson was in complete heaven!! On our way back home, Carson said "that was fun mom!"



We decided to come inside and play with our new crash pad mom made this morning. We filled a full sheet (folded in half) with all the pillows we could find in the house and the boys ran and jumped off the stairs into the playroom. They thought it was a great idea and of course, lots of fun! A great sensory activity as well...lots of input into those joints does a body good!

Hope you are keeping yourselves safe and enjoying this holiday week!

Croup and Sugar Cookies!

Well, Logan just wanted to make sure mommy was paying attention to him on Tuesday as he began having a wonderful, barky cough and spiked a temperature at daycare. Logan is prone to asthma-type symptoms, so this is not too surprising. However, when he starts having a fever, then we have to pay attention! I took him to the pediatrician to find out he has croup! Croup is a virus that causes a barky cough. Croup causes swelling and narrowing in the voice box, windpipe, and breathing tubes that lead to the lungs. This can make it hard for your child to breathe. Sounds like fun, huh? It is also contagious, which means no more daycare for the rest of the week! We've been doing lots of snuggles at home with big brother...watching the snow come down outside. Just to make matters even better, Carson started with the barky cough this afternoon! The hardest part of this whole thing is the cough when they lay down to sleep. They are both frequently waking up because of the cough...ARGH...so much for a good night's sleep!



Since we were couped up in the house today, we decided to get in the holiday spirit by making some sugar cookies. Both Carson and Logan helped whip up their own batches of dough. Carson was a super big helper by making a dough ball (in between bites of dough), rolling it out all by himself and then using cookie cutters to make gingerbread men, angels, ornaments and snowmen! Talk about a great sensory activity...there's nothing like getting your hands all dirty with flour and then rolling it all out! When we were done, Carson gave me a big hug saying "that was a lot of fun mom!"...mission accomplished!

Enjoy the snow and keep yourselves warm and AWAY FROM THE CROUP!

More snow and funny story!

Well, after not getting too much snow the day before, Carson was in pure heaven when we got lots of snow on Saturday evening. On Sunday morning, he looks out the window in awe as it was snowing more. He says "mom, can we build a snowman?" Of course I say, but we need to wait til the sun wakes up (since it was only 6am, very cold and still dark outside). Once we got out there, he helped mom gather up snow for a snowman. He was very specific that he wanted him to have a carrot nose. It took him a while to figure out what to put as eyes (until daddy suggested the toilet paper tube!), the arms had to be sticks. We topped it off with some gloves, a scarf and of course, a hat and a rake (stand in for a shovel). You should have seen Carson jumping up and down in excitement! He finally had his snowman!

Logan wasn't too interested in going out in the cold snow. He did sneak out for a bit to put his lawnmower thru the snow, then he was back inside the warm house with daddy.

OK...here's a funny story. I have learned a lot about myself by watching my kids. I ask Logan to go do something (like brush your teeth or go put on your socks and shoes) and he holds up his little finger and emphatically looks at you and says "one minute!" Now, how cute is that?

Have a great snowy, icy and cold day! 9 more days until Christmas!

Let it Snow!

Carson has been saying for the last several weeks "Mom, I want Christmas to come!" and "Mom, when is it going to snow?" Well, this morning one of Carson's wishes came true...he woke up to snow on the ground. He told me that he was ready to go play in the snow and all he was wearing was a shirt, boots, jacket and of course, his gloves! Hmmmm...Carson, do you think you want to put on some pants? Well, OK mom! So off he went to the backyard to play in the snow. Brother was quick to follow behind him clothed with his jammies, boots and jacket. Carson heads off to go down the slide...snow and all! Then, he's all set to build a snowman, however the snow was a bit difficult to collect. Mom suggested he collect it in a bucket! Before long, Carson comes into the house with snow in his bucket. Are you going to play with the snow, Carson? I asked him if he knows what happens to snow...it melts and turns into water, I said. He looked at me with a look of horror. "Mom, I don't want the snow to melt. How 'bout we put it in the freezer?" Off we went to put the snow in the freezer! Happy boys mean happy mommies!

Carson & Logan's Story (Our path to a diagnosis of Sensory Processing Disorder)

During Carson's first year of life, we bagan noticing that Carson was very good at gross motor activities (walking, climbing, running, etc.,). Compared with all of other boys of similar age, he was always the first to walk and run. However, his speech was very delayed compared with his peers. At about 1 year old, his behavior became more challenging for us. At his 18 month checkup, I spoke with the pediatrician about his speech and I thought that it needed to be evaluated further. He agreed and we proceeded to have the Children's Therapy Center evaluate his speech. When he was tested, he was delayed (1.4 standard deviations), but not delayed enough to qualify for assistance (>= 1.5 SD). As a result, we began weekly speech therapy appointments and paid for it out of our own pockets (since our insurance did not pay for speech therapy (ST). While we were doing ST, our speech therapist at the time noticed that Carson always did things very hard. For example, he would play with playdoh in a very rigid manner, hitting it hard. He wasn't soft with things, he always did things with force and vigor. This is how he played as well. He was a risk taker (jumping from slides, climbing things, etc.,). As a result, our SLP recommended that he be evaluated by an occupational therapist (OT). We did and he was then diagnosed with sensory seeking sensory processing disorder (SPD) (check out the "links" section of this blog to learn more about SPD). His behavior continued to escalate and he was very difficult to control (having very irrational fits and difficult to console). To us, this was our "normal", this was our first and only child and we didn't know any different. As the pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place, things started to make sense! I was continually talking with our ST/OT therapist about his behavior and he was finally tested again. As a result of this testing, he finally qualified for the SKIP program (South King Couty Early Intervention Program). He could finally get therapy that he needed that the state could help us pay for.

Carson's speech continued to improve. We were using all kinds of signs that we learned in order to communicate with him. This helped with some of his frustration, but he continued to be a very frustrated little boy. Out of sheer desparation, we started behavior therapy trying to learn some skills to help us better parent Carson. We continued this therapy for about a year. We saw some results, but continued to have difficulties with him.

Once Carson turned 3 years old, his therapy is managed by the school district. This is what early intervention is all about...getting him ready for learning in school and being successful in life! So, at 2 1/2 years old we began testing him again to see if he would qualify for the developmental preschool program with the school district. The qualification factors are much more rigid that qualifying for the SKIP program. Since SPD is not a recognized diagnosis (not in the DSM manual), this cannot be one of the qualifying factors. He definitely qualified for behavior and he kept falling thru the cracks with qualifying for speech. He understood words and could say them, but just didn't articulate them well. Finally, with some further testing, he qualified under speech articulation (thank you Becca for your dedicated testing to qualify him!). So, on his 3rd birthday, he began attending the preschool program at the local elementary school. This is a 2 1/2 hour program 4 days a week. He is transported to school by a school bus. You can imagine how frantic mom was when they are driving off with my little boy on a school bus! He did marvelously! He has learned so much just by being in a very structured environment working with him on his social skills, speech articulation, etc., He loves it!

Meanwhile, along comes baby Logan...George boy number two! As Logan grew up, we saw a lot of similarities with him compared with Carson. He was also high motor functioning and began also having some speech delays. In addition, Logan was falling a lot, constantly bonking his head on anything and everything and was excessively drooling. He couldn't seem to keep his balance. At 18 months of age, he was also evaluated for speech delays and immediately qualified for the SKIP program (thank God!). He also has sensory seeking SPD. While we began working with Logan, our speech therapist recommended that we try a SPIO suit. SPIO stands for Stabilizing Pressure Input Orthosis (check out http://spioworks.org for more information) is basically a full body compression suit (shirt and pants). He wears this suit all day, every day. What it does is provides compression to his body. In turn, his body sends signals to his brain to tell him where his body is at in space. Now, that sounds kinda weird but here's an analogy for you. You know when your foot falls asleep and you have to move it to know where your foot actually is? Well, that's the same thing that happens with SPD. Once your brain knows where your body parts are, you are better able to control them. As a result, Logan's balance issue dramatically improved. He wasn't falling and bonking his head nearly as much as before. It also helped him with drooling. He was able to work on projects (hard work for him) and still know how to swallow his saliva at the same time (some things you just take for granted)! His demeanor kind of changed as well. He was much more content with life once he started wearing his SPIO suit. As Logan continued to wear his suit (we call it his superman suit), we began seeing changes in his speech. He was saying words that just came from nowhere! WOW...what a change! We were just amazed.

I kept thinking that if we have seen such a big change with Logan, what would happen if Carson started wearing the SPIO suit? We had previously tried it with Carson, but he just wouldn't tolerate it...he would fight us and fight us. At the time that we tried it, we just weren't up for another battle with him, so we gave it up. But, now that we saw it's potential, we decided that Carson was no longer a "voting member" in the decision to wear the SPIO suit. We weren't sure how we were going to pull it off, but we owed it to Carson (and ourselves) to try it again. So, we saved the challenge for the weekend. We got up that morning and told Carson that he could go to Home Depot with daddy if he wore the superman suit. We told him that it would give his body hugs all day and that it would feel really good. He fought us a bit, but we did get it on him. We then put his clothes on top of it. We were off to enjoy our day. After the inital challenge of getting the SPIO suit on Carson, it instantly became a "non-challenge." At one point, Carson took off his clothes and was just wearing his SPIO suit. He loved the feel of it (so soft and slick). By that evening, Carson DID NOT want to take it off! He actually went to bed wearing it! Wow...what a change from our original expectation! As time went by, we started seeing big changes in Carson...mostly in his demeanor and behavior. His behavior went from "irrational" and out of control fits to "rational" fits! It's hard to explain what we were seeing other than to say that we began being a much more happy family together! Carson's behavior has changed so dramatically that he is a happy boy and we are a happy family. Don't take me wrong...we continue to have our challenges, but life is so much better now! We owe our lives to SPIO and are so thankful that we learned about SPIO!

As we continue to learn more about SPD, we begin to learn more about why the boys act the way they do. My hope is that this blog helps you to learn about SPD and how we are moving to overcome SPD and it's challenges. Please check out the links section of this blog to learn more about SPD.