Life Goes On

Today, Molly had another OT appointment. At this particular appointment, I sat with Pat and discussed Molly's issues in depth. What she has is called sensory defensiveness, meaning she is over aware of things in her environment and responds at lower thresholds than others in her age group. She has problems specific to the tactile and auditory senses. She fails miserably in situations with lots of noise (i.e. the mall or small areas with several children) AND she has a hard time with touch. She wakes easily when moved from one position to the next, she is over aware of people or things touching her etc. We are currently using massage therapy to calm her sympathetic nervous system and we also started using brush therapy this week. I was warned though that brush therapy is usually for older children and Molly may not tolerate at all. Brush therapy involves taking a surgery scrub brush and "brushing" different areas of her body. We tried her back, legs and hands today. She didn't tolerate her legs or hands at all so for now, we are working solely on the back. I spoke to Pat about Molly's future and how she may do in school or socially. After talking about this, I realized something...Molly truly is just like me. One thing we talked about is Molly will probably be a child who, in a group of kids, has a tendency to sit on the outside to help keep herself together. I always called it shy in my time but I completely understand this now. These sensory issues may also lead to anxiety later in life...something I have found myself having issues with as I have gotten older. I have learned to deal with my own issues in my own ways without even realizing what they were. This realization today just made me feel better about Molly and her future. I mean, most people think I am normal right? ;)

On another note, Seth got to move back to the puppy room at school! This was super exciting. I love the teachers he had in the piglet room, but I just really felt like he was too far ahead of the other kids in that room. He was the oldest and developmentally was just so far ahead that I had stopped seeing such rapid progress in him. So, a spot opened in the puppy room and we moved this week! He's really enjoying it. We are also going through paci withdrawal. I have taken the paci away except for at sleep times. That is also improving. The beginning of the week was awful! He cried and wined the entire evening to have his paci. We finally told him that his pumpkin stole it. This left him in awe long enough for us to get to Cracker Barrel. By then he was too preoccupied with everything there to care! Today, I think he only asked for it twice. It was nice. He has also started playing his version of Marco, Polo with me. If I have managed to slip into another room and he doesn't see me go, he yells out "MAMA!" I respond with "BABY!" which makes him giggle and he repeats himself. This goes on until he finds me, or tires of hollering through the house.

It looks as though I don't go back to work until December 1st. I had wanted to go back a little earlier as a part timer, but CVS will take away my benefits if I go to part time so I had to take the ENTIRE leave...so sad really. I do miss my store though. I miss my job and will be super excited to go back. I just hope that everyone gets smart and shapes up before I get back or I might have to pull out my can of whoop-a**!

Anyways...that's life at the KP household right now. Hectic in the evenings...don't be offended if you call and I don't answer! One or both of my children are usually crying!