The Captain: Our Sensational Kid

The past few months have been very busy for us so I haven't been able to keep up on here as I would have hoped to. I plan to catch up on things now that the major headache holiday season is finally (for now) over for us. But there is one post that I have been mulling over how to get through share with everyone and explains a little of why we have been so busy as a family and may also explain a few of my facebook posting over the last few months.

As many of you know, Sergeant and I decided to put The Captain into preschool this school year. It was a majorly discussed decision as we had kept Padawan home with us until Kindergarten. But while Padawan was antisocial perfectly happy being home playing on his own, The Captain is much more social and truly enjoys being around other children. We figured he would settle in happily and enjoy being at school. The second part was true. The first part, not so much. He really does enjoy his preschool and would love it even more if it was fulltime and not just two days a week for a few hours. However, he was having trouble adjusting. I came to dread picking him up and judging how the day went by his beloved teacher's face. More days than not I knew right away it had not been a good day.

Now it was not a case of him being naughty or anything along those lines. It was simple things. He refused to sing during prayer circle/song time. He was all over the room during freeplay, bulldozing over the other kids. He couldn't sit still and finish his snack. The teachers would have to take turns pulling him off of whatever latest piece of furniture he was scaling. And he was hitting his classmates, though never maliciously. The last had me down right mortified. I couldn't stand the thought of the other parents thinking my kid was this horrible, monstrous bully. He's so sweet and loving. Yes he can be rambunctious. But he's never been one to purposely hurt another person, except maybe Padawan.

By November, just after his fourth birthday, the Captain's teacher decided it was time to really have a talk about what was going on. She agreed that he wasn't a bad kid. But maybe there was something more going on. He just wasn't adjusting the way the other kids were. She said it was almost as though he was a two year old in a four year old body. Fortunately his four year well check was a week later.

I fretted. I cried. What was wrong? Was there something I had missed? Sergeant and I had always just written it off as he was just a daredevil. Afraid of nothing in life. Full of energy. A true boy at heart. And the complete opposite of Padawan. We joke when he grows up he'll be a Special Forces Trauma Surgeon who jumps out of airplanes to relax. But I kept coming to what was wrong with me as a mother that I had missed that something was wrong with my baby? I started to really think about how the first four years with him had been. By the time his appointment with our favorite doc rolled around I was an emotional wreck, though I like to think I held it together on the outside pretty well.

At the wellcheck we went through the usual routine, answering the same questions I answer every year for the boys. The nurse asked if there was anything I wished to discuss with the doc, any questions or concerns. I replied yes that some things had come up at preschool. When the doc came in The Captain sat still for the regular exam, but as soon as he was released and I started going over everything his teacher and I had discussed, he showed his true colors.

Scamper up on the exam table. Crawl across the table. Leap into mom's arms. Jump down to the floor. Run across the room. Scamper up on the exam table. Crawl across the table. Leap into mom's arms. Jump down to the floor. Run across room. Scamper up on the exam table. Rinse. Lather. Repeat.

"This is every single day of the last four years, Doc."

"Let's get him into the therapy." And he hands me a prescription with the magical words that answered my every question: Sensory Processing Disorder.

When I got home and began Googling and researching, everything began to click into place. Why he hits (undersensitive to touch.) Why he hates loud noises (oversensitive to sound.) Why he has meltdowns over the weirdest things (truly just overstimulated and not knowing how to handle his body in those situations.) Answers to everything. The easiest way to drescribe it is that his brain doesn't know how to process his senses the way a "normal" child's brain does. We all have SPD to an extent. I can't stand tags in my clothes and certain types of fabric. Padawan and Sergeant do not handle transition well. The Captain just has it worse than the rest of us.

We're still learning. We're still waiting for an opening at the Rehab center we were recommended to take him to for Occupational Therapy. But we have little things we have been doing with him to make life easier. We try to do more sensory play at home. I'm working to make him a weighted blanket. His monkey leash has become his favorite tool, working as a pressure vest until we can obtain a real one. Anytime people comment on it (mostly good comments about how much they like his monkey) he tells them that his friend monkey "helps him calm down" or "helps him be good." His teachers have said over and over that between Monkey and a weighted snake at school, he is a completely different child.

It's been a roller coaster few months and yet so amazing. We are all learning to look at The Captain differentand see the world as he sees it. He still has meltdowns. He's still our little wild child. And I wouldn't change him for the world.

The Captain and his beloved Mrs. K