The calm before the storms.

As he grew, he graduated from the early intervention program. He seemed to be so smart, he never practiced standing or walking. He just did it! Literally, one day, he just stood up, all on his own. He never tried to take a step. He'd just stand up, then sit back down.
The same went for walking, never practiced...just one day pulled himself up on my husband's leg and started walking to me!! I cried. I was soo proud of him. He walked everyday after that.

There were the instances where I knew he was brilliant...stacking his blocks in color coordinated towers, lining up his cars by colors too. He never really babbled like most babies do. He just started talking one day and by the time he was a year old, he was talking in two to three word phrases and saying and using correctly over twenty or thirty words!

By the time he was two, he was talking in paragraphs, using words that there was no way he should know, let alone know how to use them correctly! Shortly after his second birthday, he was doing 24 piece puzzles in no time. He was doing them faster than my stepson, who was 8 at the time! He was so astute to, always knew were every piece to every toy went or how to get from one place to another in the car!! I knew he going to be a "perfect" child.

Oh, the humor in this now...

Around this time, we began to notice some odd behaviors. He would hang upside down all day when he could or if we'd let him. If it wasn't that he'd spin ALL day. You know, whenever I say that, most people say, "all kids do that", I just want to scream at them "NO THEY DON'T!!" If you had seen it, you'd understand what I mean by ALL DAY.
He started swiping at his nose constantly or rubbing his face on my shirt constantly. He started repeating things, like "mommy are we going to Maple Street?". What I mean by repeat would be him asking that question every few seconds, regardless of me answering him, ignoring him, etc. He would do this for several minutes sometimes. Other times, he'd repeat words off of TV or from snippets of conversations.

By the time he was 3, his behaviors got worse. He would sit and bang his head on the walls, shortly after 2 yrs. he started licking chair legs, the metal divider between a carpeted room and a wood floor, etc. He would "NEED" to wash his hands several times in a minute, he didn't like getting wet - he'd SCREAM, he couldn't swallow mashed potatoes or any similar substance without choking, he'd run from one end of the house to the other and again, do this all day. When he was doing this things, he didn't want to stop to eat even. He was crashing, banging, jumping, climbing, screaming, hitting or ramming others, he was in constant motion.

It was then, that I began to search out help. I knew something was wrong but, I just didn't know what.

From then until now, we've gone through a myriad of specialists and doctors. One telling us, it's this and not that, another saying it's just this, at the end of this period we had a definitive diagnosis of SPD (sensory processing disorder) and OCD. We were told that he more than likely had ADHD but, was too young to get an official diagnosis but, we were recommended some meds to slow him down!!

So, now what were we left with....our insurance won't pay for OT for SPD, we can't afford it ourselves so, we would do OT with the help of books on SPD and suggestions from the early intervention OT. The OCD, I was told is genetic and that there isn't much to do for it at this stage. So, here we sat for almost a year before the last shoe fell.

At this point, I still had hopes for that perfect child. OCD could be highly motivating and useful in some instances, I have it and at my last job BC (before children), I got six promotions in three months! His SPD didn't come with any real developmental delays like most of the other children I'd heard of so, we were still on track.....at least, that's what I had ignorantly thought.