Handsome x3

We got the boys some new dress clothes for church :).

When Cuddlebug and Bearhug were little, we had a hard time getting them to wear anything other than their usual day-to-day clothes, largely due to their sensory issues. Church was enough of a battle without adding to it by forcing them to wear uncomfortable clothes - and so we have always let them wear polo shirts and khaki pants to church (with the exception of their baptism day).

But, as they are quickly approaching an age where they will be more young men than little boys, we thought it was time (again) to try having them wear dress shirts and ties. Actually tucked in and everything. With a belt (so that's what those loops are for!). And dress shoes. And we figured as long as we're getting our big boys some dress clothes, we'd do the same for Bitty.

You may or may not be surprised to learn that nearly all of the rampant complaining that day was NOT from Mr. Bitty. But by the time we left church both Cuddlebug and Bearhug had decided it wasn't SO bad after all.

"Behind the scenes" of how I managed to get a picture of actual smiles ;). Doesn't matter what they're wearing, these two never pass up a chance for a play-fight. This one is actually relatively mild :).

Peter Sam (the engine, in his best "most interesting man" voice) says, "I don't always go to church, but when I do, I go with Bitty." :)

Taken outside before church... I tried to get one of all three boys together, but as you can see that didn't work out.

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Sensory coping success

The slightest hint of a popping sound in the distance.

The sight of them boxed up at those tents that start springing up about a month in advance.

Even a mention of the word "fireworks" is enough to bring on a screaming fit of terror.

(leave it to big brother Cuddlebug to notice that and start trying to work the word "fireworks" into his conversations just to get a reaction from Bitty... and leave it to me to tell him "stop saying the F word!" before I realized that came out wrong... dh got a chuckle out of that)

For most of the month of June, Bitty frequently expressed his disdain for any and all holidays that involve the lighting of celebratory explosives. Namely, the 4th of July and New Year's Eve. He was even less happy when a few people in the surrounding area starting lighting them a few days early, and kept lighting them a few days afterward.

The good news is that this year he was able to tolerate it better than in years past. Partly with the help of these:

Those are the kind that shooters wear to protect their ears from the noise, so we figured it would help muffle most of the sound. It helped, and we were able to spend the afternoon relaxing with several of our neighbors at a "barbecue party" as Bitty calls it :).

Bitty was able to handle the fireworks going off in the surrounding area here and there throughout the day with his headphones, but when it started getting dark, he knew we'd be lighting them up close in our neighborhood and he didn't want to stick around for that, so I took him inside while dh stayed outside with our older boys so they could enjoy the celebration (unlike Bitty, they LOVE fireworks).

I turned on the tv and cranked up the movie "Independence Day" about as loud as we could stand it to help drown out the noise outside, and Bitty kept his headphones on too.

He cracked me up because at one point I realized we were coming up on a scary part of the movie so I tried to cover his eyes. He just looked at me and said, "Das not scary."

So... slimy aliens attacking - not scary. Slightest hint of a firework - terrifying.

Got it.

I was really glad we found a way to help him cope without a meltdown, and proud of him for being willing to give it a try.

We'll definitely be pulling out the headphones again for New Year's Eve!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cuddlebug and Bearhug, taken earlier in the day :)

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Birthday party landmines

Bitty was invited to a birthday party a couple of months ago. He's not a big fan of birthday parties even though I have taken him to a few (he gets a fair amount of invites for a guy who rarely talks about his classmates outside of school). This one was from a boy that he has known since preschool and is also on the spectrum, one of the few people he does talk about every now and then, and so I wanted to take him. I knew he'd have fun since it was a local indoor playground with lots of foam things to play on, etc.

He was anxious about the whole thing and refused to go until I stopped calling it a "birthday party" and started calling it a "pizza party" (not entirely inaccurate, considering the invitation specifically said there would be pizza). We started off on a good foot because as soon as he saw the birthday boy and his whole family were wearing Angry Birds t-shirts, he smiled and relaxed as he admired their shirts :).

Not long after that though, he went to play in the play area only to come running out SHRIEKING as if he'd seen a ghost in there. After I managed to calm him down, I went to see what had scared him so much and found the culprit.

(not the actual balloons, I was too busy comforting my little guy to take a picture at the time and didn't think to do it afterward)

Oh the horror. You couldn't see it from where I'd been standing because there was a little half-wall but when I got up close, I could see the floor inside was covered in these.

Covered.

Much scarier than any ghost could be, right? I mean, those things could POP at any moment and it's loud when they do. Even a lone balloon far away but still within visual range is cause for anxiety, so you can imagine the reaction to unexpectedly finding himself surrounded by several of them.

Seriously, considering my little guy's balloon issues, it is truly a miracle that he didn't INSIST on leaving right then and there. He actually managed to get back in control and go play in another (balloon-free) area. Oh yeah, I was a proud mama. :)

He kind of kept to himself, as he often does. Not in a shy way, rather in a "I'm going to do my thing and you're welcome to play alongside me, or not I really don't care" kind of way. He's generally not much for interactive play, although his brothers are tenacious enough to force it on him at times (when they're not too busy doing big kid stuff) :).

When it was time for pizza and cake it took me a few minutes to coax him away from the foam blocks so we were the last ones in. He found a spot at a table in the middle but then he saw the cake.

An Angry Birds cake.

He didn't care about any of the birthday goings-on, all he wanted was to play with the birds and the slingshot on that cake. He kept jumping out of his chair and running up to "look" at it. Finally, frustrated with his inability to look with his eyes and not his hands, I told him he could look at it from his chair (which was halfway across the room).

Without missing a beat, he ran over and started dragging his chair over to sit next to the cake.

Sigh. The boy is too smart for his own good. One of the dads at the party chuckled at his ingenuity, "you did say he could look from his chair." I was glad no one seemed too put out by Bitty's antics... but I was relieved when they finally blew out the candles and the mom discreetly put the cake toys out of sight. After that, Bitty was fine. He covered his ears when everyone sang the birthday song, but he enjoyed some pizza and cake and then joined the other kids to play some more before it was time to go.

When it was time to go, I slowly made my way to the exit to give him time to transition and it helped. After a few preliminary attempts, he broke away from the foam blocks (again) and went on his own to get his shoes and we headed out. I asked if he had fun and he said yes. It was worth it for that :).

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May, in pictures

Catching up, wanted to share some of what we did in May (separate post coming soon for June).


Little Bitty's class participated in Special Olympics soccer. I was able to take time off from work to go cheer him on with dh :).

I'm glad my big guys aren't too big for this yet :). They've been doing this for years... their typical way to pass the time while we are at the checkout :).

Bitty lost his first tooth. He kept trying to put it back in until I finally put it in an envelope, out of sight, to go under his pillow. He seemed a little weirded out that a mysterious fairy would be willing to give him money in exchange for his tooth. What does she do with all those teeth? Still, he tried to stay awake so he could see her and whenever I told him to go to sleep he answered, "I AM sleeping!" lol

Cuddlebug's science fair project, in which he and Bearhug were the test subjects. He measured their heart rate after various intervals of playing different types of video games, to see (1) whether video games raise your heart rate, and (2) whether different types of games have a different impact on heart rate. Or more specifically, does playing a zombie-attack game raise your heart more than, say, playing an adventure or puzzle game? Hint, the answers were (1) yes and (2) yes and he had the charts to prove it :).

These two have been at each other's throats more and more lately, so when there was a peaceful moment of video game mentoring going on, I had to snap a picture. You know, in case it didn't happen again for a while...

Never too big for a kiddie pool (also, nothing encourages brothers to put their differences aside than a little water fun!)

From the garden

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Bathtime battles

Little Bitty has a love-hate relationship with bathtime. Usually somewhere in the realm of "strongly dislike."

Any mention of the dreaded bath and he's likely to screech "I not get WWWEEETTTT!!" and take off running. We'll be in for a wrestling match to get him into the tub and keep him there long enough to accomplish some semblance of cleaning. Somehow it seems like we end up soaked even more than him (I say "we" because he's getting bigger and when he goes ballistic dh and I have to tag team - one to try to keep him from climbing out of the tub while the other tries to wash him).

We've been through the battles of him not wanting to get wet at all, and got to a point where he could tolerate it. Sort of. Even a few drops of accidental water on his clothes and he starts stripping, but when it's on his terms, he actually enjoys the water. He loves to fill up the sink with water and play in it, and he loves to play in the swimming pool.

But bathtime? Not so much. At least not the actual *bathing* part. Because despite all the hysterics of trying to avoid getting IN the tub in the first place, once he's actually bathed and can get OUT, he suddenly decides he wants to stay in to play or "swim" and it takes just as much effort to get him out as it did to get him in. Sigh.

In our attempts to avoid the battles on the front end, we tried all kinds of things - bath toys, bubbles, even the occasional bribe (gasp!). What? I know we're not the only people who've tried to offer Thomas gummies in exchange for a wrestle-free bath. Not that it worked :/. For his part, he actually tried to climb into bed claiming "I tired!" rather than resign himself to a bath.

And then dh came up with one of his famous ideas. He gets full credit for this one because it never would have occurred to me.

Calgon.

I don't know if it's the scent, or the way it makes the water feel extra soft and smooth, or what, but suddenly Bitty actually likes taking a bath. In true dh-fashion, once we found that Bitty liked the Calgon, dh came home with pretty much every "flavor" they have. So now when it's bathtime we just ask him which Calgon he wants to use this time, he chooses one and helps us pour it into the water, and proceeds to climb into the tub, happy as a clam.

"Calgon take me away." lol (yes, Bitty actually read that on the container, guess they haven't changed their slogan over the years).

Dh also got Bitty a loofah in his favorite color (red!) to wash his body with. He likes the feel of it and is happy to scrub away. He still doesn't like having his hair washed, but thankfully he doesn't have much hair so I can do that in well under a minute. Short enough to say "oops I didn't mean to wash your hair, let me rinse that for you..." and be done with his face toweled dry again before he can get too worked up over it.

We've been down this road before so I'm not expecting that the bath battles are necessarily over for good, but am enjoying the reprieve while it lasts :).

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National Sensory Awareness Month

October is National Sensory Awareness Month!

Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) is a neurological disorder in which the brain and the senses (all 8 of them!) don't work together as they should. Some examples of this include frequent sensory overload (when the brain is unable to filter out irrelevant sensory input), motor difficulties (when the brain isn't able to coordinate the muscles to respond appropriately to stimuli), and difficulty interpreting sensory input (when the brain doesn't recognize the body's signals, such as hunger).

Individuals with SPD may be under-responsive or over-responsive to sensory input. Some may be sensory avoiders, overly sensitive to certain textures or sounds. This can have major implications for daily living, as they may find only certain types of clothing or food tolerable, and may find some places too overwhelming to be comfortable there. Some may be sensory seekers, crashing into everything, climbing or hanging upside down all the time. Sometimes it depends on the situation, and it's possible to have both sensory-seeking and sensory-avoiding responses depending on the type of sensory input.

Most of the examples I gave are part of our experience with our boys - all three of them have SPD along with autism. It's quite common for people on the autism spectrum to also have sensory issues, although it's possible to have one without the other and there are many people with SPD who are not on the autism spectrum. Sometimes SPD symptoms may be misinterpreted as ADHD, for example when a sensory-seeker is in constant motion, running and crashing, in an attempt to get the sensory input they need, or has difficulty staying on task because they frequently need to be up and moving around.

One of the most helpful books I've read on the topic is "The Out-of-Sync Child" by Carol Kranowitz. I read it soon after our twins were dx'd and it really helped me to get a better idea of what they were going through, which in turn helped me to be more patient with some of their more challenging behavior.

If you're looking for (or want to share with others) some insight into what it's like to have SPD, I highly recommend this article. An excerpt from it quotes Stanley Greenspan:

"Imagine driving a car that isn't working well. When you step on the gas the car sometimes lurches forward and sometimes doesn't respond. When you blow the horn it sounds blaring. The brakes sometimes slow the car, but not always. The blinkers work occasionally, the steering is erratic, and the speedometer is inaccurate. You are engaged in a constant struggle to keep the car on the road, and it is difficult to concentrate on anything else."

I've included some links below, feel free to share additional resources in the comments.


Helpful articles:
What is SPD?
How does it feel? - a short but very insightful look at what it's like for those who have SPD
SPD Signs and Symptoms
SPD Red flags

Resources:
Sensory Processing Disorder
SPD Foundation
The SPD Blogger Network

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