Occupational Therapy

We have started Occupational Therapy for Max.  The original goal we had talked about working on was to be his sensory needs surrounding food/eating.  He's always displayed hyperactivity and lack of being able to focus, jumping from one thing to the next.  But the past little while its as if someone put the spin cycle on high in his brain!  haha. He can walk in to a room and you can see he is overwhelmed by everything and he doesn't know where to begin.  It's like he is trying to beat the clock and get through everything before time runs out.  He will grab an item, dump it out, look at it for a second and move on to the next.  He can clutter a room faster than you can say clutter!  haha

So, upon walking in to the room with the Therapist, she quickly noticed how Max moved about the room trying to make sure he experienced everything in it, in under 5 seconds.  So we changed his goals to work on his attention and get him to focus on something for a certain time frame.

She gave me this great tool to use at home.  Each day I have him pick out 3 or 4 different toys/activity and we put them in the order he wants to play with them.  The goal is to get him to focus on said toy/activity for at least 5 min or 5 turns.  At the end of each min/turn, he moves down one star until he has moved all 5.  Then we can either continue playing with that toy/activity, or move on to the next thing he has chosen and start again.

We've only been at this for a short time now and I have to keep bringing him back to the current toy/activity but it's a baby step in the right direction.. :)

Here's a good website to read more about what Occupational Therapy is and how it can help.  http://kidshealth.org/parent/system/ill/occupational_therapy.html#

Sleep Study

Max completed his sleep study recently.  My husband stayed overnight with him and said he struggled a little bit falling asleep with everything he was hooked up to.  Who wouldn't?!  Once he fell asleep, took him a couple hours to really settle in to sleep.

We received some initial findings and it showed mild obstruction sleep apnea (OSA)  So I of course hopped online to read about it:



What is Obstructive sleep apnea? (OSA) -- occurs when there are repeated episodes of complete or partial blockage of the upper airway during sleep. During an onstructive sleep apnea episode, the diaphragm and chest muscles work harder to open the obstructed airway and pull air into the lungs. Breathing usually resumes with a loud gasp, snort, or body jerk. These episodes can interfere with sound sleep. They can also reduce the flow of oxygen to vital organs and cause irregular heart rhythms.

Symptoms are:
Bedwetting
Choking or drooling
Excessive sweating at night
Inward movement of the ribcage when inhaling
Learning and behavioral disorders
Poor school performance
Sluggishness or sleepiness (often misinterpreted as laziness in the classroom)
Snoring
Teeth grinding
Restlessness in bed
Pauses or absence of breathing
Unusual sleeping positions, such as sleeping on the hands and knees, or with the neck hyperextended

We definately see these symptoms in him.  His Pediatrician has referred us to a Ear, Nose, and Throat Dr.  We will meet with the sleep clinic Dr. this week to go over everything and see where we go from here.

More on this as things develop.....

Thanksgiving

I LOVE Thanksgiving, one of my favorites!  I hosted this year.  I enjoy putting on Thanksgiving and having family over.  This year was a little overwhelming though with the kids.

My kids need A LOT of structure and supervision.  I'm still trying to figure out the day to day structure and get it implemented so we can lower the chaos that ensues on a daily basis.  And this Thanksgiving experience just reminded me how important this is.
Paige woke up and asked if it was a school day and I told her that she would have four whole days without school, beginning today.  She was not so thrilled about this.  Then she proceeded to have a 30 minute meltdown over what was for breakfast.  Things just went down hill from there.  She was so moody all day long with such attitude.  Mood and tude I like to call it.
The second that doorbell rang and my parents arrived, her and Max became overstimulated faster than you can say stimulated!  They literally ran through the house screaming, all excited, getting in everyones face, wanting to be silly and center of attention.   Getting them to sit down with us and eat was beyond difficult.  Everyone and everything caused Paige to give attitude and be moody.  At one point she ran off with the salt grinder and thought it would be a fun game to let me chase her around the kitchen island to get it back.  As I refused to chase her down and asked her to put it on the counter, she just threw it on the ground, breaking it spilling salt all over.  By this point, I was done! This was now the second salt shaker that had ended on the floor.  Earlier Max picked one up and ran around the kitchen shaking and sprinkling salt all about.   By this point, I was done!  Paige and I spent the next little while in my bed watching TV trying to get her to settle down.  As people came in to say their goodbyes, she would start kicking her legs and groaning at them to get out of the room.
Max has also started vomiting off and on over the weekend and hasn't been sleeping well.  So that's been fun.
This is pretty much how the holiday weekend went at my house.  Paige LOVES school and not being able to go for four whole days in a row made for a looong difficult weekend.  When she woke up this morning and asked if it was a school day and I told her yes, she and I, were more than thrilled to get her back on that bus!  :)

I was able still, to stop for a minute and reflect on all I have, and am thankful for it all!  I hope you all had a good Thanksgiving.