Tag Archives: SPD

Imperfectly Perfect

“Every mom wants their child to be perfect.”

Those words felt like a punch to my gut. Anymore these days, it doesn’t take much for people’s comments about parenting (or how I choose to parent) to really get me riled up. I am who I am and I make the best choices I can make in the situation I have to make them. For some reason, this statement made me think.

I don’t have perfect kids.

I don’t want perfect kids.

I am the mother to one child who had to have his urethra reconstructed (he was born not perfect) and now has a malfunctioning immune system. I have another child who has a malfunctioning nervous system and digestive tract. I know a lot about imperfection.

It’s those imperfections that make us a perfect family.

We cry together, we flip out together, we laugh together. We all avoid overly loud places that Molly can’t tolerate and restaurants that will easily send Charlie to the hospital. Molly teaches people how to use an epipen and Charlie hugs Molly and tells her everything is OK when she can’t quite get it together. My kids learn compassion and fairness. They learn that everyone has a bad day and that sometimes you have to wait your turn.

More importantly, it’s those little non-perfections that make those kids MY KIDS. It’s what makes them unique. It makes memories and multiple hospital issued baby blankets. It gives us great little personalities. It gives us little fighters.

It is what makes our family imperfectly perfect.

Posted by Jamie @ SensationalFamily. Categories: Uncategorized. Tags: family, Food Allergies, Raising Children, Sensory Processing Disorder, SPD. Leave a comment

Feb. ’14

A letter from a picky eater to a picky eater

My Dearest Daughter,

You might not know this about your mother, but I was once a picky eater. I once ate spaghetti without sauce, only ate chicken nuggets at restaurants, and would not let a green vegetable pass by my lips. I gagged at all seafood (still do) and I thought chilli was the worst food ever. There were many foods I thought were awful without even trying. Brussell sprouts and mushrooms were on that list. I hated the smell of green peppers cooking and I didn’t eat mayo until… well, I still don’t eat that. I was lied to about ingredients in dishes and your Noni told me that she put chicken in the tuna noodle casserole. I didn’t fall for it. I still don’t eat beans, but that’s probably for the best. I had a brother that ate everything, I hated being compared to him.

It wasn’t until college that I ventured into the food world. When I did, I couldn’t believe that I had missed out on wheat bread for so long. I don’t know if it was the fact that I had roommates that ate different foods, or the fact that I wanted to fit in, or that I was older or that I was exposed to new foods, but I learned that the worst that could happen is that I wouldn’t like it and then I didn’t have to eat it again. Since then I’ve discovered fresh vegetables, pesto, chorizo, and NUTELLA! I was too scared to eat nutella. That was just insane. It will be another several years before I actually develop a healthy relationship with food and the girl that is still made fun of for asking “how do I boil water?”, is now the woman baking your bread, roasting your chicken, braising beef short ribs, making soup from scratch and growing vegetables.

My point is, I understand. I empathize. I know your anxiety of new foods and your reluctance to eat. I get it. And after twenty years of stressful meal times I don’t plan on starting that up again. Some people will make fun of you, some will call me a bad mom, and some just won’t understand how you couldn’t possibly love shrimp. That’s ok. You’ll come around in your own time. Until then I’m going to put a green bean or a piece of beef on your plate because I won’t know if today is the day you will change your mind. I will do my best to serve you nutritious food that include foods that you will eat and occasionally I will ask you to try something new. I might even forget sometimes and press the issue. I’m your mom, I’m allowed to make mistakes if I feel it’s for your own good.

Love,
Mom

P.S. Your father was a picky eater too, I think he turned out alright too.

Posted by Jamie @ SensationalFamily. Categories: Uncategorized. Tags: family, Food, Picky Eating, Raising Kids, Sensory Processing Disorder, SPD. Leave a comment

Dec. ’13

10 Things SPD has taught me

While I was pregnant I read a lot of books. Books about pregnancy, books about parenting, about sleeping, about feeding, etc etc etc. Then Molly came and I learned that I wasted a lot of time. Molly doesn’t fit into a mold and she definitely doesn’t care about what the latest experts have to say because she has her own game plan. Of course it would help if she could hand over her user manual, but she won’t, so until then I just watch and learn and hope I’m picking up the right lessons in life.

1. Cereal is appropriate for any meal or snack. Also, surprisingly, you can survive on said diet and have rock hard abs. I might make millions one day from marketing it as the newest diet fad.

2. Surround yourself with people and things that make you happy. Never in my life have I met someone that openly avoids things and people they dislike. I think how much better life would be if adults could have the same kind of freedom.

3. The world is a scary place and there is nothing wrong with carrying someone that needs your help or asking to be carried.

4. Headphones don’t need music attached. Sometimes they just block out the world. Maybe I should just buy ear muffs for her.

5. Sleep is vital. I actually knew this one and am really happy my children agree and get a good 12 hours a night. I can be kind of bitchy and whiny without sleep.

6. Noises are awful, unless she is making it. Apparently loud banging or high pitched shrieking is okay if you make the noise. Anyone else is unacceptable.

7.Sunglasses inside aren’t just for hangovers

8. Pick your battles. This goes for the kids as well as adults or other parents. Sometimes it really is easier to say “Ok” even when you don’t agree and save your energy for the things that matter.

9. No matter what the weather is outside, clothing is optional inside. .

10. Rules are made to be followed. However, feel free to bend them as much as you can get away with. Never in my life have I met someone that can follow rules so closely but then manipulate her way into breaking them without actually breaking them. I need to learn a few lessons of manipulation from this girl. Case in point, we started a house rule about inappropriate touching. After discussing it Molly asked for a hug and then proudly announced that “My chin touched your boobies!”This girl is clever.

Posted by Jamie @ SensationalFamily. Categories: Mollinator. Tags: family, learning, life lessons, Mollinator, Raising Children, Raising Kids, Sensory Processing Disorder, SPD. 2 Comments

Aug. ’13

Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) is a tricky diagnosis to have. For one, the medical community (the DSM) doesn’t recognize it as a stand alone diagnosis although many children have it without any other co-morbidities. It can also go with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), ADHD, or other Learning Disabilities (LD) as a symptom of these disorders, and many times SPD’s behaviors can look just like behaviors for ASD, ADHD or LD. In our case right now we are playing the waiting game. Many of Molly’s behaviors could be plain SPD or depending on how she develops there is a possibility of ASD. Now the problem is when you have to wait you have time to observe. And if you observe with knowledge you notice EVERYTHING. It’s like going to webMD to research why you have a headache. In 10 minutes you think you have brain tumor. Same thing when observing your possibly autistic child. It’s even worse when you have a “normal” child. I find myself comparing their language skills constantly. Charlie who has only been talking for 3 months seems to have more functional language than Molly who has been talking for 3 years. But that’s not what gets me. It’s her parroting that alarms me. She repeats phrases, changes her tones and imitates her friends or TV characters. She has the same conversation with her imaginary friend over and over again in different situations and she says appropriate things at appropriate times that are always the same utterances. The other night she had an entire conversation with me about her Leapster quoting her Leapster. That’s when I realized- she’s not autistic, she’s ME!

My ability to carry on conversations made up entirely of TV or movie quotes is only inferior to one other person I know, my brother. For as long as I can remember the majority of mine and my brother’s conversations will include quoting and often the conversation will be entirely quotes. Barely ever do we make up our own jokes, we just parrot others. Somehow the movie Major League is appropriate to quote no matter subject you are talking about (Airplane! is also very quotable). This skill also baffles my husband who half the time has no idea what we are talking about because the quotes can be out of context to anyone that hasn’t memorized entire movies. For some reason, that seems to only entice our quoting even more, just so we can laugh at with Stampy. (In all fairness, he’s probably laughing at with our idiocy). It’s not something we really thought about doing, it just comes out naturally, just like breathing or eating.

I guess you can say that quirky parents create quirky kids.

“Big Gulps huh? Alright, see ya later!”

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