The best intentions

One day when my girls look back on their childhood I am sure they will find some fault or praise for their parents, for their Mom, for impacting who they are. While I hope it's more praise than fault, it is inevitable I will not be perfect in all ways to them.

I'll be the first to admit that I am not always the best Mom. I try really had and my heart and intentions are good, but I mess up, A LOT. There is no greater pressure or responsibility in life, I think, than raising two little people to be responsible, respectful, healthy adults.

Daily I hope and pray that my inadequacies as a Mom are overshadowed by the sheer love I have for them. I want to do nothing but the best for my girls but often I fall short. My patience wears thin. My voice is raised. My frustration is high. My ability to keep it together with everything life throws my way, waivers. I disappoint them. I disappointment myself, because I am not perfect.

I want to be. I want to be the perfect Mom who raises two wonderful kids that are well behaved and great contributors to society. I want to not be exhausted or stressed or overwhelmed at times by the responsibility, but I am. I put too much pressure on myself and in turn expect too much of me and often of them.

I wish I was more carefree, that I didn't feel like very decision I make regarding my kids turns them down a path to greatness or not so greatness. And in my need to control it all, I often control nothing and feel powerless.

The logical side of me knows that even the seemingly wonderful parent, isn't always. That even at my worst, I am still far better than many. That I love my girls and the occasional meltdown makes me human. That my thoughts of how flawed I am in comparison to some unrealistic notion of the rest of the world are just ridiculous.

Yet, I am not always logical. And it makes me sad.

Sensory Processing Issues

To someone outside of our family, they may look at things like biting or chewy on everything as a "phase". Or they may respond to certain behaviors and think our child needs to "suck up" and get over it. Or they may even think we aren't good parents because we cannot stop our child from exhibiting certain behaviors that are viewed as less than desirable like biting.

I wish it were that easy, that it WAS just a phase. That I could be a better parent and figure it all out for Ramsey. I wish when I tried to explain to people that R has some sensory processing issues that they didn't look at me like I had three heads. People don't get it unless their child has them or they are an OT/PT/SLP or child mental health specialist. Even doctors don't always get it.

That is what has made getting to this point, 2 months in to OT with R, so challenging. We had to piece things together ourselves starting with being kicked out of a daycare for biting. No one helped us there. No one told us there could be a greater problem that required some therapeutic intervention. We had to seek out answers for ourselves.

As parents, we knew our child. We knew that R was overly sensitive. We knew she often cried a lot and we didn't know why and nothing seemed to console her. We knew she reacted a certain way to diaper changing, hair brushing, teeth brushing, etc. that left us perplexed and frustrated. We knew if she got anything on her hands she wanted it cleaned off IMMEDIATELY. We knew that her biting was beyond just typical toddler teething of things. We knew she was super smart and witty and funny. We knew she could hug you like she was squeezing the life out of you and would just as quickly hit you just as hard.

But we didn't know where to go from there.

So on our path to get where we are today, we went through the following:

• Multiple pediatrician calls and visits trying to understand and stop her biting.
• Changing schools after being kicked out of one to find another more fabulous school that was more willing to help us help R.
• Completed the First Steps evaluation after being referred by a friend who experienced similar behaviors with her son.
• Got denied First Steps but referred to an early childhood mental health specialist.
• Got referred by the pediatrician to a child psychologist and had a visit with one.
• Did two on-site visits at R's school with the early childhood mental health specialist for an assessment.
• Called the insurance company multiple times to see what they would pay for.
• Got referred by both the child psychologist and early childhood mental health specialist to OT.
• Googled sensory issues
• Bought multiple "chewy" toys online to help ward off biting.
• Completed multiple assessments for more than one OT facility in an attempt to get treatment for R.
• Got put on a wait list for one and the other never called us back.
• Finally got in to see OT and did assessment on-site with her.

We are now going weekly to have OT. We have a basket of "therapy" items in our home that include a sensory brush, nuks, puff balls, straws, etc. We work nightly with R doing joint compression, brushing, face and mouth exercises and other heavy play activities.

We are seeing some progress.

More later...