Even though I'm already a day late. Ahh. Such is is life these days.
I have been overwhelmed with thankfulness this week for the team of teachers/ therapists that work with Eli on a daily basis. It just becomes more and more apparent to me that he is exactly where God wants him to be right now. He is learning so much and their insight on how to help him has brought me to tears more than once in recent weeks.
Ever since Eli was a wee little one, he has always cried when other kids cry. He is just very in tune with other people's emotions. It's one of those things about him that I've always felt like was a gift, that God had just given him an empathetic heart. However, a couple of months ago, those emotions started to be kicked up a notch and we realized that he seemed to be having panic attacks when other children would cry. That's a hard thing to watch for a mama. We were even worried that he might be having small seizures. After talking to a lot of people, the seizure idea was ruled out, but we did all agree that he seems to be having some sort of panic attack.
I told his teacher about what was going on and she passed it on to his occupational therapist. So they came up with a plan to help him and it has been amazing! His teacher focuses on reiterating that "Little Joe" is sad, but Eli is okay! She just says this to him over and over so he will begin to understand that just because someone else is sad/hurt/scared/etc. doesn't mean that he has to feel the same. Then the occupational therapist treats his sensory system when he gets worked up so that he can calm down easier and quicker. They will put Eli in a swing, put a weighted blanket on him, and just let him swing in silence until he says he's ready to go back to his class. It is so incredibly fascinating to me how that helps him.
They had a bit of a rough day one day this week at school, and Eli told me on the way home, "I sad. I jumping." He was trying to tell me that he had gotten sad and so he went to the OT room and she let him jump on the trampoline. I'm so thankful that they care enough about my little guy that they are constantly working to figure out how to best help him. I'm sure they get frustrated some days, because I get frustrated with him some days and I'm his mama! But they use that to try to figure out what he needs.
I really just can't say enough about these sweet ladies! They probably don't even know how much of an answer to prayer they are.
Maybe I'll tell them. :
I have to end with this hilarious story. Yesterday when I picked Eli up, the speech therapist came out to tell me what he had told her. She is working on him saying three word sentences clearly. (He still gets jumbled up when he tries to put too many words together.) So she was trying to get him to imitate "Mommy drink water." She said he had been able to say "drink water" very clearly, but when she added the word mommy, Eli said, "uhdupado Mommy drunk." We were dying laughing. The speech therapist said, "I'm not at all worried that he has seen you drunk, which is why it was so funny. There may be some kids, that I might be worried about, but not you." She said that the "mommy drunk" part was as clear as it could be. Of all things for him to say!!
Life is never dull, that is for certain.
1 comment:
I just wanted to say that I can totally relate to having a kid that cries when another kid cries. My Caleb is that way. Even at 7 years old he will still get upset if Benjamin is upset. It has gotten better over the years but he is very anxious around babies and toddlers because he is worried they might cry. He's a pretty anxious kid and has even thrown up because of anxiety. So,anyway...I can relate :) Never a dull moment.
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