update on Kevin's OT

I've had some people ask about how Kevin's occupational therapy is going, so I thought I'd write an update.

We've had four therapy sessions now, and they've been really informative. Kevin's therapist, Jenny, concluded pretty quickly that Kevin is struggling with praxis (i.e. he has dyspraxia). Praxis is the process of coming up with an idea, planning how you're going to do it, and executing it. He struggles with the first two steps. When he can't come up with an idea or he's not sure how to carry out an idea, he will often go into fight or flight mode, and when that happens he will get distracted, dump out bins of toys and kick them around, talk a lot, or throw things. In therapy she has been doing activities where he has to make plans and then carry them out. Last week they pretended the floor was hot lava and he decided he wanted to go from the loft, to the ball pit, to the cloud (kind of like a stretchy hammock), to a step-stool, and then back to the loft. It was interesting because when he was in the ball pit he didn't know how to get into the cloud (or how to ask how to get in the cloud), so he had a fight/flight response (he got distracted and started talking and trying to do other things). Then later they did the hot lava game again and he was supposed to get in the cloud again, and rather than use a rope ladder (which was closer and would be more obvious to most people) he used the same method Jenny had showed him before. Jenny said that's pretty typical for someone with dyspraxia. Today they played hide and seek, and Kevin had a hard time coming up with his own ideas for places to hide. Instead, he would try to copy the places where Jenny had hidden.

Jenny also referred Kevin for speech therapy, but we haven't gotten an evaluation yet. I didn't realize this until Jenny pointed it out to me, but Kevin has a hard time articulating concepts like up/down/over/under and he uses a lot of gestures instead of telling what he wants. I guess I got so used to it that it didn't occur to me that he wasn't doing that. He also has a very disjointed thought process. He changes the subject a lot when he's talking. So speech therapy will help with that, and it will also help with the dyspraxia.

I'm so amazed that there are people who have figured this stuff out and learned how to recognize it in people. I knew that some of the things Kevin was doing were abnormal, but I would never have been able to put all the pieces together to figure out the things that Jenny figured out in just a few sessions. A lot of the things he does make a lot more sense now.

So far he's on grade level at school. The only problem is that he gets distracted when he's doing independent work, which I think is partly related to dyspraxia. Hopefully with therapy and support at home he will keep doing okay. I think school has actually done a lot to help him. Seeing the other kids writing, playing, and interacting has helped him figure out how to do it too. He's developed in a lot of ways since starting kindergarten.

Halloween

The kids had a fun Halloween this year. Kevin and Heidi dressed up as Pazu and Sheeta from Castle in the Sky, one of their favorite movies. The costumes were actually pretty easy to put together. For Heidi's Sheeta costume, I used one of my dark blue shirts to make a dress by following this tutorial, and that was the hardest part. It wasn't perfect, but for a Halloween costume it worked just fine. Then I bought a headband and braided Heidi's hair. Sheeta's stone is a very important part of the movie, so I drew the design with a yellow pencil onto blue construction paper and taped it to the medal Kevin got from playing basketball last spring. For Kevin's Pazu costume, I basted a patch to some worn out Sunday pants and cut the sleeves off of a brown button-up shirt I found at Goodwill to make a vest. The hat was borrowed from a friend and the bag was one I already had. When the kids got all dressed up it was so fun! I was really pleased with how the costumes turned out.

We had a ward trunk or treat party on October 30. Amazingly (and thankfully) it was not a chili cook-off (I know, heresy!). We had a baked potato bar, and it was actually really good. The kids even ate a good dinner. We ended up sharing a table with some people who recently moved here from China, and it was kind of funny to see their reactions to everything. They were very confused by the concept of a baked potato. One of the ladies held one up (still wrapped in foil) and said, "Are these steamed?" I explained that they were baked, and she wanted to know if they would taste like steamed potatoes, so I said they were kind of like steamed potatoes. They looked pretty skeptical, but they did eat the potatoes. I'm not sure if they liked them.

We had one friend from the ward who saw Kevin and Heidi in their costumes and knew who they were dressed up as without us telling him. There were a few more people who recognized them once we told them who they were, but apparently most people have never seen Castle in the Sky. Most people are missing out.

After dinner the kids were invited to dance on the stage, then we had trunk or treating outside. Normally we buy a big bag of candy from Costco for Halloween, but I didn't want to have all that sugar in the house this year, so instead we bought jelly bracelets and little plastic dinosaurs on Amazon and handed those out. I know the big kids were probably disappointed, but a lot of the little kids were really excited, and so were many of the parents.

I always enjoy seeing the kids get to try different types of candy after trick or treating. I never buy candy, so it's usually a fun new experience for them. Heidi didn't like the Sour Patch Kids (see the picture below). Actually, about the only candy she liked were suckers and smarties. She didn't even like any of the candy bars (which is okay, because Ryan and I were happy to take them off her hands).

On Halloween we went trick or treating in our apartment complex, which was also really fun. Ann Marie came along in the stroller dressed as an elephant, but I didn't get a picture of her. Maybe sometime I'll get around to it. I was pretty impressed by all of the kids who knew Kevin and said hi to him.

So, two weeks ago Kevin had an ear infection and he started taking amoxicillin. Three days later his face was red, so I stopped giving the medicine to him and waited until his well-child checkup so we could ask his doctor about it. She didn't think it was an allergic reaction because it was smooth and didn't look like hives. So we started the amoxicillin again the next day. Then on Sunday Kevin broke out into hives all over his body, and after we gave him Benadryl it was still getting worse, so after debating for a while I took him to urgent care while Ryan stayed home with the girls. The doctor agreed that Kevin is allergic to penicillin and got us a prescription for some steroids to help the rash go away. The steroids were even more disgusting than the liquid amoxicillin, and there was a lot of grimacing when it was time for Kevin to take them, although fortunately the dose was only 4 mL instead of 10 mL. The hives are definitely going away, so that's good, but now it looks like the ear infection might be coming back, so we'll see if we have to go back in and get a non-penicillin antibiotic for Kevin.

Trips to the doctor in the past month:

1. Referral appointment for Kevin
2. Well-child check-up for Heidi and Ann Marie (followed by a trip to the pharmacy for antibiotics for Heidi, who had an ear infection)
3. Early morning trip to the doctor for Kevin's ear infection (followed by a trip to the pharmacy, which was closed, so we had to go back again later to get his antibiotics)
4. Well-child check-up for Kevin (I reassured the doctor that we're not moving in)
5. trip to urgent care because Kevin had hives (followed by a trip to the pharmacy to get steroids to treat the hives, but the prescription wasn't ready yet, so we had to come back again later)
6. Possible appointment with pediatrician to check if ear infection is back

Total: 5-6 doctor visits, 5 pharmacy visits

Yippee.