Ben, the Tasmanian Devil

Last week I met with Ben's Early Intervention Occupational Therapist to review his evaluation and to develop an IFSP (Individualized Family Service Plan).  His evaluation provided some reassurance about Ben's development--his language is age appropriate and his social skills are ahead of age level, particularly with adults.  Another way to read this?  There is no evidence that Ben is on the autism spectrum.  Whew!  However, he qualified for services, and shows up to a 7 month delay in two areas (feeding and cognitive skills).  As far as Early Intervention is concerned, they have two main concerns about Ben: his attention span and sensory issues.  I feel silly saying that I never noticed how short Ben's attention span is.  In truth, Ben leaves me so scattered, I don't have much time to think clearly at all.  The evaluation shows his attention span to be no more than 30 seconds to 2 minutes for things he enjoyed doing.  For things he didn't care to do, he didn't attend at all.  This might sound normative, but Early Intervention specialists are experts in toddlers.  They know how to make tasks appear fun and present the same tasks in different ways to get toddlers to attend to things.  Ben simply refused to comply over and over and over and over again.  His lack of attention is so prominent that it almost seems like he is using all of his attention to avoid doing anything at all.  Their findings about his cognitive skills (that of a 13 month old) were the biggest blow to me, but they believe it is simply due to lack of attention and refusal to comply.    Suddenly the fact I cannot take Ben to the grocery store for 3 items makes sense, within 5 minutes, he is bored of the snack I brought, a drink, my iTouch, my cell phone, my keys, his giraffe, any toys I bring, and talking to people in the store.  Other than running, Ben doesn't really attend to anything for as long as a minute.  To say this is tiring is a gross understatement.

As far as the sensory issues, the main concerns are the toe walking,  which is about 90% of the time and the refusal to swallow foods.  The eating issues have to wait until we receive the results of the endoscopy.

In writing the IFSP, the OT asked me about local resources, such as family to help out or friends willing to watch the boys.  I laughed....we haven't even found a babysitter yet and the only family member of mine who has met Ben is my Dad.  Most of the time, I feel I can handle my boys, but I would pay anything in the world (seriously would pay like $100 an hour and go into 7 figure debt) if I could have 2 hours free every afternoon.  See, Liam stopped napping shortly after Ben was born (maybe around 21 or 22 months).  Ben has not napped 7 days a week since about 11 months.  Most days I spend between 2 and 3 hours trying to get Ben to nap for 30-45 minutes.  Unlike Liam, he won't play in his crib until he falls asleep, so it means 20 minutes in his room, 10 minutes out of his room, and repeat for 3 hours, and for that huge effort, he is awake 40 minutes later (and even with all that only naps 3-4 days a week).  Upon waking, he cries non-stop for 40-60 minutes (which is an improvement for when he used to cry for 2 hours after waking).  Once he calms down, he is back to being the Tasmanian Devil and changing activity 3-4 times a minute.  By 5pm, I am usually ready to be committed.  It is sometimes worse when Dave is home as it makes him totally crazy, and his complaining about it just makes me more resentful that I don't have more help during the week.  So if anyone wants to come to my house from 1pm to 5pm any day during the week, name your price and I'd gladly take it.  I even promise not to leave the house, but it would be nice to be able to use that time to return calls or e-mails or cook dinner without burning something or leaving things halfway cooked for hours at a time while I deal with a child wanting to be rocked for the 12th time without falling asleep....like today....

So, what does it look like to parent the child with this short of an attention span?  On Friday, Liam had already started Christmas break so we went to the library.  They have a 20 minute "lapsit" for toddlers and then a 30 minute program for preschoolers.  During the 20 minute lapsit, Ben had at least 10 (!) rolling on the floor temper tantrums.  That means in a span of 20 minutes, Ben attempted to do something, was redirected, threw a rolling on the floor tantrum, was redirected from the tantrum, was happy again, and then repeated the cycle 10 times in the span of 20 minutes.  Liam used to have temper tantrums that lasted well over 20 minutes so I am used to tantrums, but Ben's quick cycling requires a completely different set of parenting skills.  At the end of the lapsit, I apologized to the other moms for Ben's disruptiveness, and they all said what a cutie pie he was.  You see, in between all those tantrums, he managed to walk around the room, say "hi" to everyone, hug most of the "babies" and flirt a little bit.  Seriously, he attends to most things for somewhere along the lines of 3 to 5 seconds, it is crazy.  The preschool storytime was closer to naptime, so Ben had a bit less energy.  He spent the 30 minutes, running around the room, out of the room (while I chased him down), coloring *while* walking around the room, actually doing the songs they sang, repeating words from the story, or managing to run, repeat things, color, and saying "hi" to people all at the same time.  How he doesn't nap with all the energy he expends is beyond me, but one of Liam's classmates moms summed it up best when she said "No wonder why he is so skinny; he burns every calorie he takes in."