Happy Halloween!

At long last, a connection

Until now, guys like this have been Quinn's favorite friends

Even at five years and four months, Quinn has still been stuck in the parallel play phase. He doesn't mind kids, but he shows no real interest in them, either.

This summer we had him in two social skills groups, and they seemed to make a bit of difference. We also tried some play dates, which mostly involved him playing with other kids' toys - or talking to their moms.

But lately he's been showing some interest in other kids. Unfortunately, he's showing it by stealing their toys and screaming at them to chase him as he runs away. But hey, we moms of special-needs kids take progress where we find it. And to me, this is progress. Even so, Quinn and I have talked quite a bit in the last week about other ways to get kids to play. He can say, "Can I play with that when you're done with it?" or "Can I play with you?" or "Would you like to play tag?"

And then... a massive leap forward.

After school one day last week, Quinn walked up to a little girl sitting on a wall and asked her, "What are you doing?" When she didn't answer he asked again. She still didn't answer, so he got on the wall too and started sliding away from her - and she followed him! I told him to tell her his name, which he did, and they started little-kid chatting away. I was just about crying I was so happy.

Then yesterday after Chinese school, he walked up to a little girl he knows (he's gone to her house to play with her toys!) and said, "Let's play tag!" She was too shy to respond, but her little brother wasn't, and pretty soon there was a rowdy game of three-way tag going on around us.

So many times I've watched Quinn play on his own as friendships form all around him and wondered if he'd ever connect. And now, at last, I see signs that he's doing just that.

It's a good day.

Rules, rules, and more rules

I try to keep things positive with Quinn. Before we brought him home, we were lucky enough to have breakfast with awesome psychologist and author Dr. Kevin Leman. He lamented how he hears so many parents walking into Walmart while telling their kids, "You had better not act up! You better not touch anything! You better not ask for any toys." When you do that you're just planting negative ideas, he says.

So we keep it positive. But in our desperate quest to help Quinn stay at the school we really like, we've been blasting him with a barrage of rules. "Don't turn on the microwave." "Don't bang into any friends." Actually, it seemed to be working - he wouldn't do whatever thing we told him not to do, but the list kept getting longer as we added whatever had trouble he'd gotten into at school that day.

Then at lunch last week, I noticed him mumbling and I bent down to hear what he was saying. This is what I heard: "Do not pop anyone's bubble. Keep your hands to yourself. Keep your body to yourself. Do not put pebbles in your friend's mouth. Do not kick any friends on the slide. Do not touch the buzzer. Do not touch the microwave. Do not touch the green button. Do not bump into any friends."

Well, that was just about enough to make me cry. Poor kid. Who could keep straight that litany of rules? No wonder he was getting into new trouble each day. With so much negativity bouncing around in his head, honestly, what other outcome could we expect?

So you might think that this was a wake up call and I immediately changed my ways. You would be wrong. That didn't happen until the next evening, when I was telling Quinn that Miss Leticia said he did a good job of stopping a negative behavior when she told him to (believe me, that was progress!). He looked up at me and said hopefully, "Was she proud of ya?"

By George, she's finally got it! Let's get back to positivity! So on Thursday and Friday we kept telling Quinn how proud we were that he was trying so hard to stay inside his own bubble and how we knew he was going to keep doing better and better.

And guess what? GUESS WHAT? He's doing better. So much better that when Tom picked him up from school Friday Quinn's teacher pulled Tom into the classroom so he could see all the good things Quinn had done that day.

As always, who knows if we've cracked the code? Who knows if this will last? But positive certainly feels better than negative. To all of us.

Swimmin' Quinny

He may still get his pronouns mixed up, but at summer's end this kiddo can now go hold his breath and go underwater. Just enough knowledge to be a danger to himself, his swim teacher says. So one last cute video before the pool goes away for the season:

A new school, a new worry

Quinn's new school is fabulous and his new teacher is terrific. Under her care he's already made so many strides - he's participating in songs, listening at story time, noticing (although not quite playing  with) other kids.

And then.

On Thursday, he had an absolute nightmare of a school day. So bad the teacher sadly told us that the (private) school might not be equipped to handle him. In retrospect, I shouldn't be surprised. Before school even started that morning, I saw him refuse to move when the teacher asked him too - VERY unusual for Quinn - and get right up in a little girl's face even after she asked him not to do that. Once inside the classroom, he was running around wildly, banging into kids and knocking them down, knocking over block towers little kids were building. He went down the slide before his turn and hit a girl already on it, and later he poked a girl in the eye.

It was about as bad as it could be.

And then.

On Friday, he was back to his old self. I hope - I pray - that Thursday was an aberration. That he was just out of sorts. We had messed up his schedule by pulling him out of school for two days to visit my brother. Also, we were out of milk so he had an unusually sugary breakfast of blueberries and a waffle with syrup, with none of his usually Cheerios and milk. Maybe one of those two things put his nervous system out of whack. Maybe neither had anything to do with it.

So we're on high alert, role-playing good behavior and talking about proper actions and reactions. But, Lord is this scary.

I would do anything to help Quinn achieve everything he is capable of achieving. I just wish I had a clue of how to do that.

My SPD toolbox

Quinn's sensory-seeking (part of his sensory-processing disorder) is the one thing about him that can really cause him problems. He craves deep pressure when he gets wound up, and that can lead to some problematic behaviors like leaning hard on kids, running across the room and banging right into them rather than stopping, and driving his chin into the dog's back. He might stomp on the ground during circle time, spin out of control when he is supposed to be sitting down or run through a shop or restaurant with little regard for who might be in his way. Taking him out can be a breeze, or it can be scary as heck.

We've been in lots of therapy, with four different occupational therapists. And in case your kiddo is in the same boat, I thought I'd share what's working for us:

First, some tools :

- A core disk. This works so well with Quinn that if I walk into preschool without it the teacher looks visibly nervous and asks hopefully, "Did you bring his cushion?" So we try never to forget it. His teachers use it during circle time, but also carry it into the church for worship time with other classes or into the audotorium for group activities. Something about sitting on this thing calms Quinn tremendously and helps him to sit still.

- A weighted vest. This is a tricky one. The vest definitely helps ground Quinn. But for some inexplicable reason, every time it's on he will only talk with teeth clenched. So we only use it at times when we really, really need for him to stay calm.

- A chewie. I bought a cute necklace from a company called Chewlry with a silver-dollar-sized disc to bite. Quinn won't wear the necklace - it comes off it you pull it hard, and he can't resist doing that -- so I carry it in my purse and it's always there when we need it.

- A backpack (on his back). The heavier the better. Deep pressure to go!

Next, some techniques:

- Engine check: This awesome technique was suggested by one of his OTs. When he starts winding up - and with practice I can spot this earlier and earlier - I get down to his eye level and say, "Quinn, your engine is running too fast. What would help it to slow down?" Often times he will tell me what he needs - a bear hug, to push on the wall, deep pressure on his shoulders, to chom on the chewie. If he doesn't tell me what he needs I list the above things - "would you like a bear hug? do you need to bit on your chewie?" - and he chooses.

- Move the wall: This one came from his really excellent school OT, who one day saw me trying desperately to sign him into school with one hand while attempting a death grip on his arm with the other hand so he wouldn't bolt.  If I need him to stand still like in line at the bank - which is REALLY hard for him - is I ask him to push really, really hard against the wall and try to make it move. It keeps him still, is instant deep pressure and calms him very quickly.

- Don't pop her bubble: Quinn was getting into a lot of trouble at his private school for getting in kids' faces, poking toward their eye, leaning on them, etc. So the OT from his public school (the same one referenced above) suggested that we tell him that everyone has a bubble around him or her, and he should not pop anyone's bubble (except for Mama's, Baba's and Nana's) without asking. Wow, does he get this one. The day after I introduced the technique, he ended up at the bottom of a pile of kids, with his friend Nicole on top. Out popped his little head and he shouted, "Nicole popped my bubble!"
He initiates this technique more than any other.

- Being loud in a whisper: The louder and more out of control he gets, the softer I talk to him. Yelling or traditional discipline just seems to fire him up. Talking soft gets his attention and helps calm him down.

Do all these techniques work all the time? Heck, no. But knowing I have all these options has helped me feel more confident when we go out, which I think Quinn can sense. In short, I'm not expert on sensory-processing disorder (not yet, anyway!) but these things have helped me, and I hope they can help someone else, too!

Has anyone tried 23andMe?

I've seen some posts on Quinn's orphanage listserv recently about families that have done DNA testing on their kids through this company. The results sound incredibly detailed, and have been hugely informative and comforting to the teens who have gotten them. One girl from his orphanage turned out to be Thai and Vietnamese, only slightly Chinese, and another turned out to be of mixed heritage as well.

Quinn has brownish-black hair and some kinda westernized features, so I've always wondered if he is fully Chinese or of a mixed heritage. I think I'll take a swab and find out.

The report also includes some medical information, although I'm not clear on exactly what that means, and the company can connect you with blood relatives who have signed up.

Has anyone tried this? If so, what did you think of the results? Did you sign up for the monthly service or pay all at once?