Happy 4 th birthday Noah!

Noah,
I am a month late in writing this letter, but what else is new?  Life moves so fast that there is little time to sit down and write.  This year has been a year of many new experiences and new challenges.  This year has been dominated with the realization that you have sensory processing disorder.  It has also been dominated by my determination to not let it stop you from achieving or doing anything you want. We had a very good experience with your wonderful OT and now we are on the other side of the diagnosis.  We have learned a lot and made tremendous progress.  You truly amaze me daily.  If you are not cracking us up with the things you say, you are showing me how smart you are.  You are a sweet, loving boy who has made our life a new, wonderful adventure everyday.  You have had some hard times this year with a visit to the hospital and having to stay a few days.  But even in that experience you showed me your strength.  You are an amazing kid and I know you are going to grow into an amazing man.  You have taught me how strong I am this year too.  I thought after we got through that first year, everything would be a piece of cake.  But this year has been very difficult at times.  It broke my heart to realize that you had something going on that was going to change your entire life.  But you showed me that it doesn't have to change your life in a negative way.  Through education and patience, we have all learned how to help you with your SPD.  And you showed me once again that I am stronger than I thought and can handle more than I thought possible.  You took everything in the stride.  SPD only meant that you made a new friend in Schel.  It didn't slow you down at all and you still enjoyed everyday and everything to the fullest.  You have the most wonderful laugh.  It is the type of laugh that could brighten the darkest day, and this year it has.  I feel blessed everyday that God gave me such a wonderful blessing.  You are my little ray of sunshine.  I cannot wait to see what this next year has in store for us.  But I do know that it will be exciting, as everyday with you is!  I love you my sweet guy!
Mommy

SPD

I have never blogged about this before, but now almost a year since we found out, I am finally starting to make sense of things.  We noticed some issues with Noah right before he turned three.  He was terrified of noises, blinking lights, movement, etc.  We had him evaluated by ECI and they diagnosed him with Sensory Processing Disorder.  This means that he does not process information the same way as other people.  He gets overstimulated with some things and under stimulated with others.  Once we learned more about SPD a lot of things that Noah did finally fell into place.  It all came together and made sense.  We were too close to his 3rd birthday to have ECI provide us services, so we started seeing an OT.  She is wonderful and he has made so much progress working with her.  In fact, yesterday, she told me that he is meeting all of his goals and we are going to phase out therapy.  I am excited that he is doing well, but I am sad to see therapy end.  It was so refreshing to have someone who understood what was going on.  I have met a lot of neat moms and kids at his appointments.  It is so great to see kids with many different issues making such amazing progress.  We feel very blessed that we found this place and our OT Schel.  It has been wonderful seeing Noah's progress.  He still has issues with some things, but nothing like before.  We have finally been able to potty train him, a major accomplishment since he does not have the same feelings in his body, and therefore does not know when he needs to go.  He is able to swing on swings now, something that we could not get him to do before.  He is able to write better, use his whole body more effectively, and is generally a happier child.  It is also made a difference in the way Toby and I deal with his behavior.  We have learned that some things that we were punishing him for were actually manifestations of his SPD.  We have read a lot of books and learned a lot about better ways to deal with him.  This has truly been an eye opening experience.   When you have a baby, you never imagine anything will be wrong.  We were not prepared for this journey, but we are better equipped now.  We are lucky to have a sensational kid!