This morning as Mr. Pants started his day, he paused for a moment to look at his big toe. Then he looked at me. "Ow", he said. And I said, "Yeah bud. That was an ow. You ok?" and he looked at me as if to say, "duh mom. I'm ok but this is weird." and just like that, he was off to find an adventure on the windowsill with his seventeen thousand Matchbox cars while watching the first true blue big fluffy snow fall. No worries about his toe for another hour or two. But I know it will come back up throughout the day. Whenever he happens to look down and see his black and blue toenail. It would seem my little guy is not as invincible as he once believed. He is a seeker. And he seeks because he has low registration of sensory triggers. Here's a good explanation of that.
"People who have low registration patterns seem uninterested, self absorbed and sometimes dull in affect. They do not notice what is going on around them, and miss cues that might guide their behaviors. We hypothesize that most events in daily life do not contain a sufficient amount of intensity to meet these children’s thresholds; their passive strategies lead to them being somewhat oblivious to activities. Dunn and colleagues have conducted national studies of infants, children and adults with and without disabilities, and have found that persons without disabilities of all ages notice and register sensory input most of the time, and that people with disabilities such as autism are significantly more likely to experience low registration. When a person has low registration patterns, interventions are directed at increasing the intensity of sensory input to improve the chances for noticing and responding to environmental demands." [References(s):Dunn, W. (1997). The impact of sensory processing abilities on the daily lives of young children and their families: a conceptual model. Infants and Young Children, 9(4), 23-35]
So yeah, this = Mr. Pants. Mr. Pants = this. Except instead of autism we are dealing with speech and language issues and also pattern behavior that could lead to an OCD diagnosis down the road . And except for the "dull in affect" part. I think. I don't even really know what that means. I just know for certain that my kid is not in the least bit dull, thank you very much. I suppose that probably doesn't mean that though, so I should get off my high mama horse. Well anyway, the craziest part of this is his threshold for pain. He just doesn't feel things the way we do. Hot, cold, pain. It feels different to him. I wish I could be inside of his skin for a day so that I could understand it better. I mean seriously, this kid has face planted on sidewalks and stood up bleeding and could have cared less. He bit through his lip and was all, "What? Did I scratch myself?". A few days ago he cut his arm on a sharp piece of plastic and was bleeding. He said, "Uh oh" and just silently stared at it like, "wow that's crazy". He thought it was interesting (yep, we are so screwed when he decides he wants a skateboard in a few years). And when he falls and sees me flinch, he "cries" and it's hysterical. He actually pretends to cry. He squints his eyes, overly smooshes his face up and moans like the monster in Young Frankenstien. It's so funny. But it's also the sweetest thing ever. Because he wants me to hold him and love on him and I happily oblige him. Or maybe he takes pity on me and throws me a bone by letting me hold him and snuggle for a minute? But yeah, he aint hurt. Little faker.
So it came as a huge shock when a few weeks ago he really noticed that he hurt himself. Daddy and I took him to Burger King's play thingy on a rainy day. He was having a blast. There were a few big kids in the playroom and he decided he needed a break from them. So he ran a few laps around the BK dining room to regulate. This is his normal. He runs, we follow, he calms down and is ready for whatever it was that was stressing him. Well, he had run his laps and was ready to re enter the play area when he pulled the heavy door right over his socked foot. Blood started seeping through his sock and Daddy and I knew he had a good injury. Shockingly, so did Mr. Pants. He said, "owwww" and began to stare at his foot with absolute confusion. He watched as I cleaned it up and bandaged it and gently put his sock back on over his swollen big toe. He cried. It hurt. He wanted to get down and walk so Daddy let him, but the second his feet hit the ground, my boy looked up at his daddy and said, "owwww" with tears in his eyes, reaching out to be held again. At home, he lay on the couch with his foot propped up as Daddy and I cleaned and put medicine on the wound and bandaged it up real good. We know it really hurt because he didn't take the bandage off and he didn't leave the couch. And he happily took the Tylenol I gave him too. His toe looked awful. I know it was probably throbbing and hot on top of the pain. He let us love up on him for the rest of the night and he never put weight on his foot until the next morning. So now here we are two weeks later and his toenail is still pretty gross. It's gonna fall off for sure. Several times a day I will see him staring at it in amazement. Recalling the injury. Reminding me that he had an, "Owww". I can see how this baffles him. It's all over his face. I imagine it must be like what Clark Kent went through when he gave up his super powers to be with Lois Lane and then got his butt kicked in the diner by that a-hole trucker. One moment you're invincible and the next, well you have a big "owww" on your toe that keeps sticking around to remind you that once upon a time, you got hurt. The great thing about Mr. Pants though is that he's still pretty sure that he is Superman. Bum toe or not. This kid can not be stopped. So now it is pretty clear to me that all we have to do is wrap him daily in bubble wrap.
"People who have low registration patterns seem uninterested, self absorbed and sometimes dull in affect. They do not notice what is going on around them, and miss cues that might guide their behaviors. We hypothesize that most events in daily life do not contain a sufficient amount of intensity to meet these children’s thresholds; their passive strategies lead to them being somewhat oblivious to activities. Dunn and colleagues have conducted national studies of infants, children and adults with and without disabilities, and have found that persons without disabilities of all ages notice and register sensory input most of the time, and that people with disabilities such as autism are significantly more likely to experience low registration. When a person has low registration patterns, interventions are directed at increasing the intensity of sensory input to improve the chances for noticing and responding to environmental demands." [References(s):Dunn, W. (1997). The impact of sensory processing abilities on the daily lives of young children and their families: a conceptual model. Infants and Young Children, 9(4), 23-35]
So yeah, this = Mr. Pants. Mr. Pants = this. Except instead of autism we are dealing with speech and language issues and also pattern behavior that could lead to an OCD diagnosis down the road . And except for the "dull in affect" part. I think. I don't even really know what that means. I just know for certain that my kid is not in the least bit dull, thank you very much. I suppose that probably doesn't mean that though, so I should get off my high mama horse. Well anyway, the craziest part of this is his threshold for pain. He just doesn't feel things the way we do. Hot, cold, pain. It feels different to him. I wish I could be inside of his skin for a day so that I could understand it better. I mean seriously, this kid has face planted on sidewalks and stood up bleeding and could have cared less. He bit through his lip and was all, "What? Did I scratch myself?". A few days ago he cut his arm on a sharp piece of plastic and was bleeding. He said, "Uh oh" and just silently stared at it like, "wow that's crazy". He thought it was interesting (yep, we are so screwed when he decides he wants a skateboard in a few years). And when he falls and sees me flinch, he "cries" and it's hysterical. He actually pretends to cry. He squints his eyes, overly smooshes his face up and moans like the monster in Young Frankenstien. It's so funny. But it's also the sweetest thing ever. Because he wants me to hold him and love on him and I happily oblige him. Or maybe he takes pity on me and throws me a bone by letting me hold him and snuggle for a minute? But yeah, he aint hurt. Little faker.
So it came as a huge shock when a few weeks ago he really noticed that he hurt himself. Daddy and I took him to Burger King's play thingy on a rainy day. He was having a blast. There were a few big kids in the playroom and he decided he needed a break from them. So he ran a few laps around the BK dining room to regulate. This is his normal. He runs, we follow, he calms down and is ready for whatever it was that was stressing him. Well, he had run his laps and was ready to re enter the play area when he pulled the heavy door right over his socked foot. Blood started seeping through his sock and Daddy and I knew he had a good injury. Shockingly, so did Mr. Pants. He said, "owwww" and began to stare at his foot with absolute confusion. He watched as I cleaned it up and bandaged it and gently put his sock back on over his swollen big toe. He cried. It hurt. He wanted to get down and walk so Daddy let him, but the second his feet hit the ground, my boy looked up at his daddy and said, "owwww" with tears in his eyes, reaching out to be held again. At home, he lay on the couch with his foot propped up as Daddy and I cleaned and put medicine on the wound and bandaged it up real good. We know it really hurt because he didn't take the bandage off and he didn't leave the couch. And he happily took the Tylenol I gave him too. His toe looked awful. I know it was probably throbbing and hot on top of the pain. He let us love up on him for the rest of the night and he never put weight on his foot until the next morning. So now here we are two weeks later and his toenail is still pretty gross. It's gonna fall off for sure. Several times a day I will see him staring at it in amazement. Recalling the injury. Reminding me that he had an, "Owww". I can see how this baffles him. It's all over his face. I imagine it must be like what Clark Kent went through when he gave up his super powers to be with Lois Lane and then got his butt kicked in the diner by that a-hole trucker. One moment you're invincible and the next, well you have a big "owww" on your toe that keeps sticking around to remind you that once upon a time, you got hurt. The great thing about Mr. Pants though is that he's still pretty sure that he is Superman. Bum toe or not. This kid can not be stopped. So now it is pretty clear to me that all we have to do is wrap him daily in bubble wrap.
I am Super Pants!
