Very recently the behavior has been exceedingly bad. He has always been a whiner. He literally starts as soon as he opens his eyes in the morning. He immediately starts crying, thumb in the mouth, and carries the blanket around. He has been doing this for awhile. Drive me nuts. I tried the thumb sucking nail polish stuff. HE LOVES IT. He licks his fingers, gags and tells me "I like it mama".
Another big thing he enjoys is licking things. He licks everything and everyone. Seems like he does it more when you tell him to stop. I think it is an attention getting thing for him and as long as he is the center of attention he does not care if it is negative or positive attention.
He still barely eats anything but bread, peanut butter, and pediasure. He refuses most other things except for some junk foods. He sure will stick nasty dirty things on his tongue to lick them though.
Several weeks ago it just really hit me that even though he is physically able bodied outside of being a little low toned and he talks quite well..it hit me that he definitely has a communication problem. He is not able to communicate some of his feelings or needs especially when he is stressed. I have to prime examples of this from the past week.
1. He brought me a cup that need rinsed out and a bottle of pediasure. I told him to wash the cup in the sink and bring it back. (we do this a lot no problem right?) WRONG! I'm pumping milk for the baby. I hear the sink running and the cup has not made it back to me. I then see him running down the hall whining with his thumb in his mouth and a blanket (normal Andrew behavior) I yell for him to turn the water off. (He likes to leave the water on when he washes his hands..once again he likes the negative attention as much as the positive, or so it seems) He doesn't listen. He is running back and forth from the living room to the bathroom. When he goes to the bathroom I hear him crying and screaming louder. I keep yelling for him to turn the water off, but at this point I decide I have to stop pumping and get up and do it myself. He has now run down the hall again to the living room. I notice he has tears in his eyes and the look of pure panic on his face. I run to the bath room to turn the water off to find the sink overflowing with papers shoved in the drain. Water everywhere! He clogged the drain and let the sink overflow. By the time I got the water off he had run back to the bath room and hid in the closet. I try not to loose my temper with him. I ask why didn't you tell mama the water was over flowing or that you needed help? He just looked at me crying and sucking his thumb (remember he will be FOUR in less than 3 months. His responds to questions about him being bad is usually "because I like it" or "because I don't want to" I don't remember his exact response this time, but he did the exact same thing again the following day to Jack when I was not home. Like I said he usually enjoys leaving running water on, but he had shoved stuff down the drain on me and it caused the drain to run slow until Jack fixed it. I'm not sure why he didn't tell me. Was he afraid of getting in trouble? Was it sensory because the water is cold? He freaks over cold water.
Another odd thing he does besides never ever telling us when he has poops even when it is acid poop causing a bad rash...is that when he is hurt he never tells us he is hurting or in pain until it has gotten bad. I don't usually know he has an ear infection until he has a fever. Then I ask if his ear hurts and he will point to which ear it is. Well that being said. He was wearing a pair of flip flops that I guess rubbed the skin off the top of his foot. He has worn these same shoes many times with no problem, but this time he ended up with a pretty horrible looking I'm talking near nickle size mark on the top of his foot. He was out of school all last week with an ear infection, which is when this injury occurred. Jack dressed him for school Monday. I guess he did not realize the scab would stick to his socks (I probably would not have thought about it either) needless to say. Andrew took his shoes and socks off Monday afternoon (this is rather new for him) and I was once again pumping and he just starts walking around the living room in a circle whining and crying...thumb in the mouth doing his things. I notice the whining increase by the second. I ask "Why are you crying" He says "Go away mommy" then I look up at him and the see the floor. Blood spots EVERY WHERE! I jump up and see the top of his food oozing blood. Now that he notices that I see it he starts yelling Owweeee DON'T TOUCH IT. I get him cleaned up and give him a band aid after fighting him to do it. Once again was he afraid I would hurt him? Why would he not tell me he was bleeding?
3rd example. He was at school on the play ground. Teacher says he was whining the entire time he was outside except his turn on the tricycle. She said when he had to get off he started thumb in the mouth crying again and ran off to play on the slide. She said when it was time to go in he was still crying and she looked over at him to find him covered in blood. She checked his mouth and at some point he bit right though the center of his tongue. I'm talking the width of an adult pinkie finger tip could fit in the opening. Never ONCE did he go to the teacher and tell her he was bleeding or hurt and his whining was at its normal tone, not like he was in pain or distress. Even after I came and picked him up he never once complained while eating or drinking that his tongue was hurt.
Jack and I have started making a list of things we feel he does that is not normal behavior. These are just the tip of the iceberg. I have a large packet of paperwork I have to finish still and some other documents I have to get together to have him seen by a behavioral pediatrician. I'm really not sure what to do for him. All I know is the behavior is getting worse, not better.
I do notice it is worse when he is around Ava or other children. When he was home sick a few weeks ago he was rather well behaved.
He has a lot of other tiny issues like he still can't dress himself, he also can not pull his pants up or take his shirt off consistently..making potty training hard.
He hates being dirty. He does not like any kind of textures to touch his hands. He "W sits". He hardly ever takes his thumb from his mouth and always has to have a blanket in hand under his nose while thumb sucking. He does not like anything cold except MY soda. LOL He even drinks his pediasure warm and won't touch his milk unless it has chocolate in it and has sat for a bit. He is overbearing. He can't sit next to you. He has to be touching you in some form all the time. He is constantly digging his feet into me or sitting so close to me I can't move. Poor Ava gets the brunt of this. He follows her around like a puppy. She can't go to the bathroom without him being there.
On the other hand he is smart. He know A LOT more than Ava did at his age. He even answers some of her school questions when we do her home work. He counts well, he can sing the alphabet, recognized most of them by sight and sound. He can do very basic adding and subtracting. If I can just find more time to work with him one on one I think he can really thrive academically.
He is atleast asking for food now. Even though it is only things he wants to eat and has reached the 50% for height and weight. When he poops I make him take off his pull up and get in the shower and wash his on behind. He will NOT tell me when he goes. When I smell him and ask. He will tell me yes then I go tell him to take care of it. He runs off crying like I just punished him and usually does it. He will pee in his diapers and take them off now to. Just can't get him to GO on the toilet. We have tried the naked things and underwear he just pees and poops and walks around rubbing it into anything he sits on in my house without saying a word until you step in it or Ava tells on him.
So PLEASE tell me if he is "being a boy"? If this is how boys are, I'm sure glad Hannah is a girl. :-)
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| This was the day after he injured his tongue. |
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| No one is safe to go to the bathroom alone. This was him hounding me in the bathroom. |
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| I had Andrew and Jacob shirts made for March of Dimes |
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| He likes to hold Jacob's hand when they are coming home off the bus. |
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| He wore these almost he entire time we were at Outback and refused to take them off. He screamed if you touch them. |
