"Stryders Journey"

Hi everyone, sorry for taking some time off here. We have a lot going on right now. Stryder is doing wonderful. We had another evaluation for Occupational Therapy and the good news is that he qualifies for the therapy, the bad news is that he qualifies for the therapy. :) Angie is her name and she will start soon. She said that things will get much worse before they get better. The first thing she will be doing is brushing hi body. Sounds weird but I guess it's a technique that works with kids like Stryder. She diagnosed him with Sensory Integration Disorder and when I looked it up I was amazed that we never knew that before, although they were trying to get him evaluated for a long time.

We just realized the other day that every word that ends in "y", like bunny, money, funny, crumby, baby, etc, Stryder uses the word mie mie (long e sound). He also does not know how to make decisions. Stryder said he wanted the green playdough when they were playing and Jayme had two shades of green so she asked which one. He kept pointing to both, which we knew he would do with any choice he has to make, but Jayme wanted to put it to a bigger test so she took her show off and asked which one pointing to the shoe and the playdough. Again, Stryder would not choose, knowing full well he wanted the playdough and not the shoe. We are not sure what to make of it. He is so compliant with everything, even if he doesn't want to do something, he will just because someone told him too. Even during the eval, Angie asked him to help take his shirt off so she could see if he had the muscle tone and coordination to do it. He did, but then stood there, panicking, shaking and turning blue from fear, and looking at me as if to say "Help me plase" but he never did tell her to stop or push her, nothing. It's the saddest part of this whole thing: knowing that he cannot/will not express his needs and wants.

I will be posting some videos of him very soon. He's so much fun to watch- In the mean time, we are moving back home to Oregon in a few weeks. We love it here in South Carolina, but we need our family and friends for support. It will be so good for Stryder to be around his cousins who are the same age too. I promise to update here more often and apologize for the long break.