In Which Connor Needs Some Zen Time

Today Connor had a little seizure.  It wasn't much of one though, which was good.  We were a little late on his midday seizure medication, which is probably what caused it.

Even well after his recovery from the seizure finished he was just kind of crabby and off today-- I think that being out of school and having his routine changed around is getting to him.  He is definitely a creature of habit, and he doesn't like having things switched around, even if we warn him about it in advance.  Hopefully he'll settle down again in a few days.

One routine change is a good thing for me though-- having Jeremy around means that I can leave Connor with him and finish up all of our Christmas shopping alone!  This is infinitely preferable to having the little guy with me, because he gets so overwhelmed by all of the displays, lights and noise that he usually has a big meltdown in fairly short order.  Christmas is one of those holidays that's very, very difficult for a child with sensory perception disorder because there's just too much of everything.  Heck, more than an hour at the mall this time of year leaves me exhausted and overloaded, and I'm not dealing with any of the issues Connor does on a daily basis as far as sensory issues go. 

He didn't do any Christmas shopping at all today and still ended up spending a couple of hours in bed at the end of the afternoon just calming down and trying to recenter himself.  Any time we'd try to pick him up or reengage him he'd start crying until we set him down again.  He's gotten to the point where he recognizes when he's becoming overwhelmed and will actually tell us that he's ready to go to his room-- usually by signing "Tired, bye bye."  If that doesn't work he has a complete meltdown, which serves the same purpose.

I'm glad that he's able to recognize at this point when he needs some time alone to recenter himself, and he's certainly become much more tolerant over the years in terms of sensory issues.  It's still pretty lucky, though, that we only do Christmas once a year!

~Jess