Quiky kid's mom

by Andrea
(Howell, MI)

My son is now four, but for the last 2 years, he has exhibited odd behavior. It seemed to start with a double ear infection where he had to have the rozephron (sp?) shots. He had these prolific tantrums where he would lay on the wood floor, bang his head, and scream until he choked for sometimes up to an hour. Then he would only eat pretzels for 2 weeks. Pretzels, milk, and juice.

Then he was obsessed with air fresheners--the plug in oil kind. We threw away all the oil and put the units on top of the refrigerator. He snuck out of his room in the middle of the night and climbed up the counter to the top of the fridge to get the air fresheners. He was also into nightlights. He liked to disassemble them and plug them in and out of the outlets. I installed childproof (ha!) outlet covers in his room because he could easily remove the caps we put over the holes in the outlets. He figured out how to get past those after about 5 minutes. I finally had to ask the doctor what was the worst that would happen if he were to get shocked. After I learned that it would be a minor injury and most likely not life-threatening, I let it go.

How could we keep him from the outlets in his own room in the middle of the night? I also installed a chain lock on the outside of his door so that he wouldn't get into something more dangerous while we were asleep. I felt like both a prison warden and a careless mom at the same time. He then became obsessed with fans. His favorite thing to take to bed with him were catalogs from the ceiling fan department at Lowe's. Thank God they were free! His family has bought him countless "toy" fans from the dollar store, and he has a name for every fan he sees. The first thing he looks for when we go to a new place is whether there are any fans.

He is an extremely picky eater. He is afraid to go outside if the air conditioner is on. He screams when anyone sings happy birthday. He's afraid of the hair dryer, dishwasher, washing machine, vacuum, and microwave. The most difficult part of this process is getting a diagnosis. It's taking almost a year to get him seen at a behavioral clinic, and our school system's special ed program won't help if he is diagnosed with SID. It has to be something on the autism spectrum. Thank God for now, he is in a wonderful preschool program with a very small class, and a teacher who is very sensitive to his issues. That is the one thing keeping me grounded until I can get an official diagnosis.