Fun Times With Sensory Issues
Tuesday, October 26th, 2010By Glinda
While I love my son dearly, there are times when he drives me especially cray-cray. All children have that special talent, don’t they?
When he was an infant, I would put a heavy blanket sleeper on him (because hello, it was winter and it was cold!) he would fuss and not sleep well. It wasn’t until I made the switch to 100% cotton at all times that he began sleeping better and fussing less. It was so worth the extra money spent on heating bills.
Then when he became a toddler, he would refuse to wear certain types of clothing, especially jeans or anything with heavy stitching and pockets. Pockets drove him nuts. Yeah, you try finding pants for boys without pockets. It’s a hell of a lot harder than it sounds. Finally we got to a place where he could tolerate some types of pockets, but I know to avoid certain kinds.
Tags also became a special nemesis, and I would automatically begin snipping them off as soon as the article of clothing was approved for wear by my young tyrant. And to this day, I will not take off the tags of anything unless I’ve had him try it on first. It makes for special times, to be sure. There is nothing like your son taking off a perfectly good pair of shorts and refusing to wear them because they “bug” him. Thank goodness the clothing industry has started forgoing tags and printing the care information on the shirt itself.
We have a neighbor across the street who is giving us the clothing her son (who is three years older than the Munchkin) has outgrown, and I have unfortunately had to pass more than half of it along to my sister in law, as the clothing does not meet the Munchkin stress test. We were given a beautiful Quiksilver sweater that happens to have the word “Quiksilver” embroidered across the front. I should have known better, and I tried to make my son wear the dang thing, but it only ended up with me yelling at him and him stomping off to find something else that was not embroidered and of course, not as nice. Phooey. Well, at least my nephews will get to wear it.
And socks? They must be worn inside out. No exceptions. He cannot stand the seam along the toes. And again, try finding socks without seams that don’t cost a small fortune. If a quick fix like turning them inside out works, I’ve saved mucho dinero.
Have I been very accommodating? Actually, not really. Sometimes I forget about his issues, or I just get frustrated that he will not wear perfectly good clothing for what seems to me a poor reason. After I took the quizzes here, I realized he probably has a low level hypersensitivity to touch disorder. Although as he has gotten older, he’s gotten a bit better.
And don’t even get me started on his hypersensitivity to sound.
I just keep telling myself that in a few years, he can probably start sewing his own damn clothes. Or weaving them on a loom, or something.
I pity his future wife.