Having a ball.....

This week was a little challenging for Miss A'. After a few weeks of school, she finally had her first "sensory" meltdown. Without going into much detail, she became very agitated and began a series of bad habits that had disappeared a while back. It seemed like she was spiraling out of control, would not make eye contact and was in "Anna-land" most of the day. We were very concerned about her. We figured it had something to do with her new routine, but couldn't pinpoint the exact cause. I spent the greater part of Monday in tears on the phone with her occupational therapist (whom we love) describing her behavior and hoping she'd give me some pointers on what to do.

Her therapist explained some new techniques that we could use with her to get her to focus again. I'm always a little skeptical because some of them sound a little "funky" to me, but they always seem to do the trick. She suggested giving her a "total sensory experience" (ie. deep pressure massage, tension and traction therapy...basically think of playing row, row, row your boat while rocking back in forth holding hands, aroma therapy....dipping cotton balls in all sorts of different things to smell, smelling lotions, perfumes, etc., running water over her hands, letting her play in flour, rice, noodles, dirt, sugar, pudding, or any other "fun" texture(ahem...if you hadn't picked it up from previous posts, I'm a bit of a neat freak. I did do it, albeit with a plastic sheet, towels, and baby wipes nearby)and submerging her in some sort of medium. I figured out quickly that the first set of suggestions were "easy", but the submerging.....not so much.

On Friday, Miss M. and Mr. J, Jr. didn't have school. J', Sr. had some problems with one of the trucks on the farm, and he had a few hours to kill in town waiting for it to be repaired. We decided to do something fun w/the crew and headed off to a local playland full of all kinds of sensory activities (even though that isn't what they call them). J', jr., Miss M., and D' hurried off to go down the slides, chase each other thru the mazes, crawl thru all the tubing, etc., and Miss A' found her "full body submerging medium"......a ball pit. She LOVED it!!!

When we returned home, we discussed making one for her. I remembered seeing ball pit balls at Target, and we already had a playpen at home. With the ok from my wonderful hubs, Miss M', J', jr., D', and I headed off to town. We were able to procure the last two bags of balls....yippee!! She has thoroughly enjoyed herself in her own personal ball pit, as have the other three. She is now back to her normal, cute and naughty self with just a few lingering effects remaining.

Where's Miss A?

Um....a little old for the ballpit, but she HAD to try it!

D' buried in a sea of balls.

J-man trying it out.