Muddin'

Ah, it's a good life we live out here in nature!

Can you see them all?

Duh.

Further proof that they should have never let me leave the hospital with this child.

Here I was thinking that G is just being defiant/attitudinal/lazy, etc. about handwriting and I sit there and make him do it, even though today's math lesson (writing the numbers 1 through 50) took well over an hour (and should have taken like 20 minutes tops).  Then a mommy friend of mine, who happens to be a principal in Missouri points out from one thing I posted on Facebook that I should google OT fine motor skills.

So I start doing some research.  I know what fine motor skills are but it wasn't until I started to read up on them that I realize that's likely his issue. He hates to color and draw.  If he "has" to color he goes for the paint and uses the fattest paintbrush or goes straight for the fattest markers.  He'll start to write or draw something and then he'll just start scribbling like he's having a seizure instead.  He hates to write letters and numbers.  He can't button and unbutton clothing.  He can't tie his shoes.  He can't pedal a bike and yet he's been using a push bike (balance bike) just fine since he was two years old.  He can barely work utensils and never two together (like fork in one hand, knife in the other).  He can barely use scissors and he ends up getting mad and just ripping the paper.  He has a hard time actually snapping his Lego's together and no matter how excited he is about putting together a new set one or two steps in he gives up and asks us to do it.  He struggles to push the button he wants on the remote control.  He hates crafts but especially anything with beads.  Most of the time doesn't want to do board games that involve smaller pieces.  I am forever telling him to take his pencil out of his mouth and hold it in his hand.  He can't pour things without spilling and he drops stuff often.  I was wondering why he can read just fine but he seriously can't track with his finger.  I have to do it for him or he gets lost.  I thought he was just being a lazy shit.  BOOM, he can't work his fingers that way.  He can play a lot of games on the Wii but he can't do games on the Playstation and gives up almost immediately.  The Wii is just one big rectangle you move around, the PS controller has little buttons and a joystick, etc.

His gross motor skills have always been advanced and I guess overshadowed the fine ones, I don't know.

I was thinking he just got bored/lazy too quickly but now I see that it's totally a lack of self confidence because he struggles with the fine motor skills!

Well the struggle ends for him now.  I've got all sorts of ideas/resources to help him develop those skills.  Obviously it's something I should have been doing in the last few years but that's okay, we can fix this.  I just feel really, really bad.  See this?  Everything in the fine motor skills, trunk control, and shoulder stability section fits him.  I mean G, the kid who is perpetual motion, has issues with trunk control and shoulder stability?  Oh but if you watch him he does.  I guess I just never noticed it.

It's all starting to make so much more sense and I feel like such an ass.  I am so sorry, son.  So, so, so very sorry for all the unwarranted frustration I lobbed at you.