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I have been having nagging feelings that something is wrong with Kai. I don't want anything to be wrong with Kai - but I've been getting little pings in my gut that something is up. He has moments when he's so perfect and then moments where he's not.

An Occupational Therapist, Marti Smith, was recommended by a photographer friend and I took Kai to see her yesterday. I was blown away at her observations of my little guy.

She observed Kai in play, conversation, and conflict. Physically we have several issues going on:
- His hip/trunk muscles are not well developed. He sits on the floor with his legs like a W, as if his legs are a tripod, to hold up his body. This explains why he is constantly falling out of his chair. He doesn't have the strength the hold himself up for extended periods of time. She recommends correcting his floor sitting to cross-legged and encouraging him to crawl as much as possible (building forts, putting tunnels in the living room) to strengthen his hip and trunk area.

- He views things with his peripheral vision. He approaches things sideways. And further, he moves his eyes sideways in one direction and moves his whole head in the other direction. Next step is to see if we have Vision coverage and have his eyes checked out.

- He is very tense in his upper chest and shoulder area. He does not relax his upper body making it challenging for him to have enough breath to speak. Marti showed me a massage technique to get him to relax his upper body.

- His jaw and mouth muscles have no strength - thus the tongue hanging out and drooling problem. Marti recommends we have him play with a vibrating toothbrush to stimulate his mouth to move around. She also sent us home with headphones and special therapy music to try for two weeks to train his brain on proper sounds so that he can emulate them.

There is more but my brain is so overloaded with information I am still processing it all. Is all of this caused by the CFL lightbulb that burst on him? I don't know. I don't know if I will ever have the answers as to what has caused all this in my little guy who was perfectly on track for his age at the beginning of the year. The good news is that Marti knows he can be brought to where he should be. It will take work, but it will happen. He's the perfect age as his brain is like a sponge.

We did one other therapy thing while we were at Marti's house. It is only experimental and we agreed that it wouldn't hurt him to try it. She calls it "Voodoo" cause she can't explain what exactly is going on.

Anyhow, Kai and I went into her infrared sauna for half an hour at 120-125 degrees. We both had lots of water, toys, and he had snacks as well. We both sweated a lot. I kid you not... when we came out he was like a bright, shiny, brand new boy. He closed his mouth, went on the swing in her living room (he hates swings!), and hugged Marti. By this time of the appointment, Marti had to get her kids and I had to get back home to nurse Cruz. I loaded Kai into the car and we stopped at the red light at the end of her street. The light turned green. And I heard, "Mama, light is geen (green). Let's go!" WHAT????? This from the boy who doesn't talk in sentences???? WHAT?????  So I said, "Yeah let's go!" and he said, "Let's go!" again. He started laughing and noted the truck that was next to our car. Then more words, "How wum Daddy didn't come?" WHAT????? I said, "What Kai?" to see if he would say it again. He did. I cried. Then he asked why Ryenne didn't come. He was a chatterbox the entire way home. How can I explain this? I can't. I simply can't.

When we got home and he was back in his normal environment he regressed. He wanted milk and he wanted a banana and then he wanted to go to bed. He went to bed early. He later awoke and called for me. He shoved his plug into his mouth and gagged on it and threw up. He threw up a couple times last night. I'm not sure if it's a result of the sauna or if he had a tummy bug. I was going to keep him home from school. But this morning he was so bright eyed and wanted to go to school so I took him.

I feel a sense of validation that I was right to trust my gut. I know that this is only the beginning of healing for him and I'm sure there will be obstacles along the way. But I'm glad that we didn't just sit back and pretend that everything is fine. I knew that it wasn't.