These sensory issues are absolutely killing me as a parent and I'm not even the one having to physically experience them. I can't image what it's like for Emmett.
We tried and tried to help Emmett work through his sensitivity to anything on his feet but we were unable to make it happen this morning.
It's extremely frustrating for Lizze and I as parents because we know that he needs to be at school. It's even more frustrating for Emmett because he wants to be at school but his body is making that very, very difficult for him.
We were somewhat pressed for time this morning because we were already late, Elliott needed to get to school and Gavin needed to have his bloodwork done first thing.
The bottom line is that Emmett didn't make it to school today.
When I dropped Elliott off, I spoke with the school and no one's overly concerned about him missing right now because this isn't something anyone has any control over.
Academically he so far ahead, these misses don't impact him one way or the other. There's no social concerns either.
Having said that, this is still an obvious problem and in the back of my mind, I'm worried about things like truancy or how he's going to manage this when he gets older.
What I know for sure is, he tried with every fiber of who he is but the way his brain interprets the feeling of shoes and socks on feet, simply overwhelms him.
I don't know of what we're going to do. The school said that even if we get him to school barefoot, they will work on his shoes and socks at school. The problem with that is that Emmett will *not *go barefoot outside or at school. We've tried this before and have never been met with luck.
It's something that we tuck away in our bag of tricks and try it again from time to time. Frankly, we have a huge bag of tricks but none of them work on Emmett, at least not very often.
Lizze and I don't want to punish him for not going to school because it's not his fault, but at the same time, he's home from school and it can't be fun and games either.
I know how difficult this is to understand because it seems like there's an easy solution.
What I can say is that these situations are very real and so many kids face similar challenges. Imagine walking around all day with rocks in your shoes. There's nothing you can do to remove the rocks from your shoes, you just have to learn to deal with it. Everytime you walked or moved your feet, it was painful and it gets to the point where you can't even function.
That's the best way that I can think to describe what Emmett's experiencing. His brain interrupts the sensation of shoes and socks on his feet as pain.
All we can do is try to help him work through this, every single day. Over time, we hope that he'll become better able to cope with these feelings and that he's been at least somewhat desensitized.
There's simply no way to know what's going to happen in the future.
