When Little J was first here he HATED being in the car, specifically in his car seat. It made him so angry to be restrained. He spent most of his time in his car seat screaming at the top of his lungs.

It was quite annoying.

He would scream when we strapped him in. He would scream especially loud if the sun was in his face. We got a sun guard but he pulled it off the window and shredded it. His poor brother had to sit right next to him and take it.

This went on for months and months and months.

Sometimes it would seem like he was over it, but then it'd start up again. "Stop," I'd plead, "please stop!" but it didn't matter what I said, did, or threatened to do, he kept on screaming.

Then there was the crashing. The child was covered with bruises because he was constantly careening into things - walls, furniture, his parents, the cat. (The cat quickly learned to avoid him). He crashed into things and he crashed things, too. He was as rough with our furniture as he was with himself. He broke two of our kitchen chairs, knocked the front panel off the tv cabinet, and the toys! Forget about the toys he's destroyed. This past Christmas he ripped his brother's monster truck in half. Yes, that's right, a plastic monster truck torn in two. I didn't know it could be done.

He put everything in his mouth. Everything. At first we thought it was because he had pica. He was severely anemic when we got him and so was driven to eat non-food substances. But even after that was under control he continued to mouth and chew everything. He especially liked the tires from toy cars. He'd rip those right off the cars and chew them like they were gum. Whenever we caught him doing this we'd make him spit them out, but since this is a household of boys we have a never-ending supply of little toy cars so within minutes he was working on the next car tire.

I've always wondered if we x-rayed his stomach what we would find!

It took us a while, but what we finally figured out was that Little J has Sensory Integration Disorder. It could be biological, but most likely it was either caused or exacerbated by the time he spend in the orphanage in Russia. This is very common in post-institutionalized children. Because their brains didn't get the stimulation they needed in order to develop properly, they seek out stimulation that will help their neurological systems form. Avoiding certain things, like Little J and the sunlight, often goes with it. Some children are much more sensory-avoidant; some are much more sensory-seeking.

It's actually quite fascinating. Because Little J's brain didn't get what it needed earlier in his life his body seeks out what it needs to grow and develop. Little J would do this no matter what the punishment or no matter how hard we tried to discourage it. Now that we know better we try to help him get what he needs, but in early days we thought he was just a nutty little thing. I wish I had read about SID before we got Little J. I think it would have made me a better new mom to him.

To learn more about Sensory Integration Dysfunction, read The Out-of-Sync Child, by Carol Stock JKranowitz and Lucy Jane Miller.