Our Journey

I posted this on Facebook a while back, but never got it moved over to the blog, so I wanted to do that. It’s more for my “collection” of stories, but it documents our journey across the years, and I don’t believe I have that as fully in any other post.

February 7, 2025 - If you’ve been following our journey with Picasso, we have a much-awaited update and finally some answers on our end.

Some background for you:
*Picasso - famous for artwork left on walls, beds, cabinets - often with pen, and sometimes Sharpie. Twice, with nail polish.
*He is almost 7 years old and we’ve been searching for answers for quite some time. (Update 2013: almost 9!)

He was born in May of 2004, after a tough pregnancy, but he and I were in good health. He was a very needy baby and had quite a period of ups & downs through his very early years. Tim & I knew that something wasn’t right, but we were really never able to put our finger on just what was wrong.

We began to seek out consults with our pediatricians but there was nothing they were able to find medically wrong. We apologized to more than one friend, on more than one occasion, for our son causing injury to their child(ren). We had serious doubts about our parenting skills, but then we’d have long periods of great behavior, and a lot of learning and growth.

The great days were awesome, but the tough days were (still are sometimes) a real struggle. The tough days left me feeling like I was in over my head; as though this was more than I bargained for when I wanted another child. Mozart, our oldest, was (still is) such an easy child - listens well, easygoing, well-mannered. Who could ask for more? Picasso was (on the worst days) the complete opposite of everything that his brother is. But that never changed our love for him! And we knew that no matter what, the end of the day WOULD come, and we could lay down at night and have a brief respite (except for the few times he was sleep walking).

After exhausting every avenue we could think of, and with things seeming to get worse rather than better, we prayed and decided to have him independently evaluated. We sought out family and friends to pray with us, and were directed to just the right center for an evaluation. In fact, they were able to see us in less than a week from our first call, rather than 6-12 weeks later.

The initial evaluation showed very significant sensory deficits. As the evaluation was not done by a pediatrician or a psychiatrist, we did not receive an official diagnosis. But that’s ok - we got started on getting HELP. Someone finally understood our journey; could sympathize and empathize, and most importantly, provide us HOPE!

We have spent the last year (almost exactly) driving Picasso to West Chester, PA for therapy. That’s about an hour from our home, so we are gone at least 3 hours every time we’re there for a 1-hour session. The occupational therapy has been helping immensely, and we’ve seen changes in our son. However, we were not at all confident that he would be able to be in a regular education classroom this year. We’ve been home-schooling our older son for a few years, as he’s very advanced and bored in school. That has worked out so well for him! We made the tough decision to do this for Picasso as well, at least until we get him to the point where he can BE in a classroom. The current sensory overload that he experiences does not allow for that, and the anxiety caused by the sensory issues compounds the problem.

Since he is now school-aged, we decided to pursue evaluation through the school. Although we home-school, we use a virtual charter school run by the state, and they are required to provide all the special education services as our local school district. So we followed the necessary avenues and had him evaluated in December and January. He received a Psycho-educational evaluation, an Occupational Therapy evaluation and a Speech/Language Pathology evaluation. The results are a definite speech disorder, definite sensory needs, anxiety, self-esteem issues, and an amazing IQ. We are hopeful that we can receive the educational services through the school that are necessary to help him in his continuing journey.

However, there is a slight possibility that we will need a diagnosis. If so, the psychologist is confident that our guy would easily be diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. But we’d need to get a psychiatrist or developmental pediatrician to actually provide the diagnosis. But knowing where we stand, we can make a good path for moving forward.

The support from family & friends is great and we know we’re not walking alone. We’re committed to helping our son, and helping him have a successful journey through childhood. Our other two kids are wonderful with him and Tim & I are so proud of all 3 kids!

Our pediatrician has encouraged us to live outside the box. Picasso’s not going to fit into a “typical kid” box, and so she’s challenging me to understand that, and to take down the walls of my “typical kid” box to allow room for letting him be who he is intended to be. Great advice!

And so if that means that (somehow!) he sneaks another drawing tool by me and adds artwork to *more* of the house, I’m ok with that. No, seriously, I am. It all comes off with some hard work - even Sharpie. And nail polish? Well, you can paint over that again. While the drawings on the wall aren’t necessarily appropriate, they’re part of the process. I choose to think of them as “Picasso’s blue period”. I’m hopeful that when we sort through all of this and his mind is more focused, maybe we’ll enter “Picasso’s pink period” - where he’s focused and vibrant and ready to conquer his world!

Thank you all for being on this journey with us! We are blessed and excited to see where this path will take us!

August 2011

You can read the rest of the story, including his diagnosis, here:

https://rebekahmhallberg.com/2011/08/its-official.html