Belly of the Beast

At 13 months Zander stopped sleeping more than 2-4 hours a night. At first we blamed it on teething, the poor kid had been teething non stop from the time he was 2 months old. But then he began waking up with what I thought were night terrors and the equivalent to sleepwalking. His eyes were open but I honestly didn't think he was awake because he would look right at me but didn't recognize me. He looked afraid of me and it would take 20 minutes to "talk him down" and get him to realize that he knew me, and realize that he was safe.

He would want me to pick him up but when I did he would freak out and want back down and then start crying and want back up and then back down again,  he was confused by what he was feeling.  You could see he was fighting with himself.  Eventually the side that wanted to be held would give in out of pure exhaustion and after a few hours we would curl up in the recliner in his room and he would whimper himself to sleep and I being too exhausted to move would drift off with him just praying he'd sleep more than 2 hours.

As if the sleep deprivation was not taking a big enough toll; Zander also began throwing huge tantrums that would last for hours. I know what you're thinking..."All kids throw tantrums" right?  Every parent thinks their child's are worse than everyone else's child but Zander's really were.  I had never seen anything like this before in my life.  There was no rhyme or reason to what triggered it.  It could happen anywhere at any time of the day.  He didn't cry, he SCREAMED and I mean gut-wrenching like someone was beating him. He wouldn't stop until he lost his voice or passed out and often made himself so sick he would hyperventilate and eventually throw up. In all honesty I don't think he knew how to stop.  I think he just had to work through it no matter how long it took and I was not exaggerating before when I said these tantrums could last for hours.

I spent a couple of months terrified my neighbors were going to think I was beating him and call the cops. There were days when I had to just put him in his crib and walk out to the hall and cry; Days where I would call my husband at work and just hold the phone into the air because I didn't think it was fair that he never had to deal with anything. 

I can even remember one time we were dropping his car off at the car wash so Zander and I had to take the other car and go pick him up.  We didn't even drive a block before Zander started screaming and kicking, slamming his head back and forth.  I was so mad that I called Eric on my cell phone and didn't even say hi.  I just pointed the phone at the possessed child in the back seat and continued to drive.  It's pretty comical now looking back on it but at the time I was very close to snapping I remember I just started laughing uncontrollably.  This was probably the first time I really voiced to my husband that I thought something wasn't right with our child.  I of course was scolded and reminded that he was teething and told he didn't want to talk about it.

Over the next 2 months Zander began to get into things that he knew he shouldn't and when I would scold him started to ignore me. I would get down on the floor so I could be eye level with him and he would turn his head and refuse to look at me.  He knew he was in trouble  though cause he'd start laughing.  For a brief moment I thought, "Oh dear the terrible two's have come early".  Anyone I mentioned it too just said Oh toddlers do that, it's totally normal. 

It began to get worse he was not just "ignoring" me when he was in trouble, he was soon not responding to me at all.

I remember one day panicking thinking maybe he'd gone deaf. I was standing in the kitchen and I said, "Zander", no response, I said it a little louder, "Zander, hey baby boy", no response.  I began yelling his name; I stomped my feet and I don't know why but I started banging on pots & pans, and then I started crying and he still didn't even turn around. Then his favorite show came on the downstairs TV and he went running to watch. That's when I really feared something was wrong. I mentioned it to my husband and my mother, both of whom got very agitated with me and told me I was crazy. They always had an excuse for any of his behaviors.

He started to walk on his tip toes. "Oh your brother used to do that, it's no big deal", my mom would say.  He started to spin in circles and he also began to slam his head into everything and not just when he was angry; he'd do it at any time without any warning. (So great, now he not only sounded like he was being beaten, he looked like it too from all the bruises on his forehead. I was scared to take him in public.)  "Head butting is very common among toddlers.  I looked it up on the Internet it's just a phase, he will grow out of it.", my husband said. 

His signs and his words faded away and we were back to baby gibberish and I would hear my personal favorite excuse from everyone, "Boys develop slower than Girls".  OK I understood that but since when do they develop and then regress like that?  No one had an answer to that question.

By 18 months we eventually lost all eye contact, he would only look peripherally out of the very corner of his eye.  He became afraid of the bath tub which had previously been his favorite thing. He stopped playing with his toys almost as if he just didn't understand them anymore and only showed interest in things he could line up or stack. He started to walk around the perimeter of whatever room he was in.  He no longer wanted to be hugged, read to, or sang to.  He no longer knew where mommy's eyes and nose were.  He could no longer play Pat-a-cake.  When we went to the park he was afraid of the other kids and instead of playing on the equipment; Zander would walk the perimeter looking for sticks.  He started to form instant attachments to objects.  It could be anything, a leaf, a spoon, a stuffed animal, a straw and he would carry that object with him all day long.  He stopped eating and lost so much weight that we had to put him back on baby food to keep him from being malnourished.

He just sort of went inside himself and was living in his own world.  I felt so alone because no one would listen to me.  I was trapped at home all day with this child that I had to take care of but no longer felt any connection to.  I'm ashamed to admit it but there were a couple of weeks where I was actually scared of my own child. He looked like Zander, smelled like Zander but when you really looked at his face and eyes; Zander was not in there at all and it really was Creepy, like Invasion of the Body Snatchers creepy. It was as if our child had been abducted by aliens.

I knew that Zander's 18 month check up was coming up and I prayed the doctor would see what I was seeing and tell me what to do!