Fun Days

I'm showing Mommy I can lift the handle up and down.

The past few days have been awesome! We got rid of the morning nap entirely. Though he gets a little whiny for the first 40 minutes or so after his morning feed, he recovers and plays hard until his noon feed. He’s exhausted by the time he gets to his afternoon nap and sleeps three hours most days. He is also sleeping through the night. If he wakes, we give him his pacifier, and he falls right back to sleep. We all are having so much more fun; awake hours are filled with laughter and smiles. Praise the Lord!

Ayden’s diuretic, hydrochlorothiazide, has been officially removed from his medications. Please pray that he has no fluid retention. Ayden is down to six medications.

Ayden’s first occupational therapy session went fine. His therapist, Ms. Julie, claimed he is a “quick learner.” He obviously desired for all activities and interactions to be about what he wanted to do: He complained when she tried to assist him or show him how to do something. He and I both learned a few new tricks, and we have been working on some of the goals this week.

 Ayden’s short term occupational therapy goals are as follows:

1. open a board book and turn the pages- This goal is sort of embarrassing for me since I read to him all of the time. In my defense, we read children’s books most often, so he’s not as familiar with turning the pages of a board book. Well, he’s learning now! His favorite book is one that has flaps, as you can see from the pictures.
2. turn a container over to dump contents of the bottle- He can do this, but he’d much rather shake the container and spill its contents all over the play space.
3. use pincer grasp to pick up small items- He can do this.
4. place 5-7 objects into a container- He does about three before he gets bored.
5. place three pegs into a pegboard- Grancee bought us a pegboard, so we’ll be working on this soon.
6. place shapes into a puzzle- This is hard! He can get the shapes out, but putting them back in is not on his radar.
7. scribble on paper- He currently makes dots, which is actually age appropriate. He likes to play with the paper too much to worry about scribbling on it!
8. use three jaw chuck grasp with open web space when picking up objects- He can do this, but he prefers other grasps.
9. bring sippy cup to his mouth and drink from the sippy cup- It’s been awhile since I’ve seen him bring a sippy cup to his mouth.
10. bring spoon to his mouth and eat from spoon- I have only seen him bring a spoon to his mouth once.
11. bring small foods to mouth using pincer grasp and eat those foods- He is finally using pincer grasp, but he doesn’t yet know to put the foods to his mouth. 

Even though there was some runny nose crying, Ayden did considerably better at physical therapy this week. Usually he just breaks down, and he works very little. This week we were able to work with him for the entire hour. We played a bunch of games that he is familiar with at home (“thank you” and “Where’s Mommy?”), and he allowed Ms. Kristin to do more weight bearing work on his feet… trying to get him ready for walking! He demonstrated that he is able to hold the crawl position, and he transitioned from crawl to sitting easily (he was never taught that!), but he wailed through the whole process. She is a bit concerned that Ayden will scoot around on his rear because he refuses to crawl and is already showing signs of scoot behavior. Scooting is not a terrible thing, but it’s inefficient and not as good for his body.

 Folding myself into a taco and pushing helps me get places just fine!

Ayden did not have feeding therapy this week because Ms. Lori went on early maternity leave. We are praying for Mom and Baby Jackson!

I'll miss you, Ms. Lori and Ms. Martha!

Since Ayden now has potentially three therapy appointments a week (which doesn’t include doctor’s appointments, etc.), we decided that we would no longer have Ayden’s teacher, Ms. Martha, come to the house. Martha is such a sweet lady and has been part of our journey since January. We were sad to say our “goodbyes,” but we believed it necessary for our sanity.