Can I have a Cadillac?

Soon Luke will be out of the Early Intervention program, when he turns 3 years old. In preparation for that we have been ordering various equipment and things that we can use with him here at home for therapy since he will start having therapy at the school in town instead of Easter Seals. One of the things we have been talking about getting him is his own walker. Right now his “swivel walker” is on loan from Easter Seals. We were waiting to get his own until we knew what kind would work best for him when he turned 3.


Well the other day we tried a different style of walker with Luke. It is lighter weight than the one he has now and has a different look. It opens in front like his current walker and makes a “U” shape, but it doesn’t have the extra bars in back that his current walker has. There were two main bars, one on top and one on bottom as a base. The bar on top could be adjusted to slide forward or back depending on where it works best for each child. The handle bars were also different, instead of being flat or part of the upper bar, they were separate so you could adjust them if you wanted. They were shaped like an “L”, and you could rotate the “”L around to the best location.

So we spent PT time experimenting with this walker. First we left it the way it was, where the upper bar and lower bar were pretty even and the handle bar “L” was down. The result was a run-a-way Luke, with the handle bar down all his weight went forward and he took off….going so fast he started tripping over his feet. Next, we tried shifting the upper bar by sliding it back. In the end the bottom bar stuck out about a foot in front of where Luke walked and the upper bar stuck out about a foot behind Luke. It reminded me of Cadillac, with a big nose and big trunk.

This seemed to slow Luke down a little and give him some more control. But, it still wasn’t the best…so we experimented with the handle bar “L”. We had been doing it straight down, so we moved them straight up….which worked but looked a little uncomfortable for Luke. Then we put them out to the side….which made Luke look like he was spreading his wings….so not only did he have a big front end and back end…but he was wide now too. Finally we tried rotating the handle bars towards the middle or inside of the walker…this seemed to work the best. Luke had a lot of control in his turns and speed. I think we finally found the right combo.

New “devices” are always fun to try, but sometimes it takes a while to get it right. After all of the experimenting though I think it was worth it. Before we tried it Luke’s PT and I weren’t so sure it would be the better style of walker for him, but he seemed to do really well with this new style walker. So now we may just order him a “Cadillac”. Won’t all his friends be jealous?

Feed me already!

This week Luke has been battling diarrhea. Sunday was when it was really bad, and my husband stayed home with Luke while I took our baby girl to church. After church I had to go get some groceries, and while I was there my husband called with Luke’s latest antic.


You see, Luke tended to have diarrhea a half-hour or so after he ate….so my husband stopped feeding him after he gave him a snack that morning, and just gave him liquids…so no lunch. Well, my husband was also putting away laundry for me at the time, and in it was a “Mickey mouse bib”. It is more like a towel with a hole in the top, and I use it a lot when we travel.

Anyway, I guess Luke got tired of waiting around for his lunch and decided to give my husband the best hint he could that he was hungry. Yep….he put the bib on. I didn’t see it but knowing my son, I’m sure he put the bib on and put on that cheesy grin of his and said “aahhh…aaahhh”. Like he was saying, “you gonna feed me already!”

Luke may not be able to say everything he wants, but he’s learning how to make you understand.

Sleepy head

We all like our sleep. Luke tends to get tired very easily; his energy level runs out fast because it takes so much more effort for him to move around. Because of this, he still takes a good nap. By good nap I mean he’ll sleep 3-3.5 hours in the afternoon as well as at least 12 hours at night.


In order for him to sleep you have to leave him “alone”…he can’t see you or hear you or else he isn’t about to go to sleep and miss the “party”. I’ve already shared how he won’t sleep in the car…no matter how tired he is, so he needs his own room and a place to lie down. He also needs the room as dark as possible, when there is light he figures its “party time” or something.

All this said, a few months ago I discovered a pretty funny and sneaky way that Luke adjusted his sleeping habit in order to sleep longer. One day I walked in to turn off his radio and open his window in order to start waking him up so we could go to therapy. Well after opening the window curtains, I looked over at Luke and there he was still asleep with a blanket over his head with his little bare feet sticking out.  So funny.

After that day I had a “new routine” when I woke him up. I had to start turning off the radio, open the curtains and then go over and slowly peel the blanket off his face. Then I sneak of the room and wait. If I directly wake him up he tends to be so cranky that I just want to lock him in his room for the day. So I have learned it is best if he “wakes himself up”.

Although if Luke really wants to keep sleeping, he is smart enough to know his own personal “curtain” moved and so he just moves it back. So sometimes I have to go in and peel back the blanket a second time…although there have been times I peel back the blanket and Luke just looks right back at me, like he was waiting to catch me “red handed”…how dare I move his curtain!

Someplace "new"

I’ve mentioned before how Luke likes to throw things and he likes to “stash” his toys…like he is saving them for later. Well, the other day I think he decided that piling up all his toys behind the TV, by the couch, in the Little Tykes Kitchen, or even by the front door was not a “good enough place”.


Luke may not be walking around or able to stand up at everything yet, but when he stretches up from his knees he actually has quite a bit of height. The other day he brought several toys into the kitchen and then got up on his knees and started trying to throw his toys into the kitchen sink. Of all places!!

At first the toys kept bouncing back at him, and he would laugh (of course). Then he started landing the toys in the sink no problem…..I had to go clear it out of dirty dishes right away. I have no idea how he got this idea, he isn’t even tall enough to see the sink, but I guess he has watched me do dishes enough that he has figured it out. Maybe he is trying to tell me I need to clean his toys too? Who knows, but we do have a “new place” to look for missing toys and Sippy cups

Where in the world?

In the past I talked about when Luke first started “hiding” his Sippy cup from “his momma” and how he kept outsmarting her. Well, last night he decided to take it to a “new level”.


I had gone to a doctor appointment in the evening while my husband watched the kids. When I got home I worked on cleaning up the dishes and then started on baby girl’s bottles. When I got done with the bottles on the counter, I counted the bottles in the cabinet and in the dish rack and saw I was missing two of them.

By the way, if anyone else has children like my Luke, who love to hide things, I highly suggest you always know how many bottles or Sippy cups are in the house….then you know when you need to go “hunting” before something starts to stink.

Back to what I was saying, when I asked my husband he brought one bottle in because he had just fed our baby girl her last bottle of the day. But the second missing bottle was nowhere to be found. My first thoughts were to look in places my husband would have put the bottle, since I wasn’t home he tends to just leave them out. I didn’t think about the “little man” and I should of. He can be “crafty”, but my husband did and started looking all over. We looked behind the couch, under the recliner, in the toy bin and finally about 15 minutes later my husband found it behind the TV.

I should of known, that is one of his “regular” hiding spots. The “sneaky” little guy…I think he was trying to test his momma again and he won…this time.

Moving Obstacle Course

One other thing that happened during out WI vacation this year dealt with a “moving obstacle course”. Before we had a chance to figure out the “Titanic” position on the boat we tried walking Luke in our cabin. There was only so much room, maybe 8-10 feet of cleared out area that was also shaped like a big L. My husband walked back and forth with him while I worked on washing dishes/bottles by hand in the sink. Meanwhile our baby girl was on the floor playing with some toys.


You may be able to see where I’m going with this. Our baby girl is 8 months old and a week or two before we left on vacation she started to inch along on the floor, kind of like an army crawl. She was really fine tuning her skills during vacation though.

What wound up happening was that when Luke started walking across the cabin, our baby girl was too curious about his walker to just sit still. Instead she “’army crawled” to investigate, she wasn’t about to let her big brother have all the fun and action that night. Within the first 5 minutes of Luke’s walking we started a pattern that continued throughout his PT exercise.

Luke would walk, baby girl would crawl towards him, he would veer around her, and then by the time he went the 8-10 feet and had to turn around she would be completely in the way. So I, with soapy hands and all, would laugh and pick her up and put her out of the way. Of course that only lasted long enough for Luke to start walking again, and the cycle would start all over. It got to the point that I told me husband, “just let me know when she’s in the way so I can move her.” Otherwise I never would have gotten any dishes washed that night.

Who needs to set up an obstacle course to work on walking skills when you have a crawling baby?  As our baby girls’ skills increase I’m sure we’ll be in for more fun like that night.

Save for Later

Yesterday Luke tried a new trick when we were eating breakfast. You see Luke tends to throw his food when he is full, tired, mad or just wants to be ornery. So what happened yesterday was that when we got done with our eggs and banana, I gave Luke some cheerios. He ate a few and then threw a few….when I asked if he was all done, he told me (through sign language) that he wanted “more” and proceeded to show me by eating more cheerios. Then after a few he started to throw again, so I told him “no” and caught his hand so he couldn’t throw the cheerios he had in his fist. He looked at me, took his fist to his mouth and ate the cheerios. The next time I did the same thing, catching his fist before he could throw….this time he looked at me and then acted like he would eat them, but instead of putting them in his mouth he brought his fist down between his legs and let go of the cheerios. They didn’t all go to the floor, which was probably his plan, but most of them stayed on the chair under his booster seat.


I was in shock and thought it so funny, that he did this a few times before I just took away the cheerios and cut him off. When I pulled him back from the table to wipe him off, he started crying (as usual) and then looked down and saw the cheerios. You can probably guess, but once he saw them he bent over, grabbed a few and popped them in his mouth.

Silly little man, every time I think he is done eating he finds a way to eat more. This incident reminded me of when Luke first started throwing food (he has done that off and on for the last 9 months or so). When he first started throwing he would throw cheerios or whatever, and then when I put him on the floor when we were done, he would go find what he threw and proceed to eat off the floor. It was a good thing I vacuumed and mopped constantly. But, I soon figured out his tactics and so before I would put him on the floor I would pick up the food he threw…just in case he wanted dessert.

Titanic

"But, daddy I want to drive"

One day on the Pontoon boat in WI, my husband put Luke on his lap to steer the boat. It has been tradition to let all the grandkids sit and steer. Well no matter how much my husband tried, Luke didn’t want to have anything to do with the steering.


Instead he wanted to touch all the cool buttons. There were all these buttons on this screen Luke’s grandparents have right by the wheel on the boat. It finds the depth and temperature of the water, along with showing the fish underneath. Of course Luke would want to play with that!

Well my husband kept telling Luke not to touch the buttons, but of course he continued to touch them. So Luke’s time as “captain” did not last long. What I tried telling my husband was that this was great OT for him. The fact he was touching the buttons and trying to touch them was wonderful, even if he caused something to change on the screen.

Despite that, I was thrilled for Luke, so once daddy kicked him out of the “captain’s chair” I walked him to the front of the boat to assume the “Titanic Position”. This is where we spent the rest of our “trip” around the lake, feeling the wind in our face.

Titanic

On our vacation to WI, we spent time on Luke’s grandpa and grandma’s pontoon boat. The past two years when we have gone Luke wasn’t too thrilled to be in a life jacket, let alone on some “weird water vehicle”. It was definitely not his favorite thing to do.


This year, he was able to move his neck around more in his life jacket and therefore felt a little more freedom. In order to get some PT walking in, we tried taking Luke’s walker on the boat. So there we were going along in our boat and Luke would walk about 6-8 feet and then have to turn around and walk back. Then a speed boat would go by, and the waves would come. The rocking got so bad he would just stop and look at me like he was saying “what is that?”

After that happened I got the idea that if Luke just held on to the railing of the boat, he could stand and work on his balance and tummy muscles. Since the boat was riding the waves and rocking back and forth, he would have to really work those muscles to stay upright.

So I tried having him stand at the side rail, but Luke didn’t want to stand there long, he kept trying to bend his knees to sit down on the floor. Then I remembered how much he likes to have the wind in his face, so I walked him to the front of the boat where there was a railing. In this new location he was able to hold on to the railing as he faced the wind. He smiled big and squinted his eyes. He even got to the point he would let go with one hand and use his other hand to wave at the shore as we passed or put his arm up with his fist clinched and say “aahhh….ahhh”. He looked a lot like that scene from Titanic where Rose is on the front of the ship with her arms out in the wind. My husband said, “does he think he is on Titanic?”…so the rest of the week we assumed the “Titanic pose” to work on our PT skills.

That's not MY son

After getting to Wisconsin for our vacation, my husband, Luke, baby girl and I went to Wal-Mart to get the groceries we would need for the week. Now, you have to understand that we had just spent 7 hours in the car and that Luke does not sleep in the car. So he was in desperate need for a nap.


That said I took Luke in a cart and my husband took our baby girl. Luke and I started on the groceries and my husband and baby girl went to get the fishing licenses. I thought Luke would do a lot better with me since we would be on the move...but I figured wrong. Every time I stopped to put something in the cart, Luke would scream like he was dying or something. I didn't stop long either...maybe a second or less. If anyone was watching me, I probably looked like I was some crazy lady moving her cart beside the shelves and using my hand to scoot things into my cart while moving the whole time.

Of course there were times I had to stop and actually look at what I was putting in my cart...and Luke would scream so loud. I was sure other parents were thinking "why didn't you leave him home?" If only they understood.

Then when I finally met up with my husband again and we were checking out, I remembered I forgot the hash browns. We HAVE to have hash browns...so I left Luke and baby girl with my husband and ran/walked to the back of the store to get the hash browns. (This Wal-Mart has all the frozen goods at the back by the milk and stuff). I could hear Luke screaming all the way there and back. Boy does he have a good set of lungs.
When I got back to the line I took Luke and held him. Of course he was so upset that didn't help for long. Then when we were done I had to change two sets of diapers as well, after all it had been at least 2 hours since we last stopped.
I was so glad to finally get back to the truck and get on our way again. We had another 30 minutes to the cabin and I knew it would be a miracle if we actually got all the groceries we needed.

Luke Sharing?

Now that Luke has a play-mate, he has had to learn to start sharing. At first his interactions with his baby sister were more like, "she's still here?" or "why is SHE crying?" or "mommy stop her from being upset". Then he moved on to exploring his sister. He would poke her, hit her, push her or anything else he could think of. Like it was an experiment. Would she cry if I did this? Or would she scream louder if I did that?


He is finally to the point now where he has stopped experimenting, for the most part. Sometimes he will place toys in front of her, like he knows she'll like it or something. Other times he takes the toys away and she starts screaming. Then sometimes he puts a toy in front of her and once she decides she wants to play with it (her hand is in the air and coming towards it), Luke will snatch the toy away. As if saying, "hah...gottcha...can't have it". Personally I think that is pretty mean of a big brother to do.

Other times I'm in the kitchen and I'll hear both of them laughing, so I go to investigate. Usually one of two things is happening. One, both are staring at each other only a few inches apart (Luke on his back and baby girl on her tummy). Or two, Luke is on his knees facing his sister and baby girl in on her back a few inches away. Luke will take his sister's shirt and pull her to him (kind of rolling her his way) and then he'll let go and she rolls back to her back on her own and then she laughs.
Sometimes they just look at each other in the car and laugh back and forth while I'm driving down the road. Crazy Kids!!

Music?

Sometimes I can't avoid shopping with both Luke and our baby girl. I know other moms have those times. The ones that say, I really need this or I don't trust my husband to get the right thing. So off we take both kids...just asking for trouble.

As long as Luke isn't hungry or tired, we usually do just fine. If Luke is upset, as long as I keep moving Luke stays happy. Something about the movement or seeing all the new things as we go seems to calm him down. 

The other day Luke, baby girl and I were at Wal-Mart. I needed a couple things before we left on vacation. Of course Luke was upset, to be confined to a cart once again and be subject to wherever his momma wants to go.

We were going along and all of a sudden I heard "splish, splash, I was taking a bath.....a Saturday night!....rub a dub..." So of course, this momma who loves oldies started singing a long and Luke started smiling. Then I heard a "cool" version of   "wheels on the bus"...so I turned our cart around in search of the "music".

I finally found the source at one of those sample boxes. It was the only time during this shopping trip that Luke was happy to stop moving. The music kept coming and he was more than happy to stop and listen. Although I don't think he ever figured out where the music was coming from. He just stared toward the box like he was saying, "how are you doing that?"
Since Luke and I loved the music so much I did a spontaneous buy, which I don't do very often any more. Of course I settled for the less "cool" version of wheels on the bus, since the "splish splash" CD was out. Isn't that always the case?  Anyway, I think Luke is a musician in the making. Just don't tell his daddy that.