Water from on high?

So, this past week has not been the most fun week in our household.  Our baby girl has had a runny nose and a little cough, but it hasn’t been too bad.  Then, Luke starts coughing last Monday night, he was coughing so hard none of us really got much sleep.  Then Tuesday he has a temp of 101.8, so I kept him home from school.  By Wednesday Luke still had a cough, but only when he was laying down, and his temp was back to normal…so off to school he went.  

Thursday was the same thing.  Then Thursday night Luke starts coughing all night again, and in the morning he is running a fever again.  Only this time his fever has stayed and has been much higher.  We even made an ER run Saturday night, because not only has he had this fever on and off, been coughing almost all the time, not wanting to eat or drink (VERY strange for Luke), but now he also was vomiting.  Now it is Monday and he has still vomited off and on, and still has a high temp.  We go back to see his doc today….so maybe we’ll find out if this is more than a virus.

Yeah, we’ve had lots of fun this week!  I know all you moms and dads can completely relate.  Sick kids are not fun.  Anyone who has a “special” kid knows that sick “special” kids are a definite challenge.  They can’t tell you if something hurts and it is so hard to help them.

But, even in the midst of our “fun” week, we have had some really great moments.  It just proves that even when you’re tired, worn out, and sick you can find some joy.

One such time was on Tuesday or Wednesday night, I can’t even remember. Anyway, I got Luke and his baby sister’s bath ready.  I ran the shower for a while with hot water so it was nice and steamy in there.  Then took both kids and I sat in there with them for about 15 minutes.  They had a ball being together with water, of all things!  They splashed each other, threw toys out of the bathtub, and did some experimentation. 

Luke figured out a while back that if he moved a certain handle, water would flow out of the spout for the bath.  Well this night, our baby girl went to play with the same handle.  This time instead of coming out the spout the water came out of the shower head.  I reached over and turned off the water.  Then Luke decides to make sure that what happened…really happened.  After all when he moves the handle the water comes from below, sister must have done something special to make it come out way up high like that.

So Luke and his baby sister switched places, and Luke pushes up the handle.  Water spurts out of the shower head, and both kids start laughing.  So this started a whole new game.  Luke would turn the handle on, Luke and our baby girl  would laugh, and then Luke would turn it off.  It was pretty funny to watch.  They both thought this was the funniest thing ever.  Maybe this means they might be ready for showers soon?!

Scoot and Drink

Luke loves to drink his juice, milk, or just about anything you give him.   It is part of whatever is going on with his body.  He is ALWAYS hungry and ALWAYS thirsty. 

The other night I gave him his juice while he was on the floor playing.  Before I knew it Luke was on his back and drinking his juice!  I was worried he might choke on the juice, but after a couple minutes Luke mastered getting his juice while laying back and relaxing.  So I just let him lay there, I figured he was probably really tired (another characteristic of whatever is going on with him).

Luke must not have been very tired though.  After 5 minutes of drinking while on his back, he decided that was a little boring.  Why just lay on your back while drinking?  Why not try something new?  That is exactly what he did.  Instead of staying still on his back, he soon started scooting backwards.

So here was Luke on his back, drinking his juice and using his feet to scoot himself backwards across the room.  So funny to watch.  Luke comes up with the craziest things.

Scoot and Drink

Luke loves to drink his juice, milk, or just about anything you give him.   It is part of whatever is going on with his body.  He is ALWAYS hungry and ALWAYS thirsty. 

The other night I gave him his juice while he was on the floor playing.  Before I knew it Luke was on his back and drinking his juice!  I was worried he might choke on the juice, but after a couple minutes Luke mastered getting his juice while laying back and relaxing.  So I just let him lay there, I figured he was probably really tired (another characteristic of whatever is going on with him).

Luke must not have been very tired though.  After 5 minutes of drinking while on his back, he decided that was a little boring.  Why just lay on your back while drinking?  Why not try something new?  That is exactly what he did.  Instead of staying still on his back, he soon started scooting backwards.

So here was Luke on his back, drinking his juice and using his feet to scoot himself backwards across the room.  So funny to watch.  Luke comes up with the craziest things.

Happy Days

I’m sure all kids have a particular “mood” pattern, but Luke’s is something I never encountered before.  He is usually really happy or really upset.  There isn’t a “happy medium”.  Over the years we have found ways to make Luke happy when he is upset, the only other option is to let him continue crying/screaming.  Which is definitely hard on the ears. 

There are days where it seems like nothing works and I wind up shutting all the doors in the hall, putting up the gate, and leaving him at the far end of the hall to scream.  When he calms down, which may be a half hour later, I’ll let him out.  Some days it doesn’t work and he would scream for hours if I let him.  A couple times when I did this I would place Luke at the far end of the hall by the bathroom, and within about 5 minutes I would notice his screams getting louder.  When I go check, Luke is no longer by the bathroom but right by the gate.  The funny part is that he must of scooted his way to the gate on his back while screaming.  He may be really upset, but he isn’t so upset that he won’t move to make sure I still know he is upset.  I’ve only had to resort to this four times, so I guess that isn’t so bad.

Most time we can get him happy by bouncing balls or rolling those soft rubber balls into him.  He will usually laugh like it is the funniest thing in the world. 

Well the other night when my husband took Luke to the basement to work on his walking, I heard a BOOM, BOOM, BOOM and then a loud laugh from Luke.  When I went to investigate I found my husband bouncing one of those 12 inch in diameter rubber balls up the stairs.  He threw it as far up as it would go and then let it bounce back down and Luke thought it was so funny.  Luke laughed even harder when the ball bounced off of him.  You would think he would cry, but no…our son laughs.

It is one of those things you have to see to really understand how funny it was to watch.  So I caught some the excitement on video.

Team Work

It seems like the older both of my kids get the more “crafty” they get.  Sometimes they work together to get the phone, as I have mentioned before.  Other times they put toys in and out of places.  One of the latest examples of team work got a little more creative.

I was sitting in the recliner, trying to eat my lunch when I hear the kids laughing.  I look over at them and there is our baby girl standing on top of the Laugh and Learn chair and Luke is sitting on the floor right next to her.  Luke had a pile of various toys including Lego’s, shapes ,blocks and plastic food.  To truly visualize this I have to tell you that they were located at the end of our couch, below one of the couch’s arms.

Luke was handing our baby girl a toy and she would stand up on her tippy toes, on top of the chair still, and put the toy on the couch.  She would laugh, then squat a little and reach out her hand, then Luke would give her another toy, she would stretch up to her tippy toes and then put this new toy on the couch.  They repeated this a dozen times before they got tired of it.  Before they were done they were both laughing.

It is amazing how something so simple could be so funny.  But the team work continues.  It is amazing what they come up with.

Miracles

Today I’m going to take a more serious tone.  I can’t seem to stop thinking about how God works in our lives, even when we don’t see it.  Some people might call things happening at the right time “coincidences”, but I know that it is a higher power at work.   The Lord is putting all the pieces together in just the right way, and at the right timing. 

Why am I taking such a deep topic today?  I just got off the phone with the Cleveland Clinic where they want to do a fresh muscle biopsy on Luke.  I learned that Johns Hopkins wanted us to do this in November and have been hoping/praying that things would come together.  When you know your child needs something done, and you know it will help him in the long run, it is very hard to sit still and wait.  I’m a “doer”.  When I know something needs to be done, I like to just jump in and do it. 

When we first went to Johns Hopkins I was my own coordinator.  I talked to JH and Luke’s pediatrician.  I talked to Insurance.  I coordinated it all and lined everything up.  But, these last weeks have been some of the hardest because I’ve been waiting and waiting.  Finally, a few days ago I got a copy of a letter sent by insurance to Cleveland that preapproved this genetic testing.  Then, this morning I finally heard from Cleveland and we are currently working on coordinating schedules to get in.

I just feel like God has worked another miracle.  I know some people see miracles as something BIG, like a blind man finally seeing or a lame person walking.  But, I’ve learned as a “special” mom that miracles come in all shapes and sizes. 

When Luke was 16 months old and finally started crawling and saying “dada”….it was a miracle.  When Luke was 2 ½ years old and finally pulled himself up consistently…it was a miracle.  When Luke started individually moving fingers across” touch and feel” books about a year ago….it was a miracle.  Even two weeks ago I heard Luke start using “b”s for the first time in his 3 years…another miracle.

You get my point I hope.  I think all “special” moms feel the same way.  When our kids finally are able to do something simple…like take off their own socks or use a spoon to eat…we rejoice.  What would take most kids a couple weeks to master takes our kids months or sometimes years.  It’s a whole different thought process.  One I never understood till I was in the midst of it myself.

So today instead of sharing a “laugh” I’m sharing my “joy”.  Praise the Lord for our little miracles!!

"Ring-around-the-daddy"

When the weather was nice outside we would walk with Luke in the driveway, and you may remember a past blog where I talked about how Luke would make circles around our SUV that was parked in the driveway.  Well, Luke must have been having a flashback to those “good-old-days” or something, because he tried doing this in the house. 

Luke had to improvise though, since he was inside instead of outside.  So instead of walking, he crawled and instead of going around the SUV, he went around the exercise ball that daddy was sitting on.  Our baby girl was also standing in front of daddy, so Luke had to go around his sister as well as the ball.

If that wasn’t funny enough to watch, Luke also had his juice cup in his mouth.  He must have been worried about getting dehydrated while on this new “adventure” or something. 

Luke made several “laps” around daddy and baby sister.  To help visualize this scenario, I was able to get at least one “lap” on video which is shown below.  You can see that Luke probably would have kept going except his baby sister got in the way, and when he tried to go towards daddy’s leg, like he might go under it, he encountered the ball….where he decided to stop his circles.

Taming the "monster"

One of my earliest blogs I talked about our vacuum and how I would fondly call it “the monster”.  I told you how Luke used to scream every time I ran the thing, and how when he finally started crawling he stopped screaming and started chasing the vacuum all over the house.

Now our Baby girl is also used to it, but instead of chasing it she “runs” or crawls away from it.  She sees it coming and takes off like it is trying to attack her or something.  Its pretty funny to watch.

Luke on the other hand still will crawl after it, but only for a little while.  After the initial crawling, I think he decides he can “tame this monster”.  He does this by going for the cord.  Luke will get a hold of the cord and lift it up and down and around….it almost looks like he is trying his hand at jump roping or something.  What usually ends up happening is that eventually the cord will come unplugged or he will pull hard enough the cord will retract itself thereby unplugging from the wall. 

The silly man makes it almost impossible to vacuum anymore.  When I told my husband about this he just laughed.  But, over the weekend Luke did this to daddy when he was trying to use the vacuum to clean up the kitchen floor.  The cord came unplugged 4 times while daddy tried to just vacuum.  My husband now has a better appreciation for how hard it is to vacuum around this house.

My Phone!

I’m not sure if all kids love phones, but both Luke and our baby girl go nuts when they see a phone.  It is like a “homing beacon”, once they see it or hear it ring they both go straight for it.  Both crawling and racing forward, no matter what is in their way.  It is a crazy to watch.

On and off both Luke and our baby girl have gotten a hold of our  home handset or one of our cell phones, usually we see this and we take them away….resulting in some tears.  We do have toy flip phones by the way…which they do like to play with, but they know the real thing when they see it.  It’s hard to fool them!

Last night my husband and I stayed up and watched a movie, and it was a little after 10pm when I was trying to get some sleep, and I heard my husband making all sorts of noise.  I tried to sleep through it, but then I heard a big “BOOM!”  So I went to investigate and to ask my husband to please stop what he was doing and go to bed.

I went into the living room and asked what he was doing, and he told me he was looking for his cell phone.  It turns out one of the kids hid it inside the Laugh and Learn Kitchen (which is only a foot or so tall and has a drawer inside).  When he told me this I laughed and told him I was glad he found it, now could we please go to bed?  My husband said it wasn’t funny.  But I saw him smile.

This morning while I took a shower, one of the kids knocked over the Laugh and Learn Kitchen, which was open and on its side.  I think they were looking for the phone, since they stashed it there last night. Boy are they getting sneaky!  They know their parents won’t let them have the real cell phone, so they hide it for later!!   Aren’t they a little young for that kind of thing?

Mine!

Luke has actually always been pretty good about sharing his toys. Not that he likes giving them up, but he doesn’t get upset when someone takes a toy. If he really wants it he’ll just go over and take it right back. Well, when it comes to sharing with his sister we are seeing a new “sharing dynamic”.


If our baby girl takes something Luke was playing with, Luke doesn’t cry. Instead he’ll reach over and take it back, smack his sister or simply crawl away to get some other toy. It just depends on his mood. But….if Luke takes something that his baby sister is playing with she lets out a loud howl. You would think it was the end of the world.

In this process our baby girl has learned to have a “death grip” on most toys. So when Luke comes over, there are many times that he can’t get the toy out of his sister’s hands. Many times instead of the kids crying at each other like I would expect, they tend to laugh at each other instead. I guess it is good OT for Luke as well.

Luke’s all-time favorite toy is still his Curious George monkey. He used to wrestle him around and chew on him. Now Luke will hug his monkey and when he wants to take him somewhere he’ll grab on to his monkey with his teeth and take off down the hall. This is the one toy if you take it away he will definitely let you know he is upset, crying or instant “power searching” will begin. He doesn’t like that monkey out of his sight. The monkey is Luke’s and I don’t think it will ever be his little sister’s.

Sneaky Baby Girl

Today I want to share something really funny that our baby girl has been doing.  Ever since we started table food, she has become a little “picky”.  Some of that I think is simply a texture issue.  We have found that if she won’t eat the ham or turkey we simply coat it all in applesauce.  It is amazing!  Once the food is coated in applesauce she’ll just eat it right up!!  Silly girl!

Other times she literally picks at her food.  The other day I gave her some chicken nuggets, which she usually eats right up with no issues, and instead of just eating them she picked at the breading and took some off before eating the pieces! 

The really funny thing took me a while to catch on to.  You see our highchair has one of those trays that pops on top of another tray.  It does this so that you can take the top tray off and put it in the dishwasher. Because of the two tray thing, there is a small gap on both sides of the top tray.  They are there so that you can get your fingers underneath and pop the top tray off.

Our baby girl found a new use of this “gaps”.  One day I gave her Cheerios at breakfast, and they disappeared really quickly so I gave her some more.  Well, after a minute or so I glanced over at her and saw her take a Cheerio and put it in the gap, where it promptly disappeared underneath the top tray.  Then she glanced up and me and smiled, like she was saying “see mommy, I found a new game….isn’t it fun?”

Since that first time I have caught her doing this with all kinds of food whether it was Cheerios or chicken, if she didn’t want it…it went under the tray! Sometimes I lift the top tray off to wash it and find a “mound” of food by each of the finger “gap” places, and I never saw our baby girl do it.  She can be pretty sneaky.   I finally caught this little act on video.  If you want to see her in action you can watch below.

Multitasking Workouts

Have you ever stopped to think about how kids learn to multitask?  I think back and I can’t remember when I started multitasking, but I do remember doing homework while having noise in the background…whether it was the TV or the radio.  I also remember doing what seemed like a million things at once when I was in college.  Then when I became a teacher my multitasking became quite an art form.  I thought I had reached the highest level of multitasking…until I became a mother.  Wow…talk about having to do several things at once!!  What got me thinking about all this?  Well, Luke of course!

A couple weeks back I was feeding Luke, when he starts raising his leg up.  I thought maybe he would try to put it up on the table top again…like he has done in the past.  But, he surprised me.  He bent his leg, lifted his foot and just held it there for a good 30 seconds….then he lowered his leg and then did it again!  At first I just laughed, then I tried doing it myself just to kind of tease him….and I was surprised how my ABs protested. 

Here Luke was eating and getting a good AB workout at the same time!  Talk about multitasking.  I don’t remember ever seeing anyone working out while they were eating.  Drinking some water or something, yes, but eating?  No.

Luke didn’t stop with just doing one leg at a time either.  He soon began lifting both legs at once!  I tried that too, and I could only do it for a few seconds.  This was not a one day occurrence either, he has been doing this once every few days.  Luke has some strong tummy muscles, that is for sure!  

And he scores!

During Luke’s therapy at Easter Seals, the therapists learned early on that Luke loved balls and any game that involved throwing them.  So that last year or so three of his therapists started using a Little Tykes basketball hoop.  They used it off and on to help his Speech, OT and PT skills.  So when grandma and grandpa asked for ideas for Luke’s birthday and Christmas, I told them about this basketball hoop.

It came as no surprise that Luke got this very same Little Tykes basketball hoop for his birthday.  Since we use it almost every day, we keep it in the living room with many of the kids other toys.  Even though daddy likes to use this basketball hoop to practice his “three pointers” from across the room, Luke will try to put balls into it off and on too.  Probably trying to be like daddy.

The other day though, Luke got a little creative.  You see he decided to try putting other objects in the basketball hoop.  After all why should he stop at using balls?

He other day Luke got his new small plastic CAT truck, that he got from Christmas from his great-grandparents, and starts pushing it across the room.  I watched him since he doesn’t usually push it far, and I was wondering what in the world he was up to.  Then he gets over to the basketball hoop and puts the truck in!!

He screamed a little and I looked again to see what was wrong, the truck was stuck, because there was a giant giraffe puzzle piece that was hanging in the netting.  I just laughed and took the puzzle piece out, which then allowed the truck to fall through the net.  Luke then laughed, got the truck, then got up on his knees and put the truck through the hoop again.  He did this many times and each time he laughed like it was the funniest thing in the world to see, a truck going through a basketball hoop!

No!

So yesterday was Sunday and even though I associate the day with going to church, my husband thinks of football as well.  The Colts were playing, his favorite team, and were in a pretty close game.  He watched with Luke and our baby girl while I got supper ready.  

Of course supper was ready before the game was over.  So my husband paused live TV so that he could come back to it later.  After my husband was done with his own supper and feeding Luke, the “boys” went back into the living room to finish watching the game. 

Well, I was still in the kitchen finishing feeding our baby girl and I hear “NO!”  Then after a couple seconds I hear Luke start crying.  You see my husband was yelling at the TV because the Colts fumbled the ball, and Luke who didn’t understand what was going on thought he was in trouble.

Poor little guy.  Daddy did console him, and mommy lectured daddy on yelling at the TV while Luke was in the room.  After all we’re adults and we should be able to resist the urge to scream at the TV, right?