New "Toy"

It is amazing what our kids find to play with.  Whether it is an empty box or a paper towel roll, they find the simplest things to be the best toys ever.  Luke has found a “new” toy, although this “toy” wasn’t meant to be a toy.  Like so many other things that aren’t intended to be.

Of course this “new” toy is part of the “solution” to our “banging heads” problem.  In Luke’s room we have the mat up on the wall, which is working well, except a couple weeks ago I hear “clink…clink…clink…thunk”.  When I went to investigate I found Luke playing with the bungee cord that holds the top part of the mat against the wall.  He had gotten up on his knees and was playing with the “hook” part of the bungee cord…like he was trying to get it “unhooked” from the wall or something.

Then the other day I hear Luke wake up, laughing and then I hear him “playing” with the end of the bungee cord.  Then he was quiet and all of a sudden I hear a loud “THUNK”, which is a very different sound, followed by Luke’s laugh.  I then heard it again, “THUNK” and laughter.  So at this point I went to investigate, since I couldn’t figure out what he was doing exactly.  I just knew it wasn’t the “boom” sound I hear when he hits his feet on the mat and it wasn’t the “playing” sound I hear when he messes with the end of the bungee cord.

So I open Luke’s door just in time to see that he has a hold of the bungee cord with both hands, and he leans back and then releases the cord.  The result, was a loud “THUNK” sound…and of course Luke laughed. 

The whole thing reminded me of when I would help out with a summer camp.  We would fill up a lot of water balloons and then get out these “launchers”.  Then we would play a game where one team would stand completely still while the other “launched” their water balloons at the opposite team.  In order to get a good shot you had two people hold either end of the “launcher” and one person would put the water balloon in the cradle part and then one person would pull downwards as far as possible and then “launch” the balloon.

That is exactly how Luke looked.  I did manage to get a video of him doing this so you can really see what I am trying to describe.  Although, Luke took his time getting everything just right before “launching” his bungee cord so before seeing him “launch” at the mat he has to rearrange his pillow and blanket.

Skiing?

You know, I’ve realized that to be a PT or OT or ST of children, you really have to get creative.  I don’t know how many times I’ve watched Luke’s therapists turn something so simple into a therapy session.  They take a ball and play basketball, kickball or “dodge ball” all while trying to get Luke to say “ba…ba” or trying to get him to use two hands to throw or even trying to get him to be balanced enough to kick the ball while using his walker.  Something so simple…turned in to an activity that helps Luke to reach his potential.

Even though they get creative with regular everyday toys, they also use their resources.  There is a “machine”, I’m not really sure it would be called that, that has two large pedals attached to each other but are set up so that one pedal is up when the other is down.  It also has tall handles that kids can hold on to so they don’t fall off.  With the pedals being so large and the handles being so high, it looks like Luke is trying to ski when he is on it.  The point of this “machine” is to work on strength and for Luke it is a great tool to use to get Luke to bend his knees.  Luke still likes to lock out his knees when he should be bending them, like when he is going down the stairs.  He is getting better at this, but still hasn’t mastered it.

So…we got this “machine” out the other day at PT.  Luke has done this once before, about a year ago, and was only able to go a few feet before he was ready to quit.  Luke was upset the other day when we started using this “Ski Machine”, but calmed down enough to let his PT continue working with him.  The result?  Luke was able to go down the hallway, about 100 feet, and back on the “machine”!  It was great to see!

Walk With Me 2011

July 23rd was the Bloomington Walk With Me 2011, a fundraiser for Easter Seals.  I put together various pictures from the day.  Sit back, enjoy and feel like your there!

The daddy bridge

Have you ever wondered where your kids get they’re ideas from?  I don’t know if it is because Luke is stuck crawling around the floor all the time or what, but Luke gets pretty imaginative with things.  Most kids crawl for a few months or so.   Luke has been crawling since he was 16 months old, so he’s been crawling around the floor for 27 months now.  Wow…I’ve never stopped to think about it like that before.

That is a long time!  No wonder he is always trying to help by putting things in and out of the lower drawers in the kitchen and he always wants to help with the dishes too.  It think he is always looking for ways to change what his “world” has in it. 

Maybe that is why he does some of the things he does.  One of the more recent things  that my husband and I found so funny happened while my husband was standing in the kitchen talking to me.  There we were talking about…who knows what…and Luke crawls up and starts crawling around and between my husband’s legs.  At first he made circles, then eights and then started going between the legs and then promptly turning around and going back under again.  It was so funny.

Our baby girl does this once and a while, but she walks between my legs.  I guess Luke wanted to try it too, and if he could walk on his own he would be way too tall.  So I guess it is a good thing he is crawling around!

Silly Boy!

Last night Luke was having too much fun!  Is that possible?  When Luke has these moments they tend to overflow to the rest of us.  Who can resist laughing when Luke is doing something that makes him laugh so hard?  I know I can’t resist. 

Last night we put Luke in his bed so he could go to sleep for the night.  What does he do?  He starts falling back against his pillow and laughs when he hits it….and then he gets up and does it again!  I don’t know why he finds things like this to be so funny.  I just know I can’t resist laughing with him.  I don’t know if it is Luke or what he is doing that makes me laugh…I just know that when he reacts by laughing is seems to be contagious.  Join me in some laughter by watching the following video.

"Head bangers"

Well you hear that term a lot with music, but I’ve been using it a lot for the kids as well.  Our baby girl will sit there while eating and just nod her head up and down with hair flying… and then laugh when she’s done.  Then other times she’ll shake her head back and forth and then laugh when done. 

Then there are the times I really don’t want her to “bang” her head, and these are the times that she more like “hits” her head on the wall.  Then when she does this, she laughs…of course.  Hmmmm….where have I heard that before?  Her brother Luke has taught her some bad habits, and he’s only been working on it for 20 months….I can’t imagine what she’ll learn from Luke by the time she’s a teenager!

Luke and our baby girl were trying to teach one of their new friends this “head banging” thing the other day.  The only good part is that they were doing this against the couch, so I know it didn’t hurt.  Maybe they are done hitting their heads on the wall?  One can hope anyway.

The Moon Walk

So many of us who were born in time to remember the 80’s can remember the famous “moon walk”, I had fun doing this as a kid.  For those of you who did not experience this or paid no attention to music of the 80’s, the “moon walk” is kind of a dance where you drag your feet backwards in time to the music.  I’m not sure how to explain it any better than that.  If anyone else out there has a better explanation of that feel free to leave a comment and let me know. 

Anyway, I say all of that because of the newest trick Luke’s PT is trying with him.  Luke has gotten so good at controlling his walker.   Now that he has mastered walking forward so well and maneuvering around objects, which many times involves backing up some…what comes next?  Walking backwards, of course! 

So yesterday Luke walked a couple minutes on the treadmill going forward and since he continues to do so well, his PT said “let’s try going backwards”.  So Luke turned around and walked on the treadmill backwards.  For his first time doing this he did great!!  I was so proud of him.  Normally when trying something new and therefore challenging he will cry some in protest.  But not this new trick, he didn’t cry at all.

Intellectual Reading?

Have you ever seen your kids do something that you are completely surprised by?  They go against everything you know about them.  I guess we can’t prejudge our kids, they have their own unique personalities and right when we think we have them figured out…they go and do something opposite of what we expect.

We get a local area paper each week.  I’m sure most people do.  Anyway, a couple weeks ago somehow the kids got a hold of the paper.  I figured it would be in shreds within seconds.  Only I was surprised to find our baby girl had the paper open like she was reading it.  Then when I asked her what she was doing she responded in her usual baby gibberish, but in such a way you would think she was telling me exactly what was in the paper. 

Shortly after that Luke got a hold of another part of the paper and started ripping it up.  I was worried he would start trying to eat it like he tends to do with paper, only he had other plans.  Instead he put all the pieces of the paper he ripped up in his wagon.  It was like they were his regular toys and he was just putting them where they belonged.  Although Luke's ripping up the newspaper gave his sister ideas, and she started ripping her paper as well.

For a 3 ½ year old Luke is pretty organized.  I wonder if I’m in trouble?

Had enough?

Have you ever started doing something with your children and found that you wanted that activity to be over as quickly as possible.  I’ve had a few moments like that lately.  One was when I took my baby girl and twirled her around, once I did that she kept wanting me to continue doing that with her.  Another time I started a tickle fight, one that the kids never wanted to end.  Then there are the classic examples like when I put our baby girl in her swing, and once you start that you can’t stop.  No matter how long I push her, she gets mad when I tell her we’re “all done”.

I’m sure I’m not the only out there to experience this feeling.  The most recent example of this happened over the Fourth of July weekend.  My whole family was over for supper one night and we got out a new game, the famous Bean-Bag Toss.  Luke got his turn and didn’t want to stop.  My sister kept giving him bags to toss, and after a while she asked me if I wanted to take over, then after a while I asked my sister-in-law to take over.  The great part about this was that there were plenty of adults to help pick up the bags and hand them to Luke.  If I did this on a normal day with Luke, I’m not sure how long I could “fetch” his bean-bags.  Luke loved it and when he ran out of bags he let us know!!  He wasn’t easy to get him to stop…I think it became one of his favorite things to do…right up there with opening and shutting doors!

Finally Solved?

Ok, here I go again!!  I’ve talked before about Luke and his new bed and how great it was until he started hitting his head on the wall and laughing about it?  Also remember how I thought we solved this problem with the rugs and industrial strength Velcro….only I was wrong.  Once again Luke out-smarted his momma. 

The “cushy” rugs lasted about 24 hours.   What a wonderful 24 hours it was too!  The good news was that the Velcro worked well, the bad news was that the bottom of the rugs were obviously not made to adhere well to the Velcro.  Luke was able to pull the rug from the Velcro, so that the soft and ruff parts of the Velcro were still stuck to each other but the rug was pulled off.

We decided after that we just had to look into a real mat, a gymnastics mat that is.  So we did and we found one we could get in a week’s time.  When it arrived I opened it right up and it had a very strong “rubbery” smell to it.  So I let it sit outside during the day and in the garage at night.  After about 3 days the smell went away and I got excited.  I thought this would definitely work!  I wanted to find a way to mount the mat to the wall, but my husband thought we didn’t need to.  The mat is 4 feet by 6 feet and the bed is only about 2 feet off the ground, so we simply slid the mat between the wall and bed. 

Once again, this worked for about 24 hours before Luke found a way to pull down the top of the mat and hit the wall.  The good part of this was that I don’t think he climbed on top of the mat so he could his head on the wall…I think it was just his hands or feet.

Still, I was so frustrated when he did this!!  I told my husband and he laughed and said that Luke out-smarted his momma again!  So I told him to come up with a solution and we’d see if he could out-smart Luke.  So my husband came up with what we hope is a better solution. 

My husband wanted to use a bungee cord to hold the top of the mat against the wall.  I pointed out that if we did that where the mat is now Luke could get his hand underneath and hurt himself or do who knows what.  So then came the idea of using a 2 by 4 to help lift the mat off the ground.

Last night my husband put the plan in motion.  He screwed a 2 by 4 to the wall, about a foot and a half off the ground, then used some heavy duty eye hooks (put into studs) and a bungee cord to hold back the top of the mat.  So far…so good.  I hope it stays that way!

Was that a laugh?

Alright, you all know how Luke’s sense of humor is….unique.  He laughs at the strangest things.  It could be a door shutting, his sister touching him, rocking himself back and forth, banging his head against something, laying on his back and kicking up and out, or even throwing a Lego across the room.  So many things make him laugh.  Well for a few months now he has been doing this strange laugh…I’m not even sure it would be classified as a laugh.  It seems like lately he gets in a “mood” and will do that strange laugh most of the day…then we won’t hear it again for a few days and it will come back again.

It is also something very hard to explain it almost sounds like a laugh and a cough at once, while he makes this sound he sticks his tongue out….you really just have to hear it and see it to believe the sound.  So I tried getting it on video, its a short clip....but you can hear it well.  I caught him doing this laugh the other night while his sister was throwing his monkey, George, around.  Luke thought it was pretty funny.  Be prepared to laugh yourself.  It is the kind of thing you can’t help but laugh about.  The silly little guy.