Music?

Ok, so we’ve been super busy around here lately.  We were planning to put our house up for sale in May and then my husband got the brilliant idea to have it ready by the time of the community garage sale!  When meant that we had three weeks to finish everything!  It’s been a long exhausting “sprint”, but we are finally done and our house is up!  I actually have one more thing to tackle…but have to wait until the weather cooperates.

Anyway…during our “sprint” towards the “finish” I’ve been painting two bedrooms and the living room and hallway.  Well the story I have to share today about Luke happened while I was doing all this painting.  No…Luke didn’t get into any paint…thankfully!!  But he did show me he was capable of some good OT skills!

While doing all this painting I used a radio with a CD player to keep me company.  I would leave this in the room I was working in, so I didn’t have to haul it all over the place all the time.  I thought this was brilliant, unitl one day I was down the hall (not sure what I was doing) and it was quiet and then all of a sudden music started playing!  I couldn’t figure it out.  Then I remembered the Radio/CD player in our bedroom and went to “investigate”.  Low and behold, there was Luke sitting right next to the radio/CD player smiling really big at me.  It was like he said “look what I can do mommy?!”  I just laughed and asked how in the world he did that.  It was then that I remembered that I had my “CD” on pause while I did some other things in the other room. 

Luke obviously didn’t like the quiet and wanted some music!  Not only that, but I soon realized that not only did Luke start the music, but he must not have liked the song because he skipped a couple to get to the current one!  Silly little man!

After this day, I caught him a couple more times trying to do this little “trick”.  One day he even paused the music and changed the volume for me!

My little helper

Our little man is turning into a true blue “helper”.  Luke’s been slowly making progress with his understanding of things.  But the other day he totally surprised me.  I was putting both kids down for a nap, usually I put Luke down first but this day I put down our baby girl first instead.  I was busy changing our daughter’s diaper and saw that we didn’t have all our “nap buddies”.  (Our daughter has to have her babies, all three, blanket, small pillow, and blue stuffed monkey).  The baby that is her absolute favorite was missing.  So I put our daughter in her crib and Luke followed me as I looked in the living room.  When I found the baby, I looked at Luke and thought “why not try it”….so I held out the baby and asked Luke to take it to his sister.  Sure enough, he grabbed the baby and crawled down the hallway while holding on to the baby.  I followed him as he continued down the hallway and into our daughter’s room.  Then he said “baba…baba…baba” and got on his knees and handed the baby to his sister.  Then she (as only a 2 year old could say), “thannnkk you brobber”.  It was a sight to behold!

Then, later in the afternoon after their naps I went to change out the diaper pail trash.  I got two bags out of Luke’s closet that are supposed to be “deodorizers”.  I put one on the floor in Luke’s room and then took the other to our daughter’s room to change out the bags.  By the time I came back to Luke’s room, I looked for the bag and it wasn’t where I left it!!  I looked all over his room, and then I looked at the diaper pail….and there was the bag, pushed down on the top part where you put diapers.  Luke was trying to help me out and put the bag in the only area he knew of to get it inside.  What a helper!

Late on that same day I lost Luke’s Sippy cup.  When he got up from his nap I looked and looked and it was nowhere to be found.  Well, I gave up and figured I’d find it sometime and got him a new cup.  It wasn’t until the following day around lunch when I emptied out the dishwasher and I found his cup.  Luke had put it in the bottom section between a plate and a pot, I guess he was trying to make sure it got clean…only problem was the juice cup was still full of juice/water when he put the cup in the wash!

He sure is a silly little guy, but he’s turning out to be a pretty good helper too!

The Potty Stool

Potty training and Luke…hhmmmm…where to start.  So we started trying to potty train Luke about a year ago, but in order to potty train Luke had to be able to reach the toilet.  After all he is WAY too big for a “potty chair”.  So I thought, surely I could find a stool that went with the toilet that would be good for Luke.

All the ones I saw were just regular stools or were built more like ladders.  There was no way that Luke could ever do any of those without lots of help.  So then I looked into “special needs” potty seats, and found that all of those offered Luke way TOO much support.  Luke has “needs” but not like many kids who may be wheelchair bound.

So…what was I to do?  Well I put it off for a while, then one day I was searching on Amazon and low and behold I found something wonderful!  The Potty Stool.  It has handles so Luke can hold on and step up, and the base is big enough there is actually room to safely turn around.  So I just bought a potty seat to go with it..and we were all set!!

Only problem is, Luke wasn’t ready.  I’ve been told over and over that “when their ready..their ready”.  So after trying a month, we stopped.  Then we waited about 6 months and tried again for a month.  Then stopped.  I plan to try again soon, so we’ll see. 

I understand waiting till their “ready”….but when your son is 4 years old and not trained…you begin to wonder.  If you’re interested in the “stool” below is the link to the product on Amazon. 

http://www.amazon.com/The-Potty-Stool-Toddler-Training/dp/B000MZKTU4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1332807959&sr=8-1

See ya later!

As I’ve shared before Luke has been opening and shutting doors of late.  Definitely his favorite pastime.  The other day he combined his favorite pastime with a new trick.  Of course he laughed as he did this, since Luke thinks everything is funny!

I caught him opening and shutting his sister’s door.  But when he opened I noticed something on his head!  A cowboy hat of all things!   It wasn’t a real one, by the way, but a plastic one from “Texas Roadhouse” that came with some steak seasoning and steak sauce that my husband got for Christmas.

The fact that he was wearing the hat was HUGE.  Not just that he put the hat on himself, but that he left it on….at least until he accidentally knocked it off…causing him to laugh.  Ever since Luke was a baby he hated having anything on his head whether it was a hat to keep him warm or to keep the sun out of his eyes…he would always throw it off.  He especially likes to throw his glasses.  But, in the last month or so he has been leaving his glasses on for as long as 2 hours and been putting on this cowboy hat and crawling around with it on.

You can check out his “hat” antics below. 

What was that?

So the other day I was sitting in the living room, I know….shocking that I’m not in the kitchen like I usually am with Luke does something, and I was busy doing something on the computer when the lights turned on.  It was just in my periphial vision, and before I could look the lights went off again…at first I thought the power must have had a surge or something…then I realized the computer and TV were fine….and so I looked to my right.  What do I find?

I found something that thrilled me and yet also had be perplexed.  There was Luke standing up against the wall.  Both hands were flat against the wall, and then I saw him reach for the light switch and on the lights went again!  I couldn’t believe it.  I think if anyone was watching I would have done one of those “double-take” kind of looks. 

My four year old son was standing with his hands braced on the wall and there was no walker and no person anywhere around.  I just couldn’t believe it!  Then I walked over to him and told him how proud I was of him and then I noticed how close the gate in the hallway was to where he was standing.  The gate was only 6 inches or so away. 

The only thing I could think of was that Luke must have stood up to the gate and cruised over to the wall and started playing with the light switch!  Crazy!  But ooohhhhh so great! 

I was able to get his little “stunt” on video so you can see what I mean.  After I did the video Luke must of gotten bored because he reached over with his right hand, grabbed a hold of the gate, cruised a couple steps till both hands were firmly on the gate, and then proceeded to lower himself down to the ground! 

I can’t tell you how great it was to see!  It was like watching a completely different kid do this little stunt.  Even if Luke gets himself into a situation like he did, by that I mean standing with his hands braced on the wall, he would normally cry or fuss until someone helped him get back down.  So the fact that he did all this and then got himself down without uttering any kind of cry was a miracle in itself.  Thank the Lord that Luke is getting so strong and confident!

Support Easter Seals!

We are gearing up for Walk With Me 2012.  If you didn't help out last year, or you didn't see the video of Luke.  Here is a video reminding us what all Easter Seals has done for our little man.  Enjoy!

Communication

With Luke this has become a BIG thing.  It’s one thing if your child can’t walk at the age of 4, but for him to also have limited communication skills also…that is totally different.  I know I’m not alone out there, but there are times…like last night where I felt so alone and frustrated.  Luke has been sick on and off since Dec 1, 2011.  We get over one thing and something else comes up.  We made two trips to the ER last week, and finally got an answer for his cough and fever, Bronchiolitis.  So we started breathing treatments which, thank the Lord, helped him tremendously.  His fever went down and his cough has grown better and better…and I thought we were on the road to recovery until last night.

After Luke was asleep for an hour, he started crying.  Sometimes he does this in his sleep or will cry for 5 minutes and go back to sleep.  First, I tried getting him up and holding him a while and then putting him back in bed…that didn’t work.  Then I tried getting him up, giving him Ibuprofen and holding him a while and putting him back in bed….that didn’t work.  Then I tried getting him up and holding him even longer…to let him calm down good….and that didn’t work.  Finally I got my pillow and blanket and crawled into bed with him…which kept him quiet…but he didn’t fall asleep.  After 40 minutes of getting poked, pulled, and pushed…I finally left his bed at 12:20am when he tried crawling over me to get to the “door/gate” of his bed…so he could play with it.  The good news was he only cried for about 5 minutes and was quiet and I assume went right to sleep.  It was still a long night….and still frustrating.

You remember those early days when having a baby?  How tired you are and when the baby doesn’t go to sleep and you are so tired you just start crying because your exhausted and you just don’t know what to do?  Yep…those fun days!  That is how it felt. 

Last week, when I was on the phone with a nurse and we were trying to get Luke’s temp down from 105.3, I was trying to explain how Luke can’t communicate and she said “kind of like having a baby”.  So right she was, it is like having a 4 year old baby. 

What do you do when a baby cries?  First you check their safety (any fingers pinched?), then you check the diaper (maybe change it just in case), then you try feeding them, and if all that fails you just try to rock and sooth them.  That is so much what it is like.  Only Luke is starting to communicate a little.

In fact I have to share how wonderful it was when a few weeks ago Luke came home from school and he started crying at me.  I know…that sounds silly.  But it wasn’t that he was crying, but what he was doing while he was crying.  I noticed that he put his feet in front of himself on the floor and started hitting his shoes.  So…I took off his shoes….and he still wasn’t happy…but after he hit his socks…I took those off too…and sure enough he just crawled off like nothing happened!  It may seem small…but it was so great!!  For a kid who doesn’t point and things he wants, he finally figured out that he could tell me what he wanted by touching his shoes!

Now this has become a daily thing….and I’m wondering if the braces he wears are starting to hurt him after he walks for so long….but I’m still glad he is telling me he wants his shoes off!