Thing 1, Thing 2

Sisters are doing it for themselves . . .

Hell's bells, I don't know where the time has gone. Mo specifically asked me to write about the results of constraint therapy for Hannah, and so I will, but first I'll give my excuses for why I am so very absent. I had meant to blog from Disneyland, but I was really in a lot of pain after oral surgery to extract a tooth and begin an implant process, so every time my kids were down and I could rest I didn't feel like getting on the computer. On the night before Thanksgiving, I slipped on ice carrying Hannah, two glass bowls and the school photos, all of which needed protecting and so I torqued my body in the air to not land on Hannah and thereby tore my hamstring.  When folks picked us up and dusted us off the baby wasn't even damp. I win! I really seriously injured myself though, so now when I get my kids down in the evening I need to lie down and try to elevate my hamstring/thigh above my heart to reduce swelling (not easy). So, I beg your pardon if I normally comment on your blog, or if I normally give you something to read, and I've been letting you down.  I look forward to things getting better in six to eight weeks.  Yeah.  Good times.


Hannah did three and a half weeks of constraint casting. The half week was added because I wanted someone professional to take the cast off, because my daughter is a smart cookie and if we do this again in six months I didn't want her to remember that I could take her cast off, I wanted it to be done by a therapist. We definitely see improvement in the use of her affected hand/arm. I would absolutely recommend this therapeutic approach. Hannah was upset but less so than I expected. I was a bit wound up for a while before the cast was put on because I thought she might cry for days and we would wimp out and give in and take it off. She really was fine at the outset, but she did have difficulty sleeping, and staying asleep, largely because the cast literally weighed ten percent of her tiny body weight. Those of you with bigger kids might not have this issue. My treating therapists have a child wear the cast and simply go about their daily lives, we didn't do the six hours of special OT that make up the basis of some programs in other parts of the country, so this was probably a lot easier. Hannah's biggest challenge was with eating, she simply would not use her right hand to put food in her mouth and she seemed indignant that she would be fed like a baby, but she did let us feed her. I was flexible about letting her use her binky more than we had, since I've been trying to reduce use and encourage more speech, but she foxed me by getting her day care minions to put her binky in her mouth. After a morning therapy session I dropped her at the day care and stayed to eat lunch with her so of course I fed her.  Her little friends gathered around us to monitor the mom in their midst. I kept the binky clipped to her shirt so she'd have to use her right hand to get her binky in her mouth. When she would try to do it the movement really exposed that supination is something that we really need to work on but she developed a work around. I saw her look at her two favorite boys, and say "binky" and they both leapt in and tried to be the one to get the binky first and get it in her mouth. Minions! At age two! She has since moved to the next up aged class and now is at the bottom of the pecking order, where the toddlers take her binky out of her mouth and say "binky in your pocket, Hannah!"

Results: extraordinary. the first week after removing the cast we were in Disneyland so I couldn't observe much in the way of the results because Hannah was not often in a place where she might pick up smaller items. I did buy some toys to encourage bilateral tasks - cookies in little plastic "jars" and things of that nature and we worked on those in the car. Now that we are home, I can see more of what she is doing with her affected hand. What is most noticeable is that she uses her hand much more automatically, or when necessary, she uses her hand to hold the thing she picked up first then picks up a second item with her good hand. She is much quicker to use her right hand to balance a cup or bottle, or hold a bowl of Cheetos while she feeds herself with her good hand.
 

Go Righty, go, get that foam number. 

Long time no blog

In the last two weeks since I managed to write a post I have:

• had Hannah's first constraint cast removed, after 3 1/2 weeks and having only cried when people asked me about it if they were people I knew and who loved me but I never once cried to a stranger (this pleases me to no end)
• tears may have come to my eyes when my daughter clubbed me with the cast in my sore jaw
• finished getting ready for the iconic family trip to Disneyland in the minivan, six family members and my best friend, who I think will now no longer travel with my whole brood.  I'm going with her.
• had a tooth extracted ( I think when body parts are taken from you you should get paid, not the other way round)
• had some other guys' squashed up sand like bone and a titanium implant placed in the hole described above, having been told going out of town with my decayed tooth holding a a bridge was "ticking time bomb"
• gone to Disneyland with my family and my best friend, who is a Disney expert and who makes every trip more fun, even when my jaw was throbbing and I'd periodically find not two but three different child applied stains on my clothing in all the usual suspect areas representing food and other fluids roughly equally (I just did the laundry) and I still had a fantastic time
• had two sick kids at Disney (you should buy stock in Kroger grape flavor children's ibuprofen - just a little tip from me to you)
• did not divorce my husband or at least send him packing for a most aggravating incident
• took some lovely pictures of my kids at the beach, which was one of my goals and which the children obviously loved, and which was the source of the friction that made me want to divorce my husband and I think I'll just stop with that there and throw in a little pixie dust

• after pulling in last night around 3:00 a.m. the garage door worked well enough to let my friend's car out and let us park the van.  We put the kids in the bed, came back to get stuff and found the garage door would not open or close.  Since I would access back of the van through the back, this presented some difficulty.  We were held captive but I did get a lift to the store from my husband's ex-wife, then I got a ride home with my groceries from a dear friend who lives hear me, and when I got home the job was nearly done, so only $175 later we are now allowed to leave the house using our own vehicles. 
• After the last two weeks, putting a turkey in oven sounds easy

She said it, she finally said it!

My favorite PT, the Angel of PT as we call him, taught Hannah to say "I do!"   We can say "who loves butter?!?"  "I do!" she says.  Who loves Mama?  Who loves doggie?  " I do, I do!"

Tonight, during our nighttime cuddles while I put her to sleep, when she gets all generally squirmy and excited at first because she has her Mama's undivided attention and then snuggles happily into the breasts of comfort and joy, I said "I love you" and she repeated it.  She really did it.  It sounds like "I yuvyou" and it made my heart melt.
I love you too, honey.

Occupational therapy - constraint casting at three weeks

Halloween part two

This seems like old news but I can't stand skipping the pictures so here we go. If you noticed the Belle dresses on the girls at their costume parade party at school from the post last week, you might notice a lot of glitter. Did I mention there was a lot of glitter? Glitter doesn't really stick very well to fabric, but it is really effective on baby skin. In the time it took me to hold Hannah through the magic show, I must have gotten three glitter chunks in my right eye. Hannah's binky was covered in glitter, which was probably made by melamine eating slaves in China, and is likely to affect Hannah's future girl children in some horrific way. I knew that day that three days later it was likely the dresses would have some unfortunate accident that would cause them to be ruined (I thought it might involve tomato soup on Halloween, after trick or treating). Rain made Claire willing to change her plan and wear the candy costumes from our last parade entry, and Hannah likes to copy Claire so we went to a party and then trick or treating in other costumes. And some glitter turned up in my eyebrow, again.

Lord Honey beat me in the hands free donut eating contest. Because I love you, I will let you see this picture of me in half a convict costume, thinking that the donut will distract you from the size of my rack in that polyester, horizontally striped shirt.

The girls collected buckets of candy in a short time, Lord Honey carrying Hannah through the rain to save my neck and back.  I'm glad that one is behind me, and the dresses are out in the can.  I only "lost" them, in case they ask.  Whew.  Hey, is that glitter in your eye or are you crying?

Tulip, Welcome to Holland. Holland, meet Tulip.

We'd had some trouble getting Rocky to hold still once we changed dates/handlers. Our OT had us working more on developing protective movements such as getting one's arms out in front or to the side as necessary, and that was beneficial work, but since Rocky stopped stopping consistently, we weren't getting as much work done with grasping objects. So, we switched to Tulip, and lo and behold, yet another cute young man showed up to volunteer as the side walker. See the results for yourself.

Boys! Tasty! He is all mine.

She knows all her colors!

I can move objects with my mind! Er, um, right hand.



The walk of triumph.



Look out Holland, we have some tromping through your flowers to do.  Heh.