Bear Hunt!

Connor enjoyed his Toddler Treasures storytime today! Here he is touring the children's library. They have LED stars on the ceiling that twinkle, and he was fascinated by them. He's looking at them and using his home sign for "light" in this picture. It was pretty darn cute. I gave him a couple of choices in reading material for the week, and he picked out a book about bears to bring home, which was a lucky coincidence as the theme for Toddler Treasures was also bears. We read a couple of books about bears, played rhythm sticks along with the "Going On A Bear Hunt" song, and colored a bear picture with crayons, among other things. We made a definite commitment to come back next week, as Connor had a blast! He especially liked the part where we climbed up and down the tree once we'd seen the bear because you had to hit the rhythm sticks together really fast, which is apparently hilarious.

Later in the afternoon Connor accompanied me to our apartment complex's gym for a workout. I was a little nervous about it, as this was our first trial run together and I was afraid he'd get bored and start protesting at the top of his lungs after five minutes or so, at which time I would feel obligated to leave. I couldn't take his favorite toy, the Spin and Sing Alphabet Zoo, as I have no doubt that the "bloop bloop bloop" of the jellyfish would probably cause the other gym patrons to snap me to death with their towels.

Luckily my death was averted as I found an alternative toy to keep Connor busy. He has this yellow spiky worm toy-- one of the ones we bought for his sensory therapy. I'll try to take a picture of it later. Anyway, the way Connor plays with this toy is pretty simple. He picks it up, extends his arm, and drops it off his wheelchair tray, at which point I'm supposed to pick it back up again so he can pick it up and drop it off again. Well, the worm has a loop at the top of his head, probably so you can hang him from something, and I threaded Connor's shoulder harness through it.

I was able to spend an incredible half an hour on the treadmill while Connor attempted to get this thing off his tray. He tried pulling it. He tried sweeping it with his hand. He tried banging it on the tray to see if maybe it would go through. After about six or seven minutes of working at it one way, he'd stop and stare at his hand for a while. You just see the little wheels turning in there. Then he'd try a different way. He didn't yell once during that whole time and not a single fellow gym-goer tried to maul me with their towel.

As soon as I was finished working out, I unhooked the worm from Connor's shoulder harness. He immediately got very excited. "Want want want!" he signed, staring at it. I laid it carefully on his tray. Grinning from ear to ear, he immediately picked it up and dropped it off the side. Victory was his!

We'll go for round two tomorrow.

~Jess