In Which Connor Hits The Road

Today was one of those days that I really needed a clone of myself; Eden and Connor both had appointments at the very same time in different parts of Puyallup.  Here's where one of the major advantages to adopting an older kid comes into play, though: Eden was able to just walk to the library after her dental appointment and wait there for me and Connor to finish up at physical therapy.

Both appointments went really well; Eden didn't have any cavities and, though she got a bit lost on the way to the library, kept a cool head and in the end was able to make it there without too much trouble.  She's really maturing, and I'm very proud of how she handled the situation.

Connor had his third session with the adaptive car he's learning to use right now, and this time I was able to get some video!  He wasn't quite as enthusiastic about it as he was last week, perhaps because he had a couple of short seizures earlier in the day, but he still did some excellent driving.

Right now he's using a head switch because his sensory issues keep him from pressing and holding down a button long enough to get more than a foot or so, and he's also only working on going forward at the moment. We're going to muck around with things in the future, though, and see what else we can do to expand his horizons!  So without further ado, here's Connor going for a spin:

He's doing so incredibly well with the car that we'll be adding in some occupational therapy specifically to see how far we can take this.  This is the first time Connor has been able to consistently move himself independently ever, and it's a huge step for him developmentally.  I can't tell you how incredible it is to see him make his own decision about where and when he wants to move.

Mostly, as it turns out, he channels Ariel from The Little Mermaid.  He wants to go where the people are.  And once he gets to the people, he quits moving and is perfectly content to sit there and look at his hands.  If there's too much noise or activity, he also shuts down.  I suspect that will improve with time; right now even though the car isn't hard work physically, it's got to be pretty mentally exhausting.  As he gets used to the idea that he can get himself around and doesn't have to concentrate quite so hard, I suspect he'll be less sensitive to what's going on around him.

Even though it's difficult, he's obviously having a fantastic time with it, though.  He'll stop at intersections and carefully peer down the hallway to see what's going on before moving on down the corridor.  He waves to everyone once he gets close to them so they can all tell him what a great job he's doing.  And when we go to take him out of the car, he signs "more" and then frantically tries to push the button to run away from us!  It's pretty cute.

So hooray for Connor!  The eventual goal is for him to be able to move himself around independently with a similar vehicle at home.  I can't wait to see what the cats are going to think of this thing!

~Jess

In Which Connor Is Amazing!

Connor had a great day in therapy today!

Connor doesn't have school on Wednesdays, so those are his big outside therapy days.  Connor now has back-to-back PT and OT, which is pretty intense!  This is a schedule that would have completely exhausted him last year, but this year he hasn't had any trouble with it.  Other than a mild round of poutiness halfway through, he did really well.

He spent quite a bit of time on the swings today, which is always a favorite pastime.  We saw a couple of new things today while swinging, though, which were pretty exciting!  Connor was using one of the typical plastic bucket toddler-type swings, and it was suspended just low enough that his feet could rest on the ground.  He actually started using his feet to push himself around and make the swing go!  You could tell he was concentrating really hard to figure out how to deliberately straighten his knees out and push off to get the swing started, and then to pull his legs in so that his feet wouldn't brush against the ground.  He only did it a couple of times, but that's a great start.

The other exciting thing that happened was that Connor decided to hang on to the rope attached to the swing!  This is fairly rough stuff, and so it's some pretty good sensory input and normally we would have to force him to touch it.  This time he did it completely voluntarily!  He was wildly praised for it, of course, so hopefully we'll see some more of that.

I am so proud and excited at how far he's come just over the last few weeks.  The fact that he's learning to consciously bend and straighten his knees is a huge step towards standing on his own, and the strides that he's made in sensory work have been nothing short of amazing. 

I can't wait to see what my big boy will do next!

~Jess

In Which We All Do Some Learning

Connor had his first out-of-school occupational therapy session today, which went really well.  He actually allowed the OT to touch him a couple of times and everything, which is an absolutely amazing reception from this kid.  He did tell her several times that he didn't like her, and made sure to mention on multiple occasions that Daddy would not be making him do Such Horrible Things as we were making him do, but that's par for the course with this kid.  Anyway, I was very pleased with how things went, and the OT already has some great ideas for exercises we can add in to Connor's home therapy, which is great!

Jeremy's taking an Anatomy and Physiology class that started up yesterday; he's getting some prerequisites out of the way for the army's Physician's Assistant program.  He'd really like to pursue a career as an army PA, and I think the job would be a great fit for him!  He won't be able to apply for the program for another year, though, so he's going to go ahead and take all of the prerequisites now so he'll be ready when the time comes to turn in the application.

Jer isn't the only one who's been dabbling in intellectual activities around here!  In addition to fence building and taking Connor to school and OT and other such activities, I spent some time this week submitting poetry to various tiny literary journals.  I write a lot of the stuff (I've been writing it since I was five, actually) but I never do anything with it, so with Jer's encouragement I figured I'd send it out and see whether or not anyone wants to publish any of it.  It's interesting to note that while my blog has been described by various people on separate occasions as "relentlessly upbeat," my poetry is almost all horribly depressing.  I have absolutely no idea why this is, especially since I'm not horribly depressed when I write it.  It's like I've gotten stuck in that angsty teenage poetry phase (and believe me, I have whole volumes of extremely bad angsty poetry I wrote between the ages of 13-18 stored away in a box somewhere so you would think I would have gotten that out of my system), only now I can describe said horribly angsty things with better metaphors.  Most of the poems aren't even autobiographical, so I'm not quite sure how to explain that one, as apparently I really enjoy writing extremely depressing poetry about fictional people, none of whom deserve the horrible fates I condemn them to.  I may have a slight sadistic streak running through my veins somewhere. 

At any rate, they're fun to write, and it gives me an excuse to get out of the house once a week and sit around in a coffee shop drinking tea and eating one or more molasses cookies.  As if I really need an excuse for that.  Yum!

~Jess