Adjusting to AFOs SMOs and thumb splints

Karsen's new thumb splint came in about a week ago, finally. It's exactly what he needed. The small ones they were putting him in before, the mckie thumb splint, was not enough support for him. This new one he has, a benik, has thermaplastic stay that gives him much more support. He has never seemed to mind me putting on his thumb splints, which I am thankful for. We use is mostly when he is practicing cruising, walking, weight shifting bench sitting, all the big muscle group stuff. When is comes to fine motor we don't wear the thumb splint. I want him to be able to feel all sensation in his affected hand and the thumb splint obviously covers some of his hand up. So I think we have a good routine going. 

Karsen has now decided he doesn't like me putting on his AFO and SMO. It does take me a bit, not as long as first timers, but probably longer than he would like. It has seemed lately that Karsen doesn't care for them much. He's fine if he's distracted by toys, and walking but the minute he has a second to look at his feet he remembers that they are on. We are hoping that he wont always need an SMO. Once he has got walking down then hopefully he will stop pronating his right foot so much. He is growing so fast, his PT thinks his AFO and SMO will only fit him for another month or so. Geez! (When I've read other blogs I've always tried to do the math of what age their baby/child is at when they talk about milestones, so I'll plug that in for you. ;-) ) Karsen will be 17 months on the 23rd. Where did the time go? Obviously most typical babies are 17 months, walk, say a few words (or if you're our oldest Karter you say a lot of words, I have no clue where he got that from ;-) ), eating like a champ and drinking from pretty much anything. So, as you can see, all around, we have some lag and that's ok. We are working at Karsen's pace here, after all it is his life. I don't want to rush him to do anything he isn't ready to do. 

No, he isn't walking yet and I don't anticipate that happening soon. As far as new milestones he hasn't hit any in a while since everything that is next, like walking, cruising, pulling up to standing, getting back down to sitting, are all very big things so it's going to take him a while. I am ok with that. In fact, I'm thankful he really wants to be balance before he starts walking, the last thing we need is another trip to the ER. He can butt scoot like a champ and can get around almost anything now. He isn't crawling, but he's way more comfortable with tummy time and getting out of it and into it. 

We have been focusing a lot of food therapy lately. Trying different textures, encouraging him to self feed, and of course drinking out of a straw. He still doesn't have chewing down at all, so that makes the list of food very limited for him. I have, however, found that he likes corn, which he can self feed. He also likes cottage cheese mixed with apple sauce. He's almost done with bottles. Yesterday he didn't have one at all, he's got the sippy cup down! I'm very proud of how far he has come and can see the light of full self feeding but the light is far. His eating therapist reminded me, "not every time he eats is a therapy session, give him a break." Oh boy did I need to hear that. 

We are still patching his eye. If you missed on what's going with his eye, here's quick update. His right eye drifts inward which is officially called a strabismus. Its when the muscles in the eye are weak, therefore causing it to wander in other directions rather than straight. So, to help strengthen the muscles in his right eye, we eye patch his left eye for an hour every day. He does pretty good with it, doesn't complain much when I put it on, taking it off is another story. We have an appointment in January to see if the eye patch is enough or if he'll need surgery but his ophthalmologist is confident that patching him will be enough. 

He's been trying to communicate with us much more now. He waves all the time now, if you tell him "nite nite" or "hi" his whole arm will get going sometimes. He started reaching for his milk and grunting at us the other night during dinner, simple I know but huge for him to make the connection. One day we will have words. I've found, from my support group, that a lot of people have their little ones in speech therapy at 12 months of age. I don't see how they could help Karsen at the point he's at right now. Not that they wouldn't help him, I just think anything they could do for him at this point I can do. I don't need to throw in another weekly therapy appointment. At what point do you decide that the amount of therapy they are in is too much or not enough. It's a hard line to walk. There are some weeks I think that we could do maybe one more PT visit a week, and she would let us if we could, in fact his PT is always trying to see us right after his OT on Tuesdays. But at some point you need to let a kid be a kid. 

We are coming up on Christmas break over here, which means no school for Karter and no therapy for Karsen. What the heck am I going to do with all that time?! And of course if I don't do enough of therapy at home myself I will have serious mommy guilt. So, I'm setting up a schedule for the next two weeks (this week we only have PT on Wednesday so I will be doing extra with Karsen while Karter is at school.) of times that I will be setting aside for hand play with Karsen, walking/bench sitting, and sensory play. Now the plus side? Karter loves the sensory play too. The hard part? making sure I'm dividing my attention up evenly. I'm going to hop on my pinterest and print out all those fun home schooling ideas that have just been sitting on my board and do a bunch of them. You know, the ones with the science experiments, and cute craft things with hand prints and thumb prints. We'll probably do a bird feeder or two since we have all the left overs from last time, plus I love seeing all the birds on our property. I know Karter is going to love it. So, that's my mission. Stay busy. Because if you know me, you know that me staying home with out a crazy schedule is going to make me go bonkers. :-) Any fun crafty, at home, kiddy fun ideas you have, spill 'em.

My silly boy. He was playing peek a boo with his beanie but couldn't get it back over when he was done.