Roller coaster

You know you need to blog more often when you have go back and look at the last thing you talked about on the blog! It just seems like we are pretty boring doing the same things day in and day out. If "boring" makes you think "easy", you'd be wrong but we are thankful for "boring" anyway.

I realize that last week I posted that wonderful video of Asa walking in the gait trainer. Well, he hasn't done it since! He goes crazy when I put him in it now. What's that about?! Today when I dropped him off at school I asked that we start looking at getting a manual wheelchair for Asa. I'd love for him to walk as his main form of mobility but that just isn't happening fast, at least not as fast as either of us needs him too! He wants to be independent but bottom scooting isn't the way to go. And using the gait trainer takes ALL of his skills and is hard, like work not fun. I don't blame him for not wanting to use it all the time. Imagine walking with 10 lbs weights around your ankles while balancing a gallon of water on your head. It would be hard, even impossible, so you'd cut out alot of your walking!

At least that is one theory of why Asa is a screamer! He has the desire to go, do and be involved but not the skills he needs. And since he can't tell us what it is he is wanting we are left to guess. And if we let him cry then he pukes but if we give into him we are creating a bigger monster. Or maybe he is so exhausted from just being that he can't control his emotions. My mom says he just knows what he wants and knows how to get it. So until we give him the way to get it on his own or the words to use to tell us, he'll just scream and we'll just jump and guess. Good times!! We have made some small changes. We all use the same "no, screaming" message as soon as he starts screaming. I've been trying to get him to point or sign. This still needs a ton of work. Mostly I feel like we are failing. Yesterday he wanted me to walk him around. This is after we'd been doing that all morning. Picture me hunched over with him holding my hands and leading me around. So, to give my back a break I tried to set him up in the gait trainer. He completely lost it! It ended up with him nearly puking and then zonking out for his regrouping nap. So I don't know.

Boy that sounds really pathetic doesn't it! And yes, it is nerve racking to deal with this new stuff, BBUUUTT Asa is doing so well in so many other areas. He is eating up a storm! Did I tell you we have him on a diet?! Not really but since he is eating so much real food we are only using 3 cans of Pedisure instead of 4. And even though he isn't walking on his own, he has made great strides while you hold his hands. And yesterday moring he scooted into the kitchen and got into every low cabinet pulling out pot, pans, storage container, storage bags and anything else he could find. He even got into the dishwasher and pulled out the clean silverware! It was the most wonderful mess ever!

And we had some fun art projects once the big kids got in from school. Asa liked getting his hands painted and would lean in to smell Cade's hand. He is naked because he had paint everywhere! I wish I'd gotten a pic of that. I did get video. And yes, he is painting with a spoon and I do realize how this could confuse him since we try to get him to put the spoon in his mouth and then tell him "no" when it is covered in paint. He really never tried to put it in his mouth and only had it a second. He liked using his fingers better!!








Ok, I have 3 more pics but I tried to load them 3 times last night and twice this morning! Since I'm feeling like I want to throw the computer out the window, I better step away! Maybe I'll try them later.