Meet Mason!

Today was a fantastic day!  Today my new nephew was born!  Everyone meet Mason Scott born at 10:08 am this morning.  He weighed in at a healthy 8 lbs 1 oz and was 20 inches long.  He has a pretty decent amount of brown hair on his little head.  Grandma Jan has found one dimple in the right cheek but is still however searching for the one in the left cheek.

 

Jadon was not sure what to make of this tiny creature.  He pretty much could care less I think.  Every once in awhile he would come over to see if he was doing something and then he would go investigate something else. 

Therapy Thursday

It is Thursday so that means Jadon goes to therapy. He continues to do really well in therapy with his new OT, Ellen. She has such a huge bag of tricks that each week he gets to do something new. Today's session started out a little rough. I let him carry my truck keys in and he got really mad at me when I took them and put them in my purse. He kept bringing my purse back to me and then getting mad when I would not open it. Luckily Daddy showed up to watch and he started behaving. Funny how that works. Today he played with a big tub of beans and some super cute bean bag animals. Jadon and I played with the bean bag animals while she stretched out his arm. She always starts with that. I was hiding the animals behind a toy and in the beans and having them pop out. Jadon was laughing so hard he had a all laughing. Ellen said that Jadon has a really contagious laugh. Since he was having so much fun, he was totally distracted from the stretching so she managed to get some really long (in time) stretches done.

 Ellen also got some weight bearing done while we had the beans and the bean bag animals out.  She taught me how to do side sitting weight bearing with Jadon.  It seems so easy when there are three of us in the room with him.  One working with him and two more distracting or keeping him happy.  We are going to give it a shot. 

The next game they played involved large Easter eggs.  She gave him an egg to open and see what was inside.  Sometimes there were little animals.  Sometimes there were little planes or other vehicles.  He enjoyed this, and used Righty on his own without having to be reminded.  I was pretty proud. 

 Next up was Jadon's first round of electronic stimulation.  Two electrodes are attached to his forearm in an area that she hopes will stimulated wrist extension.  Something we are not seeing a lot of.  Since this was the first round she had to moved the electrodes a few times and change the pulse frequency and strength a couple of times.  Ideally you are supposed to see the area you are working with move in the same frequency as the machine.  However we really did not see much activity.  Ellen is going to work with the upper arm next week.  She did not really say much about the fact that we did not see much happening while he was hooked up to the e-stim.  I am telling myself to be patient and positive.  There is a part of me that panicked today when nothing happened.  He needs that wrist and hand to continue to get stronger!  Please add that to your prayers! 

 As usual Jadon was absolutely wiped out from therapy.  He works so hard and has been so good I just don't have the heart to wake him when we get home even though I know he will not nap at regular time if I let him sleep. Jacob and Shelby were home from school today so I gave him to his brother to snuggle while I made lunch.  Isn't that the most precious thing!?

 Jacob moved to lay down with him and Jadon woke up.  He continued to snuggle with his brother though.  You can tell by the smile on is face that he just loved it.  Jacob decided to pretend to be asleep while I was taking these pics for some reason.

 Jadon tries to pretend to sleep too.  Had to keep his eyes open just a little.

Until tomorrow......

"Each Day Comes, Bearing Its Own Gift, Untie The Ribbons"

Stories, Spiders, and Silliness

 Can you believe it!!??  Jadon STILL has the kinesio tape on his arm!  Woohoo!  I made Jadon use Righty to hold his yogurt cup during snack time.  We are all about making Righty do the work! 

 After snack we read "The Eensy Weensy Spider" and once again read "The Very Busy Spider".  They love  "The Very Busy Spider" because of all the animals in the story and the repetition.  After story time we of course had to sing the song "The Eensy Weensy Spider" and do the motions.  For art we made our own spider webs.  I gave them black paper and they drew their webs with chalk.  Jadon was not real into this activity.  I don't think he cared for the texture of the chalk.  He was more interested in rolling it around. 

 Kale really enjoyed this activity however..

 Trees were really fascinating today for some reason.

 We have decided Jadon should be a cowboy for Halloween.  Why?  Well....the kid pretty much lives in cowboy boots and now this vest.  In this picture he is wearing Kale's red boots he wore today.  Grandma Cindy found a cowboy hat.  We have a bandana, flannel shirt, and bolo tie so we are good to go!

 Tonight we took crock pot lasagna into Stanford to eat with Grandma Cindy while Shelby went to art lessons.  She has been taking art lessons with our friend, Julie, for a couple weeks now.  I will have to show you a picture of the first finished project when it gets finished. 

When we got back home we got out the exercise ball for therapy.  We used to use it a lot when Jadon was little but had gotten out of the habit.  Ellen suggested last week that we begin using it (yes, we are a little slow).  She said it is a good way to get him to bear weight on his arm.  She said this is very important because it stimulates bone growth.  Jadon loved the ball.  Hopefully we continue to have good sessions like the one tonight.

 Love that face!!

 Taking a break from therapy exercises to just have some bouncing fun.

Before I go I have to share a quote I saw today that I just love! 

Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. ~Elizabeth Stone

Until tomorrow......

Pumpkin Playdough?

It's Monday!  For the tot's that means new books on the book shelf and new table time toys.  I rotated a few other toys also.

On the tot table this week we have our new word box, two different sets of nesting/stacking cups,  color bears and cups to sort them into, and the Discovery Toys pegs w/board.  The pegs are also good for lacing so there are some laces in the jar with them.

 Jadon was so excited about the new things on the table he went straight to the table when he got up.  Did not even care about his milk tippy!

 Hmmm....what can I do with these?

They loved pouring and dumping the bears out of the cups.  We need to work on sorting by color.

This is my newest project

I am trying to work with Jadon on his vocabulary so I decided to create word cards for things we are talking about right now, basic things like shapes and colors, and the people in our world.   Here is an example of just a few.  I printed them on cardstock, glued them to notecards, then covered them with contact paper.  The Scotch laminator they sell at Walmart is definitely on my wish list!!  I plan to add to them frequently.  

Today we read these two books.  Jadon loves the "That's Not My....." series of board books from Usborne Books.  We have at least ten of them.  I thought I would get this one out since Halloween is coming up.  These books are great for teaching discriptive words.  They are touchy feely books and those are always a hit.  Another fun feature is that there is a mouse on each page that we like to find.  I highly recommend this series. Click here to find where to buy.

 Jadon skipped music time to look at "That's Not My Monster" by himself after I had read it to the whole group. 

 Our activity for the day was making some new playdough.  It was a group effort.  This was not just any playdough though.  It was pumpkin pie playdough.  I used food coloring to make it orange, and threw in some pumpkin pie spice to make it smell oh so good!!  Thanks to Chasing Cheerios for the pumpkin pie spice idea!

 Nothing better than playing with nice, warm, fresh playdough!!

 Jadon loves the playdough hammers (which are really wooden meat tenderizers I found on the spoon river drive for a nickel).

In case anyone wants it here is my homemade playdough recipe.  I don't remember the last time I bought playdough.  At therapy the first week Matt said that the therapist gave Jadon a choice between a jar of playdough and something else.  The therapist commented to Matt that she was surprised he did not choose  the playdough.  Matt told her he has never seen the jar that playdough comes in because I make ours.

Playdough Ingredients:
1 1/4 cups flour
3/4 salt
1 1/2 tsp. Alum
1 1/2 tbsp. vegetable oil
1 cup rapidly boiling water

Mix dry ingredients.  Combine oil with water, and add all at once.  Stir thoroughly, then knead until smooth as soon as it is cool enough to handle.

For a nice scent, try adding mint, lemon, or vanilla extract.  For fruity dough, mix in a packet of Kool-Aid powder (not the sugary kind) with either the flour or hot water.

When you add food coloring, try adding it to the boiling water before adding to the dry ingredients to make it easier to distribute evenly.

Until tomorrow......

"Each Days Comes, Bearing Its Own Gift, Untie The Ribbons"