Goal Accomplished

Wade has a marvelous lack of fear which is a wonderful thing to behold in some ways, and a terrifying thing to behold in other ways. We always carry with us the knowledge that his absence of fear must of necessity make us more aware, more careful than we would otherwise need to be.  Therefore, we must be proactive in equipping him with the skills of survival.

This summer's survival techniques involved swimming.  And he did it!  He learned to swim!!!

And I still can't take my eyes off him for a minute.  He thinks he can do everything his brothers do.  Terrifying.

This and That

No more injections! Wade did not need the third set of injections….hurrah!
He will need to continue wearing the glove and will have periodic check-ups to make sure the scar tissue doesn't start to harden again.
He throws a ball over seven feet now (documented by the PT today) and continues to work on jumping.
Speech is coming slowly; he tries so hard that sometimes it can be quite funny. But every week I see improvement.
He is very proud to have jobs to do: setting the table, emptying trash, putting clothes away, climbing out of bed (with those flexible legs) and waking us all up in the morning.
Sometimes he even needs to multitask like the rest of us.

Teaching Wade to Jump

We've really been working on teaching Wade to jump. For a long time he refused to bend his knees. We've finally got him to bend them when he tries to jump. Watch how far he can get off the ground.

SEE WADE WORK

What is Wade doing now? Well, take a look.
Physical Therapy

• Climbing…climbing…climbing!
• Kicking a ball (which requires him to balance on one leg)
• Squatting to play (he has finally accomplished this very well)
• Walking up an incline
• Learning to jump
• Playing throw and catch
• Riding a scooter

Occupational Therapy

• Building block towers
• Poking pegs in holes and putting shapes on the pegs
• Using shape sorters (he loves doing this!)
• Learning to spoon feed himself
• Using a crayon to make vertical strokes
• Squeezing play dough

Speech Therapy

• Having lots and lots of story times
• Using flash cards for signing and making sounds
• Watching signing videos
• Having someone help him with Starfall on the computer
• Singing many songs with actions

He is certainly lagging the most in speech at this point. He had said some words earlier and then quit saying them. Now he's back to saying, "Mom" again and "Bye" and "Up". He waves his arms and tells us long stories which must be very funny because he has to stop and laugh every so often.

The Climber

These pics are a couple of months old. I'll try to post some more recent ones soon.

He's Walking!!

When Wade was about a year old, his PT told us how well he was doing and said she was going to have him walking by the time he was 18 months old. Well, he started walking unassisted at about 15 1/2 months! We are so pleased with him, although it sure has made it a lot harder keeping up with him. He is getting into everything. We have to keep the bathroom doors closed, the stairs blocked off, the stone hearth covered, the pantry closed, and he still manages to find all kinds of things & places to explore.

This first video was taken right around Christmas. He was still doing his "combat" crawl. He never did crawl with his tummy off the floor very much. About the same week he started crawling more with his tummy off the floor, he started walking unassisted.

The next video is of him walking. It seems so funny to be working in the office, hear something and look up to see Wade walking in to see what's happening.

Increased Mobility = New Stuff to Find

School Photos

Wade’s School Days

Speech:

Massaging cheeks (outside and inside) and lips

Providing a chewy tube and vibrating toys to bite on, making sure to motivate him to move his tongue from side to side (if he really isn't interested in biting on the chewy tube, dip it in Pixie Stick powder—yum, yum!)

Making all feeding times part of therapy by having him drinking from a short straw to encourage the correct backwards tongue movement and by spoon-feeding with a straight in-and-out movement to encourage him to close his lips to clear the spoon himself

Playing games with little animals and flashcards to help him learn to imitate sounds

Using sign language along with spoken words to help facilitate communication from early on

Trying to help him learn to blow his hierarchy horn

Fine Motor Skills:

Practicing picking up small objects—food especially, for example pulling cheerios off pipe cleaner

Practicing pulling pop-beads apart

Playing in a bucket of rice—feeling, dropping, throwing, eating (Oh, no! Quick, put his pacifier in!)

Playing with edible play dough (fun, fun, fun)

Learning to drink from a recessed-lid cup with handles

Gross Motor Skills:

Pushing to sit from a prone position

Practicing catching himself when he's pushed off-balance (we sometimes roll him on a ball to do this)

Walking along the couch while holding on (at this point we have to move his legs ourselves in order for him to do this)

Learning to crawl

Learning to crawl!

Learning to crawl!!!

(We had to laugh when we saw on one of his reports that he "crawls with maximum assistance". A better description would be that he crawls with maximum resistance! He thinks if he can roll to get somewhere, then why go to all the agony of crawling? But this past week he has finally started doing his version of a belly-crawl! Woo-hoo-hoo! We worked long and hard for that! It's difficult bending someone into an m, when he thinks he should be an l
or sometimes a u.)

 

Practicing walking

(He loves walking and would do it all day if he could. At first I walked with him on the treadmill to get him into the idea of bending his knees and putting one foot ahead of the other. I had to lift up on each side under his arms in order to get him to go. It was a great workout for Mommy—pant, pant. Gradually he has continued getting stronger and now can walk with support only on his forearms and hands.)

Massage:

We try to massage his limbs throughout the day when we are playing with and holding him in order to help all those little nerves wake up and make connections.

*Blessings to the team of dedicated therapists and service coordinator who help us in learning the language of Wade's schooling. They are beautiful people to us.

He Did It!!

Wade has been working hard with his therapists to learn how to go from a prone position to a sitting position.


Today when I went in to get him up from his nap, he was sitting up, just grinning away! That is the first time he has done it all on his own.


One more milestone down. Ninety-nine to go. We're having so much fun.

A Week in the Life of Wade

Monday: Wade goes to see his eye doctor.


Tuesday: Occupational Therapy in the morning. Upside of Downs support group meeting in the evening.


Wednesday: Physical Therapy


Thursday: Service Coordinator comes to visit


Friday: Speech Therapy

More photos

Wade with good friend, Ruth Ellen

With cousins Carolina Sue & Landon... Who taught my boys to smile?

Fun with water balloons

All she does is work, work, work...from sunup to sundown

Miss Susan gets the snooty face

The cheerful one

?????

More Therapy

Wade has physical therapy once a week with Susan. He's always happy to see her, but then she pushes him over and he cries. It's all part of his therapy to try to get him to use and strengthen the right muscles. But Susan is so full of songs and energy that he is soon cheerful again.

In July, Wade got a new occupational therapist who also comes once a week. Jesse brings a bag full of toys for Wade to reach for and even helps Wade eat snacks to work on his pincer grasp. Fun! Fun! Wade loves to eat.

Wade's service coordinator Karen comes once a month to coordinate Wade's treatments and to make sure he is not missing any essential elements of therapy.



Wade also gets speech therapy from Liz once a month.

Disappearing Act

I was working in the kitchen while Wade rolled happily around the living room, when suddenly I heard a distressed cry followed by a “thwoink, thwoink, thwoink”, then silence.

Upon going to search for Wade, I found an empty living room! After frantically looking up the stairs (totally illogical) and in the office, I finally found him---under the pie safe.




Every time he raised his head, it went "thwoink" on the bottom of the pie safe. Poor boy!
Then he had to endure a while longer while Mommy sat down and laughed hysterically and then went for the camera.
-- The Lady

Wade at 8 Months

Wade is now 8 months old and is doing very well in every way. He is doing most things at a slower pace than our other boys due to his mild muscle weakness which accompanies Down Syndrome. He learned to roll from his back to his tummy at 6 ½ months and just last week rolled from tummy to back once. When he’s on his tummy he pivots himself in a circle. He can sit propped on his little arms for a few moments. I had Randall take the picture while I sat to the side ready to catch him!

A friend loaned me her jumper swing and this has been a great aid in teaching him to use his feet and legs. He loves the swing and has learned to turn himself with his toes to find us. He still doesn’t jump with it, but loves when the boys help him bounce.
Just within the last 10 days he has finally really started grabbing toys. Before this, he would reach for them but only if he was really inspired. Still a very sociable character, he continues to think that the therapist’s face is much more interesting than any toys. Lately the OT has been bringing two students with her and he thinks that’s great. The more faces, the better!

He started eating solid foods at 5 months and has done much, much better at that than either of our other boys did. Now he thinks he’s a Big Person and wants to eat table food at every meal. He learned to drink from a cup at 7 months and now at 8 months is supposed to put the cup away and drink from a straw. Liz, the SLP (Speech,Language Pathologist), brought him a honey bear with rubber tubing for the straw. She hadn’t expected him to use it until he was a year old, but he took to it instantly and drinks from it at every meal.


Now for the very weird part: at 6 months old Wade started going mess in the big toilet and has been doing it ever since. No, this is not part of the therapy. It just happened accidentally. He grunts and I set him on the pot and he goes. Then I laugh hysterically and so does he! We’re enjoying it while it lasts—certainly saves on diapers and clean-up anyway. (This has been documented by the SPL and both grandmas who have all experienced the phenomenon.)

We are beginning to teach him sign language. Since he is predisposed to have language difficulties because of the Down Syndrome, teaching sign language along with spoken language is supposed to be a way to unlock the doors of language in his mind. So far we do the signs for eat, more, all done, drink, and, of course, potty!

And as we try to unlock the doors of language for Wade, we’re trying to stop the floodgates on Christopher whose main job is to make sure his parents stay humble (or maybe humiliated). He told an unsuspecting guest on Saturday that our two puppies were “nipped and tucked”. She gasped wildly and said, “Aren’t they a little young for that?” We blushingly explained that the puppies names were Nip and Tuck.

-- The Lady --

Wade & Amy Heatwole


Chris & Randall giving Wade a ride with the help of Wade's Bumbo.

Mama's big helpers