"Wheat Field"

I think as Sammy is walking more we are noticing things more. He is walking about 80% of the time now. Though the past two days he has been a sick boy and has just crawled around crying when I have to put him down. He is locking his left leg while he is picking up his right leg to step forward. So while he does extend his knee nicely on his left side while walking, we just are concerned about the locking. Sometimes, I feel bad because we have to nit pick every thing with this poor kid. He is walking better with his brace on, however, he is so not fluid in the movements. And we are concerned that he is not able to feel his ankle/foot while he has it on. We didn't have therapy this week, because they were at a convention. I am anxious to see what Karen thinks on Tuesday. I am wondering if he wears his brace at night and for few hours a day would this be enough to see an improvement with the knee locking. Last Tuesday, I asked her about this and she felt like we should not be so concerned about the knee locking as it is just a sign that he is new to walking, and hopefully will correct itself. I just feel like he is doing it more this week. Which could be because he is sick or teething, blame everything on teeth right?

He has been really talking more and more lately. Sometimes it cracks me up to hear him say real words. My favorite new words this week are "Ew!" "Cookie" "Crash!". He sounds so cute when he is talking. He also has been coming up to me when he needs his diaper changed "U-ucky Poo-Poo" as he grabs his diaper. In other good news, he fed himself a bagel with out any prompting from us with his left hand! This is a first. He will always feed himself when we prompt him too, with his left hand. I was toasting bagels and look up to see him feeding himself with lefty. It made my day, because since he has been walking we have seen a decrease in fine motor skills. So, it is nice to see that they are coming back again.

Our new OT compared our brains to a wheat field. She said that if you drive over a wheat field once the wheat will spring back up. If you continue to drive over the wheat day after day, eventually the wheat doesn't pop back up, it makes a path and then will form a road. She then said that even if we are doing it for Sammy it will slowly make the "wheat" go down. I loved this analogy. Because, sometimes we have to do things for Sammy, guide his left side in the action. But even if we are doing it for him or prompting him to do it. It still will make a difference. So when I saw him feeding himself, small things like that make me see that we are on the right path. Slowly the "wheat" won't pop back up......or as quickly!