over halfway there

It is Sunday evening. We just wrapped up an almost 3 hour session of OT with Adam. An exhausted Shelby is already asleep in her crib. I can't say enough how proud I am of her...she is working incredibly hard through this constraint therapy. Tonight, she lifted the cup to her mouth by herself (with some initial help on the grasp). She is also lifting the spoon to her mouth, then lowering it to the table more deliberately. Instead of putting one of those videos up though, I want people to see this one because it is such an accurate depiction of her OT sessions.


She is listening to Adam's commands and you can see her trying to figure out how to get leftie to follow them. This is a slow laborious process and it is sometimes hard for me to watch her struggle through what seems like such a simple task. I've got to work on letting her problem-solve the mechanics of eating and drinking, rather than stepping in and helping her out when she is struggling. Shelby is lucky to have such a patient occupational therapist working with her and coaching us through this process. There are several other videos up from this afternoon. Check them out if you are interested.

On a sunny Sunday in February

We ventured to the park to let Harding practice his bike riding without training wheels. He took to it immediately--a sign we should have removed those wheels 6 months ago. I don't remember it being this easy when I learned to ride a bike (in 2nd grade).


After a few laps on the bike, we hit the playground. Shelby sure does love to swing. We're patching her eye a couple hours a day now too (same concept as the cast, but to strengthen her left eye).

Harding enjoyed climbing the giant tire tunnel and sliding down the fire poll.

Harding wrapped up the day at his friend Haven's bowling birthday party. Happy birthday sweet Haven!

And Shelby's day ended with OT and then a much-needed bath. She is still doing great with leftie, but she struggles with opening her left thumb, which makes grasping and releasing objects more difficult. I'm looking forward to seeing what her second week of constraint-induced therapy brings.

Randoms from this week

Shelby was sporting this hat when I picked her up from school yesterday.

They have started to have nightly snuggle time...Harding insists and Shelby seems to enjoy it.

Harding ready for his hibernation party at school today. He can't decide which teddy bear to take though....

CIT update

Shelby blows me away! Adam (our OT) is already adjusting his plan for week one because Shelby is progressing with leftie so quickly. She is over being mad about the cast and is figuring out how to use that left hand. Here is a great video of him working with her on grasping the spoon:
I'll do a more in-depth update later this week....and there are many more videos on our YouTube page if you are interested.

CIT here we go again

We're going to do another three+ weeks of contraint-induced therapy. The cast goes on today. I am excited because I know Shelby is at a critical point right now with leftie where she has a ton of potential to increase its use. Her left arm and shoulder have become much stronger since she began crawling in earnest last fall. I am apprehensive because she is going to hate having this cast put on and I don't like for her to be unhappy. Thinking about Shelby's round of CIT when she was six months old helps remind me how worthwhile this therapy will be though. Before she was casted two years ago, Shelby did not even realize she had a left arm. By the end of the three weeks, she was using leftie to put pacifiers in her mouth. Remember this amazing video:



Payoff like this makes the three difficult weeks so worthwhile, but this skill of using leftie to hold a paci disappeared after the cast came off (because she could more easily use rightie). If you remember from last year, we did constraint therapy a second time but it was a bit of a fiasco. Shelby's friends at school helped her pull the cast off and "free" her early on in the process, and she kept taking the cast off regularly after that. This time around we will do things differently. The cast will not be a bi-valve, so hopefully it will be impossible for houdini girl to remove. We are also drastically increasing her OT and PT schedules for the next three weeks. She will have OT seven days a week, starting tomorrow (sometimes twice a day) and PT two times a week. We are lucky to have an OT who is as excited as we are about CIT and that is willing to work so much with Shelby during this three weeks.

Our main goal here is function. Shelby knows leftie doesn't work like her right arm and hand and has started attempting to intentionally use leftie to help her hold objects, but she struggles a great deal with grasp and release and cannot use leftie to do anything with the object. We'd like to improve this, but are breaking this goal down into increments. For week one, we want Shelby to begin reaching with shoulder flexion (>90 degrees) and to move the shoulder without overcompensating with her trunk and chest. We'll keep you updated....CIT here we go again!