Truly my "Little Monkey"

Whenever I have a long absence on this blog, I feel tremendous guilt about the things I am not documenting. I literally have no memory - if something is not written down the kids will grow up and never know it happened. So in many ways I get panicked when a week or two goes by, because usually we are doing things Fun! and Exciting! that I want the kids to know about when they grow up.

What soothes me is the suspicion that thirty years from now they won't care a lick there were no entries for a week or two. I doubt Michael will say, "Damn you Mom! What did we do on June 22, 2009? That day is now lost FOREVER!!!"

Course, considering this blog may be three gazillion pages long by then, a gap might be viewed as a blessing in disguise. Perhaps Laurel will think, "Oh thank god Mom was having writer's block that week. I just don't think I could read another post about someone peeing on the carpet. Unless, of course, the peeing child is Michael. I just LOVE humiliating stories about my big brother."

At any rate, tonight I was going through my photos trying to recall what it is we did in the past few weeks when I came across some pics I took of one of Michael's OT sessions. He graduated to the Big Kid Room last month, something we are all pretty excited about. Michael and Laurel are excited because the room is bigger and has TONS of new things to do. Donna and I are excited because when we first started therapy, Michael couldn't handle ANY of the activities in this room sensory-wise. He was so defensive he simply pressed himself into the wall farthest away from us and screamed.

Now his proprioceptive system functions normally and we are working on strength. One way we do this is to have him "climb the hammocks." The ceiling of the room is draped with all these spandex-ish hammocks that stretch to the ground. Michael climbs into one and then has to climb from that one to the next, and the next, and the next. The hammocks are slick so it takes a lot of motor planning and strength to navigate them.

Using the stairs to get into the first one:


Collecting himself and heading for the red one:


Almost there:


He made it!


Then it is on to the next hammock and the next one...the goal being to reach the "rainbow" hammock:


And then he has to climb all the way down. Here he is on the lowest hammock spinning in a cocoon, something that would certainly make me vomit. Yeah, I'd say his proprioceptive system is working JUST FINE:


Laurel, meanwhile, gets to play in the ball pit. You wanna know what's better than a ball you can throw around? Why HUNDREDS of them of course!


Here are the kids taking turns swinging from a bar and landing in the ball pit:








You want to know how I know this is all working? A few months ago Michael couldn't hold onto a bar long enough to swing from one place to another. He'd literally fall within half a second. Now he can swing back and fourth SIX TIMES before deliberately letting go and falling into the balls.

Progress.