Summer Freedom

It has crossed my mind many times already this summer what was going on with Lu last summer...a lot and not much of it was good. We were afraid she was having seizures, she started hyperventilating, falling over from sitting, and she lost her remaining hand functioning.  She couldn't chew on her chewlery anymore or even get it up to her mouth, she was losing weight, and coughing and choking when she would agree to open her mouth to try and eat.  She was also falling asleep all of the time, especially at the table and I had to always have the iPad with us to play her music to wake her up and keep her awake, specifically, "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz would instantly perk her up and put a smile on her face.  I keep thinking about it because she is just doing so, so much better now! We have been trying to figure out the culprit of some daily crying, but that's common and comes and goes and we will figure it out...it's nothing compared to what we were worrying about last year at this time.

We just had three weeks off from therapy and while I always do miss our therapists because luckily they are all great ladies, I didn't miss having appointments all of the time and every day was all ours, we could do whatever we wanted, and/or whatever Lu's mood allowed. I discovered an amazing website, www.artfulparent.com that is just full of super fun ideas for doing all kinds of art with children. Besides the wealth of information, I especially love that the general mood of the site is one that supports very open-ended art, so there is no cookie-cutter end result that generally is boring, and often not all that possible for Lu to complete.  Most of the projects I have looked at are all things that Lu could enjoy with minimal adaptations.  Here is the first activity we tried:

These beautiful works of art were made on watercolor paper with shaving cream and food coloring! It was so much fun, and messy and creative, and Lu did it while in her stander so we were getting some pt in for the day too! Here is a link to this project:http://artfulparent.com/2014/06/shaving-cream-marbling-with-liquid-watercolors.html

We've been doing some swinging of course! 

And playing Mr. Potato Heads! I helped Lu take this picture with my phone and she was tickled with herself.  Her creation is the doctor! She has gotten more interested in choosing the parts using the pages I made for her Tobii. 

And, I found this little book at Ollie's for .99! In the back there was flash cards to cut out to practice matching the words with the pictures in the book because it is a "picture reader". We have read it a few times and so far Lu has correctly matched the words: tree, sun, house, stairs, and door with the pictures in the book!  We've been doing this activity while cuddling on the couch so it is a difficult position for her to make her usual head movements for yes and no, so I ask her to look at me when she sees which word she thinks matches.  I show her three choices, one at a time, until she looks at me.  When it is not her choice, she has even started closing her eyes so as not to look at me, but when it is her choice, she looks directly into my eyes.  So, we've been getting a little school work done here and there too.

And this last picture is of a travel-sized Hungry Hungry Hippos that I got at Kid to Kid over the weekend.  We haven't played it yet, but it have high hopes for the simple adaptation I added to it so she can easily hit the lever and gulped up the marbles! 

So, we have been doing some fun stuff.  Besides these things, there has been some bike riding, lots of picinic so and a TON of swimming! It's been a good summer so far!