Progress

It may not be much but it's progress nonetheless!

Keep working Gabers!

1 Day Down

Our cast saga continued on Tuesday when Gabriel went to get his cast changed. The pretty purple was replaced by a very clean white cast. To promote a different stretch Gabe's thumb was put in a different position. Albeit from tears when getting the first cast off (the cast saw is a little intimidating to a 16 month old) everything went well.

We hung out in the waiting room for awhile waiting for physical therapy to start. And as we waited, Gabe's little thumb wiggled it's way back in the cast. Because of Gabe's torticollus, his lack of use of his left hand/arm, and the fact that we're unsure exactly how much sensation Gabe has in his left arm the cast had to come immediately off. Poor Ms Danielle, and the first cast looked so nice.

We missed most of PT but Ms KC (Gabe's PT) helped Ms Danielle with the casting, so Gabe was able to spend time with her [smile]. But wouldn't you know it, we get home and are playing and Gabe wiggled his little thumb out again. Because Ms Danielle used a soft cast over the plaster I was able to unwrap the outer cast and soak the plaster off his arm myself. No quick trips out to CCCR West for us!

Thursday Ms Danielle put a 4th cast on Gabe, this time on his right arm. This 'restricter' cast is really pretty blue color (Matt likes it much more than the purple, hehe) and will be on for 1 week. During this week Gabe can't use his right hand; the hand he uses to eat, drink, move, play.

And while I anticipated it to be difficult, I didn't think the first 24 hours would be as insane as they have been. Gabe looks at his right hand and cries. He hits himself in his sleep with his right arm and wakes up crying. Gabe is completely miserable and it breaks my heart.

Gabriel refuses to do anything deliberate with his left hand, although we have made some progress during meals. He lets me put the spoon or fork in his left hand and guide it to his mouth. Not a lot of progress but we'll take it!

Ms Danielle said she could cut off his cast and make it into a removable one to help with bath time but that I'd have to make sure it stayed on all the rest of the time. After giving it a few seconds of thought, I decided we'd stick with it not being able to come off all week. Good thing too because with his gut wrentching and heart breaking sobs yesterday I would have cracked for sure.

Knowing this will only help him, and hopefully keep him away from a 3 week intensive therapy session when he turns 2, we'll keep working on it; moving lefty, using lefty and showing Gabe that lefty can work too!

I just hope the 'look at my cast and cry' sobs stop soon.

Gabe and his blue cast.

Randomness

Wow!! There has been no time to blog! And boy have I missed it. The millions of thoughts in my head get extraordinarily convoluted when I don't put them on paper (err... computer).

Alas, time is still not my friend so I'll give you a shortened version of our life:

• Flu - Matt had the flu about 3 weeks ago, then Gabe caught it and then I caught it. And now I have it again. I'm fine as long as I don't eat or drink [smile] anything but water, Gatorade and 7up. Chocolate milk and mashed potatoes were the poor choices I made today.
• Casts - Cast #2 (and #3) didn't work very well thanks to Gabe's wiggly fingers so we've moved to the right arm restricter cast. More about Gabe and his casts tomorrow.
• Bible Reading - I am on Day 14 of Bossing my Heart to read my Bible daily... and I've only missed 2 days, one of which was a catch up day. So, technically I've only missed one, and while I failed early in the 'every day' aspect, I'm still impressed that I haven't stopped.
• Adoption - Why does it take so long to fill out the profiles. They're about us, it shouldn't be so hard to answer questions. Alas, it is but they're going out in the mail tomorrow so we have another thing checked off our tremendously long list.
• Feelings - Another reason I've stayed away from blogging is because I've been disappointed and had my feelings hurt by some friends that I had assumed would be for me no matter what happened. Evidently I was wrong and I'm working on processing my feelings. I didn't really want to blog about it but as it's still out there (or in there) bothering me and keeping me from blogging about other stuff I figured I'd throw it out there.
• Kitchen - during the summer our sewer line broke resulting in a wall being removed in both our kitchen and bathroom. This of course happened the week Matt started going to summer school 4 nights a week and with our crazy, busy (albeit beautiful) life it is now done! The wall looks perfect and I love the new green I picked out. I tried to get a good picture of my kitchen but it's a bit on the tiny side and I couldn't get a good picture to show off the lovely green color.
• Kindle - I recieved a Kindle for Christmas and it is fantastic! I love it!!! The Kindle fits perfectly in my diaper bag, is easy to read and best of all, Amazon has a ton of free books. I love just about anything that is free!! However, I've started reading(rereading) the Chronicles of Narnia and do love the feel of a book in my hands!

Well, that's a quick catch up on life!! Hoping the new year has left you blessed, refreshed and thankful!

I remembered!!!!

I finally remembered (read remembered and had the time) to change the music at the bottom of my blog. So feel free to not mute your speakers the second you hear Shirley Temple singing "I want a hippopotmous for Christmas." Although for Megan I almost left that song playing since I know how much she loves it!!

Some of these songs are old favorites while others are new songs that seem to speak to my heart when I hear them. And one of them, just makes me smile! Because who doesn't love themselves some Jack Johnson!