Merry Christmas to everyone!! My hubby and I just got done watching “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation”. It’s one of our little traditions to watch it on Christmas Eve. We also put 2 of Luke’s toys together for the elves:) He is sound asleep so Santa will be coming soon. We better get to bed too!
I hope you all have a great holiday!!!
The past couple days, I’ve been reminiscing about the winter wonderland-type Christmases I used to have as a kid in Upstate New York. It just wasn’t Christmas without cold weather and snow. The holiday lights always looked so magical, glowing underneath the snow covered branches.
Of course now as an adult, winters are more of a pain in the butt. I hate driving on icy roads, having to scrape car windows, and shovel the driveway. I wonder though if Luke is missing out on some wonderful experiences since we live in Florida. He got to see some snow last winter while we were in North Carolina for a few days, but he was just barely a year old. Some of my best memories as a kid were the hours of fun my sisters and I had playing in the snow. We would dig tunnels through the snow banks along our driveway, make snowmen and angels, build forts, and slide down the big, icy rocks in the woods behind our house (probably not the safest thing for us to do!).
Luke and I watched a winter episode of Caillou today. They went tobogganing and made maple toffee (we called it “wax on snow”). I’m actually craving snow, to eat!! Is that strange?
Someday in the near future, I would like to move north so Luke can experience seasons. It is supposed to be 75 and rainy here on Christmas! That just isn’t right! Maybe we will make our way back to North Carolina:)
I thought I would combine my posts to wrap up the past week or so. I’ve been slacking on my blog updates:(
Luke has met another “milestone”! He was in the living room a few days ago and was on his knees on the floor playing w/ his 2 favorite stuffed toys on the couch. I walked into the kitchen for literally 4 seconds. When I came back around to walk into the living room, I discovered Luke sitting up on the couch with his toys!! He climbed up on the couch all by himself! I was in complete shock, but so thrilled. He has done it a few times since then and has also managed to climb up into the glider rocker that is still in his bedroom. I love how he seems to do tons of new things all at once!
Well, our city this year has done a great job with offering holiday activities for the kids. Saturday, I actually got hubby out of bed and had us all dressed, fed and ready to go by 11:30am (that is early for us all to be out of the house together!). I had planned on us going to a beautiful state park that is about 20 minutes from our house. They were having a holiday event with vendors, craft projects for the kids, games, Santa, and lots of decorations. Starbucks was also giving out free peppermint hot chocolate, which I was really looking forward to. I was so excited to see how the park looked with all of the decorations up also.
The sky was looking pretty gray when we left our house, but I was hoping that the rain would hold off. Nope! It started pouring about 10 minutes after we left. By the time we got to the park, it was just miserable! We drove through the gate to the park and gave them our toy donation for Toys For Tots (the entrance fee was waived in lieu of a donation). There were still quite a few cars in the park and lots of people walking around, but they were all getting soaked! I saw one man trying to fold up a baby stroller and get it into his trunk and he was not having a good time. We decided we didn’t want to get wet and came home. It continued to rain all day.
There was another holiday parade and festival going on later that same day, but the weather was just not in the mood to cooperate. We didn’t even bother to venture out for that one since it was so gloomy, wet, and miserable.
I was really looking forward to having a fun weekend, but it didn’t work out for us. There are a few other things going on before Christmas, so hopefully we can make it to those without getting drenched!
Luke is doing so well with his DAFOs. I think they are helping him get some strength in the correct muscles already. Luke will now do some “finger walking” with us, which is so exciting! Today, I got his braces and sneakers on him and we walked out into the backyard. I had him walk through the grass to his little slide. He wanted to keep walking and said “gate”, so we walked around the house, to the gate on the front of the fence. We walked out into the front yard, then he said “mail”. He wanted to go check the mailbox:) Once we got there, he tried to keep walking down the street!! This boy was unstoppable today! I redirected him back towards the yard so we could go back through the gate and into the backyard. We were outside for a good 20 minutes walking around. He is still a little slow and his balance isn’t quite where it should be, but I’m so excited that he will walk with us now! He wasn’t able to do that just a couple weeks ago.
Luke is now also able to walk while holding onto two of his push toys that he got last year. Daddy modified the Little People push/ride-on firetruck since the handle was way too short for Luke. He added some PVC pipe to make a taller handle and zip tied a 5 lb weight to the bottom of it so Luke has more resistance when he is pushing it and he doesn’t fall down. He also has a wooden Melissa and Doug alligator push toy that he got last year that works great on the carpet. The handle on that one is also too short, so I think Daddy will try and modify that one too.
All and all, today was very satisfying for everyone:) I could tell that Luke was really excited and proud of himself for walking so far. He wanted to keep going and exploring. I’m hoping now that he knows how much is out there to see, he will keep working hard and be walking on his own in no time.
I’m hoping things look up for the rest of the week. Monday, Luke had his 2 year well visit with his pediatrician. He was supposed to get 3 vaccines, but I talked the doctor into only doing 2. He has been pretty flexible as far as the vaccine schedule is concerned. The rest of the appointment was the doctor basically lecturing me about how Luke is no longer a baby now that he is 2. He said that we have to start disciplining and taking away his “baby” things and habits. He also said that parents with children with “special needs” tend to baby their children longer and they end up not being productive members of society. I told him that it’s kind of hard for me, especially since 90% of the time, I have to carry Luke. I told him that I can’t just put him down in the middle of his parking lot and tell him to crawl or scoot into the building. It’s easy for a doctor to sit there and say these absurd things to a parent when they have never had to parent a child with “needs”. I hate using that term, because society automatically assumes that if you say your child has special needs, that they have some sort of mental or learning issue. Luke does not. If anything, I would be more inclined to say that he is handicapped at this point more than special needs. Ok, that was me going off on my tangent about special needs! The doctor just really rubbed me the wrong way with this whole discussion. I’m not sure if he was singling us out, or if he says the same thing to all first time parents of 2 year olds.
Today we had mommy & me class. There are only 2 more classes left in this session. The teacher gave us the registration information for the next session. All of the other kids will be able to move up to the “all by myself” class. That class is like an intro to preschool. The kids get to go for 2 hours by themselves, once a week. The teacher told us that Luke will not be able to go because he isn’t walking. There are 2 teachers doing the class with probably 7 other kids. I don’t see why one of them can’t assist Luke. I was told that we can re-do mommy and me again, but they moved it to Wednesday for the next session, which is the same day and time we do PT.
I’m just really frustrated because it seems like the world isn’t set up for children (or adults for that matter) who don’t fit inside the “normal” box. I don’t think it’s fair for Luke to be left behind. What if, God forbid, he isn’t walking in time for Kindergarten? Would he not be able to attend the “normal” classroom? It makes me so angry and sad at the same time to think that he is missing out on things. He is a very smart and happy boy otherwise.
