Park Skills

I love taking Ellee to the park and can’t wait until Katie can do more than lay on a blanket. Every year I expect Ellee to have some sort of regression in her park skills but she never does, sometimes I think she even improves over the winter months.

So I don’t forget this is what I remember of the seasonal park skills for Ellee so far.

April-Oct 2011 (8m-14months): Ellee went from crawling in the wood chips at the beginning of the season to walking by the end. She had trouble managing slopes and would fall regularly on uneven ground.The adorable boy in the pictures is our friend Ben.

April-Oct 2012 (<2y - >2y): This was the hardest season for me. She wanted to do many things she wasn’t quite capable of doing. I had to spot her on stairs and in the door ways because she would get distracted and step backwards and fall. I remember choosing to let her fall a few times in ‘safe’ places so she would figure it out.  Notice I could only get pictures of her sitting!

April-Oct 2013 (<3y - >3y): The season of learning to climb. Ellee LOVES to climb. Her favorite structure is the rope spider webs. It took her about half the season to master it but by the end she would climb to the top and back down multiple times. I remember her little legs shaking from fatigue the first few attempts. My most used statement was “If you can climb up, you can climb down too”. She would get to the top and then hesitate to come down so I spent a lot of time pointing out the pathway to get down. I never once had to rescue her. Her second favorite structures are the rock walls. I spent a lot of time taping a foot or a hand and pointing out where to put it next.

April-Oct 2014 (<4y->4y): The season has just started but I think this will be the independent season. She climbed everything on the first visit without any help. My plan is to work on independent swinging and I think she might like hanging practice on the monkey bars.

 

 

 I had to add this one of Katie's first swing!

Exploring the World

Having Katie has taught me many things about childhood development. Basically the whole goal of raising a child is to get to the stage that they can explore their environment. The foundation of all their learning depends on the ability to explore and manipulate the world around them. Gross Motor: head control, sitting, crawling, walking, running, climbing, to explore the world and learn through movement. Fine Motor: stability, grip strength, hand control, hand-hand coordination, hand-eye coordination, etc to explore the world and learn through touch. Language: drinking, eating, sound, words, sentences to attach language to the world they explore. Toys help with this exploration, balls roll, blocks stack and fall, rattles make sound, drums make different sounds, things have texture, taste, weight, etc.

Many of the delays associated with Down syndrome are due to muscle weakness which results in a delay in the ability to explore the world and associate language with the world. Any surgeries or illnesses that significantly impact their health will further delay this exploring ability.

Therefore, I have become much attuned to all of Katie’s activities and her physical therapist is helping teach me how to teach her to explore the world.

We had a wonderful moment when Katie officially stepped out of her boundaries and began to purposefully explore the world around her! Katie, Ellee and I were outside enjoying the Spring sun. I laid Katie on a towel and gave her a few toys to play with while Ellee and I played on the play ground. I was watching Katie when she started looking around (not just focused on the toys I put in front of her) and she noticed some leaves and grass. Then she took a diving roll off of her belly onto her back and then another roll onto her belly again. Then she reached out and grabbed the leaves. She laid in the grass and mud for about 15 minutes playing with (exploring) everything she could reach.

I was so proud!

This seemingly insignificant event encompassed a culmination of tons of tiny developmental steps. Ability to see, awareness of the world around her, noticing something new, purposeful directional movement, head control, body control, rolling, reaching, grasping, grip strength, hand-eye coordination, new experiences, new textures, new sounds, Halleluiah!

This is only the beginning and I can’t wait to see all the wonderful things she will explore!

PT, Sitting Skills

Now that Katie has achieved rolling we have now moved on to practicing sitting skills. Below is a picture of what I was taught to do. Katie sits on the ground with her legs straight out. I sit behind her providing back support. I put a pillow at her stomach to provide front support and a foundation to play on. The goal is to get her looking around the room, using her hands, and experience the feeling of sitting up. When we first started she leaned back into me the whole time. Now she is leaning forward using her arms for support which exactly what we want to see. Next we need to get her to balance by herself in the middle. At the moment she can only do it for a few seconds but I am seeing improvement!

Seesaw Physics

I finally got bored with the up and down, up and down, up and down seesaw play. Fortunately, Ellee was happy to go along with Seesaw Physics fun. We had a grand time. These are only a fraction of the configurations we tried.