Update, updates...
First off, Roa is off to Normandy Park Early Childhood Center three mornings a week in the Early Childhood Special Needs classroom with Miss Laurie. He LOVES school! He has 7 friends in his class and a group of wonderful teachers, therapists, and aides. We are greatly impressed with the staff at school. Pictures of Roa's days are sent home with notes, phones calls, and fun art projects. He is in Learning Heaven!
Besides the ECSE class, Roa is also continuing to attend the Tuesday evening Early Childhood Famiy Education class with Daddy. Miss Janet was happy to have Roa return to the group and he appreciates the special time with Dad!
On Tuesday mornings, Mom and Gunnar attend the Baby Class and Roa gets to go to Sib Care. Terri has been his aide during this time and has been wonderful. Another great morning at Normandy.
Once again, I need to get on my soapbox and say that Early Childhood Family Education is VERY wonderful and a great resource that more families should take advantage of in Minnesota. Typical to most of these extra programs, I think alot of the parents and children that could greatly benefit from the program do not attend ECFE. The guidance from educated staff about child development, songs/games/play activities for increased learning and bonding time with young ones is something so many parents need, especially in our country with so many developmentally delayed children, dropping test scores, and limited parent support in schools. Off the soapbox...
Roa continues to receive speech therapy, occupational therapy and music therapy at Functional Kids 3 afternoons per week. He attends Conductive Education on Thursday mornings and Saturdays. Physical Therapy at Courage Center will begin soon on Fridays. UGHHHH! Once again, we are off and running here in the land of CP!
Gunnar has adjusted well to the variety of places and appointments we attend. He loves the waiting room at Functional Kids with its toys and admiring staff and the vast space at Courage Center where he can run! Yes, run. Gunnar is at full speed now at 10 months of age. He is a crazy climber, loves emptying cupboards, climbing stairs, and kicking balls! Favorite activity for G-man? Riding on the back of the gait trainer with Big Brother Roa. There is alot of brotherly love and yelling when Roa gets off that school bus at the end of the morning!
Which leads to the bus.....
We have a love/hate relationship with the bus right now at the Thayer household. The King adores that bus! Is so excited to ride. However, we have had some issues with proper seating for him, a rude driver, and a tumble off the seat when school staff were taking from the bus resulting in a bump, scrape and bruise.
But, Roa loves it, so we will keep trying to make it work.
Other news....
Roa had an assessment for a wheelchair last week. We will be doing a trial with the Quickie Zippie Zone manual chair next week or so. That will help us with bus transport and be another mode of mobility for Roa in his varied environments. We decided to go with a manual chair instead of the stroller variety to give Roa some choice in where he goes and work on arm/hand skill.
Roa had a two week trial with the Dynavox Maestro communication system. It is quite a neat technological tool! However, it seems to be too much for Roa right now. We will stick to the iPad. Roa has lost some of his enthusiasm for his iPad. We have a buzzilion apps that gage from fine motor skills, communication, games, stories..... He likes Netflix and Youtube the best... :)
Julie at Functional Kids has been working at finding an app that works best to help Roa not only make choices, but gives him a voice in conversation with us and peers. Sounding Board has been the best thus for for Roa.
Thats all I got for now... AND here are a few fun pics from our little scholar!
Ta ta for now!
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