Leonid’s point about “attention to details and confidence in ABR” made me think. AND Yes, I am going to fine-tune my technique. It is a new phase of ABR for us nowadays mainly because of our Junegee being more mature and patient(3 years old!!). We are doing a lot more ABR manual exercises than we have done lately. But I have to admit that sometimes I would wonder how many percent of my ABR work is really effective. I have to read and read and make it better. Leonid’s blog postings are definitely interesting and motivating.
It is so great that we can now do manual exercises while Junegee sleeps. I wonder sometimes. Was it something that we should have tried long time ago? I don’t know. Maybe. Junegee is a boy now, not a baby. He is so much more stable than before. All those sleepless nights with multiple wake-ups and anxiety over his allergies… Having a baby brother also made him grow up so much. He is such a loving, sweet brother. I can’t believe sometimes that Junegee and I are having real conversations. He used to be a tiny & fragile baby that I was losing myself over… He still breaks out hives off and on. But we don’t freak out much and know how to deal with it. 3 years!! My goodness… Nowadays I am just focusing on putting as many hours of manual ABR in as possible. What we have done past 3 weeks is as much as we usually get done in 3~4 months. Dylan started this morning as well. I am feeling very good about this.
For the past two nights, we’ve changed up our nighttime schedule - Jiyeon is giving the baby a bath and nursing him earlier than before, and then when she’s done, I give Junegee to her, and I take the baby and put him down, while Jiyeon reads books to Junegee before he goes to sleep. While he’s falling asleep, Jiyeon starts doing manual, and then she continues to do it for quite some time after he’s fallen asleep. After she did it for the first time last night, she was so visibly happy that she’d gotten a good quality chunk of manual time in, something that we hadn’t done for quite some time, if at all. She also mentioned that after he’d fallen asleep, it was so easy to do the manual on him because he was like “a mannequin.” Anyway, we both hope that we can continue this routine, since it makes Jiyeon very happy that she can do the exercise, as well as, and most importantly, it gets Junegee the benefit of having more and more manual done for him.
Well, is it? Is it new beginning to go back to see our PT, Molly outside of Early Intervention? The answer is Yes, it is. We aged out of Early Intervention when Junegee had his 3rd birthday. It was nervous but hopeful time and school was the new and exciting possibility. And that was that. We tried and it didn’t work out. Now we are going back to see Molly at her center. I feel good about that. We have some catching up to do. It is funny to think it has been only 8 weeks since we saw her. It feels like ages ago.
There was an open house yesterday at the school that Junegee will be attending starting next Wednesday. He’s really excited about going to school (it is a public preschool program), and didn’t want to leave the open house yesterday.
Jiyeon and I are cautiously optimistic about how this will go. The program that he’s in is a mix of special needs (across the spectrum) and “normal” kids. The one thing that we’re not sure of is if any of the other kids have physical disabilities similar to Junegee, and it remains to be seen both if this will be the case, and either way, how included he’ll feel with the rest of the class given his condition and abilities.
In a rather unfortunately ironic twist, all the kids in the class were given a tote bag and assigned a cubby in the classroom, and as part of this, each kid was assigned a symbol that presumably corresponded to the first letter of the kid’s first name. So, what was Junegee’s? A jump rope, something that he’ll not be able to use anytime in the forseeable future.
The latest speculation from Jiyeon is that while we’re not seeing as much “progress” for Junegee as we had been, that perhaps this is because he’s growing, and what the ABR is doing for him is allowing to keep up with the growth spurt rather than having the growth itself contribute to any musculo-skeletal deformities that he has. So, on balance, we both agree that not getting worse is just as good as getting better, or at least that’s the best that can be expected at this point.
The other thing we noticed recently is that the width of our 3 month’s old chest is the same as Junegee’s, and Junegee just recently turned 3 years old. We can only speculate how long before Adam is bigger than Junegee, but we’re sure it will happen sooner than later. We shall see…
I just sent an email to the organizers of this, which according to their website:
With the help of community volunteers and companies, the design and construction of the first Miracle League complex was underway. The complex would include a custom-designed field with a cushioned rubberized surface to help prevent injuries, wheelchair accessible dugouts, and a completely flat surface to eliminate any barriers to wheelchair-bound or visually impaired players. The design also included three grass fields, which could be converted to the synthetic rubber surface as the league grew. In addition, accessible restrooms, a concession stand, and picnic pavilion were included in the design.
and
There were no programs for the Miracle League to copy. It was decided that:
- Every player bats once each inning
- All players are safe on the bases
- Every player scores a run before the inning is over (last one up gets a home run)
- Community children and volunteers serve as ‘buddies’ to assist the players
- Each team and each player wins every game
I’d really like to get something like this set up, and I’m starting now so that Junegee can have the opportunity to start playing baseball by the time he’s 5 or so. This could be a really amazing experience for everyone involved, and more than anything, I’m extremely excited to be able to give Junegee the opportunity to participate in team sports in general, and baseball in particular.
Thanks to Jerri for turning me on to this idea. It looks fantastic.
Here’s a video from a couple of days ago with Junegee swimming in our little pool in the back yard. Every day, he’s doing things that just months before, we wouldn’t have thought possible.
It’s amazing how a body can be changed.
