Won't eat it, Be it!

If she won't eat the fruit, at least she can experience it.
Here G sits in a papasan chair. I used to hate these chairs for myself but it has been the perfect chair to get G up off the floor without having her strapped into a positioning chair. And the fruit- it's her own sensory bucket. She loved it.

Showering at the airport?

Obviously, Grace did not tolerate her medicine and tube-fed formula on her trip home. Just before take-off as we taxied on the runway, Grace threw up all over her clothes. For Grace, throw up is like a baby's spit up: Formula in, formula out. So, it didn't smell much. She promptly fell asleep and so I didn't move her for the duration of the flight. Our connecting city was Phoenix and I had less than an hour to de-plane and board our next flight. I asked for a family bathroom and was directed to the one near Gate A24 or there about. I realized Grace's change of clothes were in a different bag with one of my other kids. So, I quickly went to the bathroom and looked around. This family bathroom was one room with the toilet, a sink, a bench and a shower (puzzled face here). Who needs a shower at an airport? I flagged down my son to bring me Grace's clothes and he then helped me. As it turns out, Grace also had one of the worst blowouts from her other end that she has ever had!!!! Yuck!!! So, thank goodness this bathroom has a shower! With a million papertowels and the shower hose, I was able to quickly clean her up and get her redressed for the last flight home. I thought someone flying through Phoenix might find the shower as helpful as I did that day.

Sticking around

As G is being upright more and more, I have had to come up with ideas for her toys. Often while playing, she'll hit things too hard or just enjoy knocking them to the ground. I stuck velcro on an old art table of my kids and put the other side of the velcro on the toy. Now G can play with the toy without the toy falling off the table. Simple. Yahoo! You can also notice the electric keyboard in the background. We had to connect the piano to the shelving unit but it is the perfect height for G when she is in her Kids Walk walker and it is very motivating for her.

Child Rite Chair

The Child Rite chair is a larger version of the Bumbo seat that came out several years ago.
It costs a lot more than the Bumbo seat because they are not mass-produced. But for my daughter, the Child Rite chair has helped immensely in giving her a way to sit, supported, on the floor. I don't get any money from the company but I am still giving the website address because I find the seat very useful. http://www.childrite.com/

Best book for special needs parenting

The best book I ever read in my journey of the special needs world was In Time and With Love, Caring for the Special Needs Baby by Marilyn Segal, PhD.
The title alone taught me so much. Our Grace is developing but at a rate so slow you might not notice the changes if you didn't care. I read the original version and a new version has been published recently.

Play Wall

One of my most genius ideas yet. Yes, I will toot my own horn on this because this play wall has saved me hundreds of early morning hours of sleep. When I built this play wall next to Grace's bed, she found something interesting to do for a few mintues to an hour or more in the early morning hours before calling for me to come get her out of bed.

Grace moved to a big girl- double bed when she was 2&1/2. A big girl bed doesn't have rails to hang toys from so I took her crib apart, turned one of the rail sides on end and stuck it between the bed and the wall. I needed to put the egg crate foam behind the crib rails to protect the wall. I used to rotate the toys occassionally but these are Grace's favorites and they keep her content the most. The weight of the bed pushed up against the wall keeps the rails perfectly straight and they don't move at all.

Magic Wand

My daughter's favorite toy. Many people call it a magic wand. We started calling it Grace's "up-down bar" and that name stuck. We use this to play "up-down" with hands, "row, row, row your boat," twisting, "wheels on the bus," and more. Grace also holds on to it when she is doing an activity that throws off her sense of balance. When she is holding the bar, she is "in control" of the motion. If she drops the bar or lets go of the bar with 1 hand, then the motion stops. When she picks the bar back up, the motion can go again, etc. For example, we try daily spins in a swivel chair. Grace is much more comfortable with this activity if she is holding the bar. It's like her steering wheel on the chair.