PT Appointment

We had the physical therapy appointment today and it went well. Ryan's physical therapist that saw him once a week for almost 10 months last year came and assessed his toe walking. The last few days he has not fallen but once or twice so all we could do was tell her when he started doing that and how much he was doing it. The good news is that his toe walking is really no big deal. She says that he stands flat, for instance, when playing at his train table and that most of the time he is up on his toes for a few seconds but then right back down. So he's up & down, up & down and not constantly on his toes. He also walks flat in shoes and when he runs, he never runs on his toes. To her, all this means it's not a heel cord issue (aka Achilles tendon), otherwise he would not (or it would hurt him)stand flat and walk correctly. It's not a sensory issue either because if it was, he'd be constantly on his toes, his tiptip toes, almost like in ballet because he wouldn't want any part of his foot touching the carpet/floor. She did say his ankles were still somewhat stiff/tight but it's always been like that. He may grow out of it or it might always be there but it doesn't bother him and doesn't limit his mobility. She suggested some stretches we can do after he wakes up, which is when he seems to be the stiffest (aren't we all!). When we go for walks, we can look for hills to climb and we can encourage him to walk UP his sliding board, both of these will help stretch the Achilles tendon. Since she didn't see him falling, there's not much she could tell us about that other than maybe it was a growth spurt he was going through. We still go to the Neurologist on August 25th, but with this appointment today I feel a lot better. Ryan had a fun time showing off for the PT and flirting with the Early Intervention counselor and gave them both hugs when they left.

A couple weeks ago Ryan was once again playing with our Cordless Sweeper and I was going nuts because I was afraid he was going to break something with the long handle. Another preemie mom told me that you could get a toy vacuum and it looks like the real thing so I checked it out. It's made by Dirt Devil and it's the cutest thing ever! Why hadn't I thought of that sooner? So I had to buy it and it came today. It has a handvac that you can take off & it even sounds like a vacuum, although thankfully much quieter. I felt like writing one of those Mastercard commercials: Toy Vacuum: $24.95, Hours of entertainment for your 2 year old: Priceless. Okay, so it wasn't hours today, but he did play with it for 50 minutes which for Ryan is a feat! Plus it was almost naptime and he was getting tired.