Teddy Bear Clinic

The kids had some special activities planned for today.

They got to visit mommy at work (which was pretty fun to begin with), they got to bring their teddy bears, AND they got to bring their teddy bears in for a check-up! Rouge Valley Health System had a Teddy Bear Clinic!

I wasn't able to stay the whole time (because I was actually working) but they had about 10 stations for the kids to go and play and learn about what happens if their teddy bears have to go to the hospital.

They also got to collect stickers as they went along.

Nickolas started the day saying that he wanted his chair, so that was what we brought in. He soon nixed that idea, his wheelchair went in the corner of the room and he cruised around and wanted to see and touch, crawl and run (what he has been calling crawling really fast).

Nick's bear also came with his wheelchair, but left it behind really early in the morning too.

The teddy bears got arm bands, had their vital signs checked, by the "nurse" and also by the kids. Nick LOVED taking his bear's temperature (in the ear).

 They had a station of crafts, with the idea of making teddy bear feel better.

The Teddy bears - did I mention the kids renamed their teddy's Fred (Nick's bear) and Sally (Katheryn's bear). I have no idea where they came up with those names!
The teddy bears got blood work and IVs done.

It was very important to blow bubbles to distract the teddy's while blood was taken.

And of course a (latex free) bandaid at the end. (Almost as good as a sticker)

 Then it was time to look at surgery.
Nickolas is going to be the doctor and his bear was going to be the patient and go to sleep.

And Nickolas was very excited to be the doctor!

Katheryn didn't want anything to do with dressing up like a doctor... until she saw Nick was all dressed up!

 Sally didn't need to have surgery, but after some tests...

And some special tests

Can you guess what this is?

It's a MRI/CT "machine". They did have a little tiny one - you can see it in the picture above, but Sally and Fred were too big for that model.

Sally got a cast on her leg, that has to stay on for a week.
Look at those doctors orders! Maybe Katheryn will be a doctor!

The teddy's were discharged home to the care of their owners with a prescription for cuddles and sleep!

They were so excited for the whole time at the hospital!
Katheryn was literally skipping through the halls, and Nick made new friends during lunch time. I'm sure Kyle hadn't even left the parking lot when they were both passed out!

Nick's favorite part was dressing like the doctor and playing on the floor. Katheryn's favorite part was playing in the tube with her bear.
Mommy's favorite part was hearing the kids playing and Katheryn saying "I know which one is mommy's office" and being so excited about seeing their pictures up.

Cousin Play Date!

We had a cousin play date!

One castle, 8 princesses, a raised footstool and we have 4 kids playing together (at least long enough for the picture)

 

Nickolas and Madi are the same age, and are starting to play together more and more.

What is more fun than to play princess!

 

 

The 3 older kids are all around the same age, but Austin is still so little! But Nick got some boy-play-time in too.

 

He even shared his hat while they were playing with the mirror!

Cousins are great!
No one understands the craziness that is your family... better than your cousins!

 

It's wonderful watching that friendship develop.

We are going to camp! How Fun!

We got our confirmation!



 

We are all going to camp this summer!

Not only is it just camp. It is a fully accessible, family camp.

This is one camp where I won't have to worry about the 'how'. How can Nick participate? How can Nickolas participate when he isn't able to move the same way the other kids can?
No worries this year.
Accessible camping fun.



They even have an accessible tree house! How cool does that sound! And an accessible climbing wall! High ropes course! One thing that I have always wanted to try and thought would be fun for the kids is geocaching. But again the 'how' question comes up.

That is on top of swimming, arts and crafts, pottery, music, drama, life skills and sports such as sledge hockey, archery, wheelchair basketball, lacrosse, badminton, and a nature trail. I don't know how we will fit it all into 5 days!

Not only are there activities for kids, but there are time for parents as well. They actually have scheduled children activities so that parents can rest or do parent-only activities! Wow a vacation for mom and dad too!

I wanted to get some idea of what the camp actually looks like. So I googled some pictures. All of these pictures come from http://www.camps.ca/easter_seals_ontario.php

The high ropes course - I think that might be a bit too high for mommy!

 

A real tree house! Yes please!

 

And of course a camp fire.

 

I'm so excited! Only 5 months to go!

Standing up straight

It's all about standing today!

One of the that came out of the NDT classes was that Nickolas is leaning forward in his walker. And we don't want him to lean, we want him to stand up straight when he walks.

On my ever growing list of things to follow up on...

 Have the walker adjusted so that he stands farther up, so that he doesn't have to reach farther forward.
Luckily when we were at the bike fair yesterday we got Bill from Durham Medical to make the adjustments (no problem, he had all the tools there - AND he made the adjustments to Nick's wheelchair as well!)

So much better!

Nick is doing great standing up straight. His favorite thing to do is to balance against the couch, the tilt forward so he is standing all by himself!
7 seconds!

 Who knew that this doll house would have been so great at getting Nickolas standing, and playing together with his sister.

Katheryn of course is working on her balance as well!

Testing out some bikes

Grandview Children's Centre had a bike fair today.

The kids were very excited to go and buy some new bikes. We had to explain to them that we were not actually buying a bike, just looking.

We weren't really sure what it was that we were looking for.

Nickolas has really enjoyed riding a bicycle in physiotherapy.

 

 

The bike that he has been riding in PT was the right size, with some of the right features that he needed, but also had features the were not needed.

Some things that we felt were important were:

• direct drive - this makes it easier to Nick to pedal by using momentum and not working so hard to start to pedal, he can also go forwards and backwards without the brake
• pedal plates - he needs help to keep his feet on the pedals to be able to use
• seat - he needs a bigger base, not necessarily full trunk support
• parent handle - gives us a bit of help and control, and so we don't have to bend
• training wheels (instead of the large tricycle model he was riding in)
  

 

So that was where we were when we walked into the bike fair.
We looked at some of the adaptive tricycles, brought by Durham Medical but everything looked like it had more support than Nickolas needed. And of course they are significantly more expensive. So we kept looking.

And Nick liked this bike.

They had Bay Cycle Sports to help with modifications and pricing and ideas. Everyone was extremely helpful and eager to help

Nick really liked that this was a big-boy bike. He loved turning the wheel and wanted to get going.

We didn't buy anything, that wasn't really the point. This wasn't to buy, it was to look and see what was actually out there and what can be done.

To make some modifications to a bike

• direct drive seemed to be an easy fix and the Bay Cycle guy could modify it himself (hopefully) about $20
• pedal plate, we need something at the front and back. We tried just the front support and his feet kept slipping out and making him upset. So we need something that will hold his foot at the front and the back. Moulded plastic with velcro about $100
• a seat upgrade. Something that is wider so he is more stable. We don't want anything with full back and side support, but more stable than a regular bike seat. $30-$50
• seat belt. Bay Cycle said that because of liability issues they do not actually add seat belts, but that we could add something ourselves.
• Training wheels. If we are looking at a 2 wheel bike and not the larger tricycle then we need to have wider training wheels. It was suggested we look at fatwheels, which run about $180 + S/H, except that it looks like this company just ran out of business and these wheels aren't available (either ebay, amazon, or a google search). Amazon has wide training wheels for $12.75 though...

A larger bike with the handles reversed would also give us some more room to grow.
This red bike is 14" wheels, we tried him on a green bike but didn't get any pictures. The actual bikes cost about $130. But they said we didn't have to purchase the bike from them and Bay Cycle would still make modifications.

The approximate total for what we are looking at is probably $300 at it's least expensive and up to maybe $600 at the most expensive.

Nickolas was very excited to see the bikes, but once that excitement finished he was much more excited to race Katheryn around the room.

And crashing into her as well. The number of times we had to tell the kids "don't crash into each other!"

Katheryn enjoyed showing off her bike riding skills, and of course making us aware that she has outgrown her bike that we got for her last year.

So we are hoping to have some bike riding kids this spring and summer.
We just need to investigate for some funding to try to see how we can afford a bike for Nick.