Finally William has a chair!! Yippee! It's brilliant and I am very pleased to say that he likes it too! He's managing about 20-30 minutes in it at a time at the moment, he has had a few times when it's been longer but we are slowly easing him into it. I've been trying to get him to eat his lunch in it but he is struggling with that as he is so upright and it just spills out of his mouth and then he just gets cross and refuses to open his mouth! Think I would get cross if my lunch was just dribbling down my face though!
So hopefully if he manages to tolerate the chair for the next month or so then the lovely people at Chailey will make him another one which can go onto a buggy/wheelchair base so he can go out in it and take it to nursery with him. That'll make a huge difference to how he can get involved with the other children as he can then hopefully join in with the activities they're doing - painting etc etc!
On the subject of nursery, his mainstream nursery seems to be going really well and William is loving it there which is just brilliant news. They are going to slowly transition him into the next room up- he's still in the baby room at the moment so the worry is that he is getting bored there. My only worry is that the noise in there might upset him but if it's a slow transition then he will soon get used to it and they're so good there I have no doubts that they would soon take him out if he did get distressed.
William has been very clever recently, I've been teaching him to knock over a tower of cups when he is side lying during his brainwave therapy and last week he managed to do it himself. It was a very slow process for him and he was concentrating so hard that he was grinding his teeth and dribbling everywhere but very slowly he managed to move his arm over to the cups and slowly knock em over. We've been practicing every morning and he is managing it about 3 or 4 times in a row now. Don't get over excited by this news, it is brilliant but by no means is it easy for him, it's a massive effort for him and he finds it so hard but once he manages it he seems very pleased with himself!
He has progressed loads when lying in prone (on his front) over his wedge. When we first started the brainwave programme he would extend as soon as he was on his front and would banana right backwards. Now he can weight bear on his hands for a while and will keep his head down looking at a book or a toy for quite some time. When we first started I had to be behind him holding him but now he can balance much better so I can come to the side to play with some toys with him which is amazing. Still working on getting him to turn his head to the right as he is always turned to the left but that is also related to his loss of vision on the right hand side.
He has also been playing peek-a-boo with some silver paper and a sensory scarf, lying on his back and he will try very hard to bring it over his face, he still needs a it of help to start with but nice we've done it a few times he tries even harder and will bring his arms down most times to reveal himself!
Still not getting anywhere with standing frame issues, think everyone has forgotten about it to be honest so William is still not standing which isn't good for his hip development. Will have to kick up a fuss soon I expect.
I've just read a brilliant book about a mum whose little boy had cerebral palsy, I would recommend it to anyone who wants to get an insight into the lives of families like ours it is so true to life. It's called Blue Sky July but make sure you have some tissues ready as it is a very emotional read!
Don't forget to check out the website for all our events coming up - this week it's our charity auction with Ian Towning as our auctioneer (Ian is a dealer on ITVs Dickinsons Real Deal) and we also have live music from Terry Winstanley (X Factor) and Mick Short! Looks set to be an amazing evening!
