A little piece of heaven

* I met with Nathan’s teacher yesterday. She is lovely and really wants what’s best for him. She suggested doing a 50/50 split – 50% of the day in a class with kids that are mobile and verbal, 50% in her class. She does the MOVE program and she has seen him make gains and believes he can continue to make gains and become more independent if we give her more time with him. I really trust her so I agreed to her plan.

* Nathan is taking steps and moving a Pony gait trainer!

* After our meeting, we returned to the class room and the aides told us that Nathan rolled from his back to his belly. Hoooray!!!

* Nathan’s teacher is going to take a class on using the Dynavox so she can also work with Nathan on the device. Communication is going to be a key aspect of Nathan’s next IEP (which is coming up real soon!).

* Nathan’s teacher is MOVE trained and she genuinely believes she can get him moving. Victoria, his ABM therapist, also believes that soon we’ll have to start chasing him around as he rolls or scoots on the floor all over our house. I can’t wait to see that day!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asyU0r5uf1U&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0]

He did this over and over again, showing off his newly acquired skill. He did this after the first ABM intensive in February and then stopped, so it’s nice to see him doing it again, and more consistently this time. We’re so proud of you Nathan! It was so cute, he kept turning to his side and then looking at us and smiling, like he was saying, look mommy, I can do it!

I think the reflex integration therapy with the cold laser, combined with Anat Baniel Method, combined with ABR, combined with rolfng, is freeing him from infant reflexes and old neural patterns, giving him new information about his body, and strengthening his body to allow him to move a little bit more. How far can this get him? I have no idea. But he seems more in tune with his body, more in control, and is finally doing little new things every couple of days. And the key for me is: SUSTAINABILITY. Everything we’re doing right now is 100% sustainable. Hooray!

You can read more about the reflex work with the cold laser on the Quantum Reflex Integration site. I hope to do a more extensive post about this soon.

* I know this will be shocking given how much I like to blab…but I’m running out of things to write about! Any ideas?

* Here are some posts that I have pending: house redecoration (final pictures), cord blood banking, infant reflexes, candida, rolfing, the ABR challenge. Any requests or ideas?

* Belle is having a hard time with her digestion. I think she might have reflux. She spits up a LOT, and seems very uncomfortable after she eats. It is kinda ruling her life – I can’t put her down much because of the discomfort and spit up. Plus I hate seeing her in pain. Any suggestions? I know of the natural supplements that I am giving Nathan, but would I take these myself and have them go through the breast milk, or would I have to give her supplements directly? I’m stumped – HELP!

* Tomorrow we start another ABM intensive. We’re doing them in “bursts” – 1 session / day for a week, 2 weeks off. During the off weeks, we have to put him on his back to give him a chance to “integrate” what he learned during the ABM intensives. The therapist is fairly close to us – only 20 min’s away, across from Universal Studios. Nathan’s been doing great rolling to his side after the last intensive, so I am looking forward to a new round!

* This week my goal is to finally program Nathan’s dynavox. Whatever I have to do to accomplish this, I will do it. We’ve had it for 2 months and I STILL haven’t had time to get it ready for him to use. It’s time that he started working on this every day!

* I am feeling a little better. Got some good rest this weekend, some antibiotics from the optometrist for the eye infection, and excedrin for the migraines. I still refuse to pump – I don’t want to risk losing Belle to the bottle – but at least I have some good tools to help me return to baseline. Plus I realized I’d forgotten to take my supplements several days in a row – not good for me! Every time I forget to take them, especially my 5HTP, things start getting wacky in my head!

* It’s quite possible that Nathan’s whiny-ness is related to the reflex integration work that we’re doing with the cold laser (thanks Sharon for pointing this out!!!). I’ll write about this during my “infant reflexes” post that I am planning on writing this week.

Okay, enough for now! Belle’s been asleep for 2 hours and I should’ve joined her long ago. We had a very nice, quiet weekend and it’s time to get rested and ready for a new week!