Let's Get Physical

Today was Lucas' physical therapy appointment. They observed him crawl, pull up, reach for things and roll over. In order to encourage him they had all kinds of toys and Cheerios. At first the physical therapist tried to give Lucas one cheerio at a time. Lucas picked up the lone cheerio, crawled over to her, put it back into her empty hand and crawled over to her hand that was filled with cheerios and grabbed him a whole handful!

I thought since he has started to do things like pull himself up and walk while holding our hands that we would be told that Lucas didn't need physical therapy after all. However, I learned that he needs to strengthen his shoulder muscles and his core stomach muscles. It isn't his lower body at all that is keeping him from crawling on his hands and knees like the other Doctors have thought. He pulls himself in the army crawl because he can't support his weight with his arms and can't hold his tummy off the floor.

While there is nothing necessarily wrong with the way he is developing giving him a "jump start" now might keep him from having delays later on. The same weaknesses keep him from cruising (walking while holding on to the furniture) because once he pulls himself to standing he props his body against whatever he is standing against. He is able to walk while we hold his hands because we are holding his upper body up and he doesn't have to fight gravity as much. The physical therapist were impressed with the way he gets around though. He has figured out ways to get around his weaknesses and use his strengths to get around. Lucas is going to start going to physical therapy once or twice a week. He seemed to really enjoy it. To him he was just playing the whole time.

After Physical Therapy my Mom's group met me at my parents house (thanks Mom and Dad!!) and we all took our little babies swimming. We all had the best time! One of the Mom's gave Lucas her sons baby float because her son didn't like being in it and Lucas loved it! (Lucas is just 4 days younger then the little boy and about a month younger then the little girl!)

Curt also had Physical Therapy. He says his back doesn't hurt now the muscles are just tight. He is out of work until his doctor clears him. He has an appointment tomorrow for physical therapy and one with his doctor. We are hoping that he will be able to go back to work Thursday.