early intervention therapy:as part of luke's follow-up after his diagnosis of having an infantile stroke, the state of illinois offers to enroll luke in a therapy program called "early intervention." as part of this program, a team of four therapists (physical, occupational, speech/language/eating, developmental) came to our home last week to evaluate luke and see how he is doing in each of those areas. as part of the evaluation results, luke will be starting physical therapy once a week and occupational therapy once a month.
for the physical therapy he is showing some left side preference as he loves to lay on his left side and look towards his left verses looking and laying both directions equally. luke needs a little help with his overall mid-line alignment to make sure he is "centered." however, he did impress the therapists with his right and left arm/leg movement as well as how he performed when he was on his tummy (see below for how impressive he really is). since the stroke was on his left side, it is super important that he doesn't show any preference for his left side, so we're encouraged with how he moves his right side. this will be something we continue to watch as he grows.
for the occupational therapy, we need to make sure he is reaching all the fine motor skills developmental milestones (tracking objects, reaching for objects, etc). again, something we need to make sure he is doing equally on both sides. what's so fun about the occupational therapy is that our friend missy is going to be luke's therapist! luke is going to have so much fun with her and we are looking forward to seeing missy at least once a month.
now, here are some pictures from the last week or so of luke's life. he is one busy boy!
luke's official "one month" picture that we took on 11.6.09. we found these cool stickers from www.pickysticky.com to just put on a white onesie and document luke each month. stay tuned each month for months 2 through 12!
this is a bit of a "rewind" picture, but i had to post it. this is from luke's first pediatrician appointment with dr. t. on 10.14.09 (the day after he came home from the nicu). he looks super happy, doesn't he?!? :)
that blue "light saber" on his arm was something he wore for a very short time. as part of his nicu visit, he unfortunately received an IV burn on his right hand when his vein blew open while he was receiving some antibiotics. part of the treatment for that burn included putting some ointment on the burn every day. the hand doctors worried that luke might get the ointment in his mouth, so they created this little splint for him to wear so he couldn't get his hand to his mouth. let's just say we decided that the little guy couldn't wear it and just covered the wound site with gauze and tape instead. i mean, he'd been through enough without having to now wear a splint! however, it does make for a cool star wars reference!
luke continues to impress us during tummy time. watch for yourself and be impressed too! oh, and try to guess who plays the voice of "mr. catepillar."
luke showing off for his bug cheering crowd during tummy time.
and now, those same bugs are on his feet and wrists providing some rattle and crinkle entertainment (thanks gram)!
we went for a walk around the city on a warm sunday night in november (11.8.09)...
this was luke's first visit to wrigley field outside of the womb (and certainly not his last).
this was his actually his first visit back in mid-september.
luke got his picture taken by the brick that his mommy and daddy have on the sidewalk outside wrigley (can you see it to the right of his stroller?)
we stopped and got a coke slurpee for mommy - something she loved during her pregnancy! and now the straw color is officially blue! (back story: since we didn't know what we were having, every time i went to get a slurpee this summer, the color of the straw that i got for that slurpee would predict the sex of our baby - i.e. pink straw, we were having a girl; blue straw - a boy; green/yellow straw - still unknown. now we know it should have been a blue straw all along!)
luke and his friend grant started the green paci gang. they're just hanging out on the corner on a warm sunday night way past their bedtimes. rebels already!
luke meeting our friends, dave, courtney and sloane vanecek for the first time. we had such a great time catching up and introducing our little ones.
wow, after that busy week, luke shows us how tired he is. luke is great at giving us the "popeye" look every time he yawns. melt your heart funny!
