Saturday, March 30, 2013

New Desk

Last month Nate started seeing some new therapists.  They felt like he needed to spend less time laying on his tummy and more time sitting upright with proper posture.  So they whipped up this snazzy custom desk out of tri-wall and contact paper, and ta-da!  Nate will now sit for more than five minutes at a time.





Thursday, March 28, 2013

Hulk Pants

 Nate's lack of muscle makes him very bendy.  While this is great for acrobatic displays and general shock value, it is not so great for joint integrity and correct muscle development.  


Enter "hip huggers", or as we call them at our house, "Hulk Pants".  These are little shorts whose legs are sewn together so Nate can't randomly decide to do the splits anymore.  


They work really well but have the very unfortunate side effect of Nate having to wear something shiny and purple.  I know he doesn't care, but it makes me feel better to call them "Hulk Pants".  

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Yapper

Nate continues to delight us with his constant yapping.  Some recent gems:
  • "You have an orange arm."
  • "You have sprinkles on your face!" (he was talking about my freckles)
  • "Potty makes you happy.  Diaper makes you sad."
  • "Are you gonna get baptized, Nate?"   "Yeah, at the baptized store!!"
  • "What are you gonna do for you birthday?"   "Get three!!!"
  • "Iron Man doesn't wear a bra." (don't ask)
And things he says all day, every day...

"Let's do it to it!"
"That so crazy!"
"That's too silly."
"That's a really cool ______." (car, banana, shirt, etc.)
"Geez, Louise!!"


Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Passenger Train

One day last month, Nate woke up from his nap and right away told me he wanted to go on a passenger train.  I found this to be a rather unusual and specific request for barely having his eyes open, but it sounded like a good time and my mom said she could come with us so we decided to give it a shot. 

We took Caltrain from Mountain View to San Carlos and back again.  Nate was so excited waiting for the train to come at the station.  He just kept saying, "Why's it not here yet?!"  As the train pulled in, he got this look of pure astonishment on his face, dropped his jaw, and said "Woooooooooah.  Wooooooooooooooah."

Initially I had planned to only go as far as Palo Alto so we could have somewhere nice to walk around for awhile before we headed back but he was adamant that he was not ready to get off so soon.  I think he'd have gone all the way to San Francisco if we'd let him. 

Some things we heard during and after the ride:

The passenger train was fun!
I love this train!
This is not a freight train.
It's a conductor!  He talked to me.
It's going too slow! (He did not care for the stops we had to make).
This train is so fast!
I like train rides.



Scott was jealous of all the fun so we went again that Saturday.  Nate talked about the train every day for weeks.  It makes me so happy to see him enjoying life and having new experiences.  I think every parent feels that way but there is something very meaningful to me about Nate being able to do things like this in spite of his challenges.  He's still just a regular little boy who loves passenger trains.

Monday, March 25, 2013

Graduation Day


Nate graduated from his Early Start program today.  He made this little hat for his final project with Teacher Feng.  It is exciting that he is turning three and moving on, but we are going to miss Feng a lot!  She has been such a big part of Nate's life for the last year and a half.

Next week Nate will start a new program at Covington School.  He'll go just twice a week for an hour, but there will be a few other kids in his class now.  Our little bug is growing up (he even told me the other day he is not a little bug anymore, he is a big bug).