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Monday, August 26, 2013

Creative Therapies

Two years ago I blogged about Lucas being a "speech therapist in training." I wouldn't be surprised if he does end up on a career path involving therapy!

After Kayla's first couple of visits with the vision therapist Lucas put some imagination into some 'therapies' that he created at home.

On a side note: I think Kayla is going through the beginning stages of puberty. I know! But the emotions! Oh my goodness. The littlest things set her off. She does this fake/whine/cry sound thing when she's upset over something; which seems to happen more often than not. Lucas has become really in-tuned to her feelings and tries to cheer her up or do things to distract her. One time in the car she was upset about going home and was going on and on with this cry and Lucas asked us to put on the song "Call Me Maybe" because he knows she loves that song. And it worked. She stopped crying and started singing along. He uses music a lot when they're upstairs playing and she gets upset he'll put on a CD so she'll start dancing instead.

One day she was just having a bad day. Moody. Emotional. You name it. I was upset with her about something. We were both getting frustrated.

I finally took a time-out for myself. Then I gathered her up in my arms and made her lay down with me on the couch to just chill out. She rarely does this and resisted at first. I just kept trying to talk to her and asking her to use words to explain to me what was going on. She finally relaxed enough to just be there with me on the couch.

In the mean time Lucas said he was going to draw Kayla a picture because he wanted to cheer her up and make her happy. He brought this picture over to us and whispered to me that it was also a "therapy picture."

The animals at the bottom of the picture are sheep and he wanted Kayla to pick out which sheep was different. I guess since hearing us talk about her convergence insufficiency he wanted to see if he could help her eyes work together.

Several days later Lucas was concocting something in the front room. When he finally told us we could come see it he said it was a 'therapy game.'

You had to stand behind something and throw the bean bags over the first 3 boxes and get them to land in the middle of the set of boxes in the back. He was so proud of himself.


He told Kayla she had to stand behind his line and she couldn't go OVER the line. Kayla looked at his line and followed his direction of not going OVER it. She went AROUND it instead so she could be a little closer when she was throwing her bean bags.

I love to watch his creativity develop - because I have none myself!
 
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13 comments:

Steve Finnell said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Nichole Fisher said...

I think Lucas has found his calling - such creativity. It's wonderful how he takes it all in.

Micernice said...

Sooooo sweet!

Paula said...

You really have two amazing kids! I'm really fascinated about the vision therapy. My sister in law is an optometrist, and she has does a lot of vision therapy with kids, as well as with athletes to help them be better at catching the ball.

Sabrina Steyling said...

I definitely think some sort of therapist career is in his future - and it's terrific how much love there is inside him for his sister; Lucas is one very smart and very wonderful kid!

Anonymous said...

How amazing!!! Precious kids :) a good friend of mine has a five month old little boy who had Down syndrome, and his older brothers (ages 5 and 3) love to help out when the therapist comes to visit :)

Anonymous said...

God gave Lucas to you, Joe and Kayla. Lucas loves Kayla very very much! and he is smart and such a logical thinker and yes, he may just become a "therapist" thanks for sharing. Really touches your heart. love mom

ahoy.jenni said...

What a guy! I'll hire him!
I have been wondering if Matilda is also starting puberty, she gets pretty emotional lately.
Kayla could also be tired from starting school, doing the therapy...
I heard an interesting interview on the radio with an American guy who was a champion snowboarder and he had a terrible accident that left him brain damaged. Anyway, he has a brother with DS and he said since the accident he understands his brother with Ds so much more. Since his accident (the snowboarder) he finds everything is so much harder to do, he is so much slower etc and so he can empathize with his Ds brother more because he understands how much harder it is for him. Moral to my long winded story, I think we can forget how much harder things are for our kids. We throw them in to the neurotypical world and challenge them, But sometimes I think we need to acknowledge how much harder they need to work. More cuddle time on the lounge sounds good!

ckbrylliant said...

awesome! he should be proud of himself!

J said...

Love it. It is interesting that in your "Disability Envy" post you talked about Lucas seeing therapy as looking like 'fun' .
Looks like Lucas is creating his own fun doing therapy play !! And Kayla sounds happy to play along!
Go Lucas

Pressed Petals said...

love this in so many ways!

Jaimie said...

What an awesome kid!

Jaimie said...

What a cool kid!!