Will Walk for Marshmallows

Elias is getting better and better with taking steps on his own while wearing his prosthetic leg. Some days he walks a lot and other days he won't take a single step. On this particular day he was motivated to walk for marshmallows as his prize. (Sometimes I'm just really out of ideas on how to get him to do any practice. He's too smart and the old tricks just don't work anymore. So now I've just resorted to plain ol' bribes).

Easter

We had an awesome time with our dear friends the Crosses and their extended family on Easter. Elias had more candy that day than all his previous indulgences put together I think. Uh oh. Is this how candy obsession starts? Those darn little plastic Easter eggs!

Elias loved the Easter egg hunt, but he got a little confused halfway through and started putting his eggs back into the bushes. At which our friend's 3-year-old came tearing across the yard yelling, "He wants to shaaaare!" and promptly gathered up all his eggs from the bushes. He was having so much fun that he didn't care a bit! Since he has so many food allergies, I had a stash of eggs set aside for him anyway so that all his eggs' innards would be safe for him.

Interaction with 9-year-old girl

We got to know several patients and their families during our week at Shriner's Hospital last week. One girl was a sweet 9-year-old who has been there for quite some time. She was excited to meet some new friends so hung around us our first evening. After introductions were made, she stared at us for a while and then this conversation took place (think sweet little girl voice with hick accent) (yes- even people in NY can be hick)..

Girl: Is he adopted? (pointing to Elias)
Me: "Yes, he is."
Girl: (After thinking for a little bit) ...Well it's a good thing you didn't borned him, cause that sure would have hurt. Ouch!
Me: (Speechless)

Chase and I have had several good laughs over that. I think it'll be a good family jokes for years to come.

Prosthetic Boot Camp

We just returned from a week in Erie, PA at Shriners Hospital for Children (same hospital where Elias had his amputation) where Elias attended Prosthetic Boot Camp. It was an intense week, but our trooper made some good progress. The big area of focus was helping him gain confidence in balancing and using his prosthetic leg to stabilize. This was accomplished through 473 different creative activities that changed every few seconds, depending on the whims of a particular 2 year old. PTs have a tough job!

Here are a few video snapshots of Elias in his PT sessions.

Taking a few steps on his own: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=341495481036675220

Elias got a sweet new ride- a bright yellow walker. This one has 4 wheels, 2 that swivel, and he can get around easier and his gait is more smooth with it.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5346847603830448541

Riding on a scooter:http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6763446516257258038

Elias LOVES the game room at the hospital where we spent all our free time. I couldn't pry him away from the train table.

When Elias is concentrating on something, he can stand unassisted for quite a long time.

A Day in the Life of Elias Brown and His Mommy

I'm sorry we're so lame and haven't posted in so long. Actually I'm not even sure if anyone ever even reads this ol' blog anyway. Oh well, for what it's worth... here is a day in the life of Elias Brown and his mommy.

(Word of warning: This detailed and LONG post may only be interesting to the grandparents or perhaps those of you who have some pressing matter to take care of but are procrastinating by wasting time on the internet. If you're in one of these two categories, read on! Otherwise, no hurt feelings if you just skip this post and wait for the next one. ) :-)

7:40- Wake up time. Elias has been sleeping in more ever since the time change. I am ever-so-grateful for this as I am NOT a morning person. Being the mean mother that I am, I usually let him play in his crib for a few minutes when he wakes up so that I can at least get my clothes on, face washed, and coffee brewing. Chase was just getting ready to leave for work and heard Elias make a sound so he bounded up the stairs and into Elias' room so that he could have just a few minutes with him before work. I think this is incredibly sweet and kind of Chase. Only at that moment I was just sitting down with my hot cup of brew to read my Bible for a few minutes. Oh well.

7:45- Elias and I sit in his rocking chair for a few minutes and he squeezes his little arms around my neck and presses his face against mine. Squeezing is his new thing and I love it. (Except for when it's his oatmeal at breakfast time). We sing our "morning song" too many times to count and open the curtains and say hello to the outside and Audrey's house, our neighbor. We do these things every single morning.

7:55- We head to the bathroom to brush our teeth. Elias has a little electric toothbrush which he loves and will sit on the bathroom counter as long as I let him and dip his toothbrush in the water and back into his mouth again. I went to the potty and Elias told me "Mommy candy!" This week was a turning point when he went poop in the potty and now talks about potties and candy all the time. I was glad that he thought I should get rewarded too.

8:00- we head downstairs and fiddle around, Elias plays with trucks while I get trudge around downstairs with coffee in hand. We always just hang out for a while in the morning because Elias is on medication that prevents him from eating for one hour after taking it. He takes it as soon as he wakes up so we have to wait an hour before breakfast time.

8:25 Elias tells me he wants to poop in the potty, but alas, he really means he already pooped in his diaper. Although he asks repeatedly, he does not get rewarded with candy (fruit chews).

8:45 Elias poops again (this is his morning routine. I know- TMI) and this time I plop him in the tub for a quick bath. He LOVES his bath time and promptly asks for his cups, his favorite bath toys.

9:10- After his bath Elias loves to be wrapped up tight in a towel and held like a baby. We did this with him when we were with him in Ethiopia and he still asks for it to this day. I love that he lets us nuture him like that.

9:15- Finally we eat breakfast- grits. Oh... yeah... I love my grits. Actually corn grits are one of the few breakfast foods that Elias is not allergic to, and I have rekindled my love for this meal and eat it with him on many mornings with a slab of melting butter on top. Yum.

9:35 Clean up from breakfast and get Elias' leg on. This takes a little time because I'm still not very good at getting his leg on so that the foot is straight. He wears a suspension belt to help keep the leg on and that tends to twist the leg a bit so that his foot turns inward too much if we don't put the leg on just right.

9:45-10:45- PT! Danielle is our wonderful physical therapist who comes twice a week with lots of fun and strategic games to play with Elias. Danielle usually brings a basketball hoop to play with so now Elias equates Danielle with basketball. As soon as she walks in the door he yells "Baggyballlllll!" This morning Elias does two major things. 1- he puts his hands on a stool and then rises to standing all by himself. We've been working on this for several weeks so it was really exciting that he finally did it!. And 2- he took several steps all by himself across the floor! This was of course the highlight of the day. It was a LOT of work to get him to that point (PT with a rowdy 2-year-old is not easy) so Danielle and I were really pumped about this. And of course at the end of the session we played basketball for a while. Elias stands on his own with no support and tries to make baskets. He can stand unassisted for quite a long time as long as he is distracted.

11:00- Danielle is gone and Elias is hyper so I let him walk outside for a little bit. It has been warm enough one other day this year for Elias to walk outside, and now he asks to walk outside several times a day. Unfortunately we've had a lot of snow and cold weather lately, but finally the snow has melted and the temperature is creeping past the freezing mark.

11:10- Chase forgot his lunch so we get in the car and drive over to his office to drop it off. It's fun to see him for a few minutes. The sun is shining and I just cannot go back home, so I decide to go to a do-it-yourself car wash. Even though the sun is out, it's still in the 30's. A little too cold for car washing, but oh well- Elias had a great time watching me race around the car trying to wash it as fast as I can because I didn't have any more quarters to extend my time. I'm really a stickler about efficiency and after my 3 minutes was up I seriously stood for a while longer looking at the car wash machine and all the settings trying to plan how I could do it faster and better next time so that I could wash the whole car with only 8 quarters. I am such a nerd.

12:20- We get back home and eat lunch. I made my first Ethiopian food this week after watching my wonderful Eritrean friend show me how to do it step by step. It's really spicy but Elias loves it and wolfs it down.

1:00 - 4:00 Elias takes a nap and I work for a couple of hours. Then I prepare dinner (Chicken Parmesan) until he wakes up.

4:05- Elias is awake. We rock just a couple of minutes (again, the routine thing), put his leg on and get ready to head out the door.

4:30- We arrive at Chase's office and Chase and I do the ol' car switcharoo that we do every Wednesday. I head to work and the boys go out and do their regular Wednesday thing: fries at Wendy's and a stroll around Gander Mountain. Chase later reports that Elias insisted on walking around the whole store by pushing the shopping cart by himself. He did not want to stop for anything. Unfortunately the cart isn't designed well for pushing by 2 year olds so Elias fell down a lot because his leg kept hitting some bar sticking out. But that didn't stop him from walking.

7:45- I arrive home to the sounds of the men in the basement workshop- hammering, grunting and squealing (Elias, not Chase). Elias is thrilled to be there in his second home with his Daddy.

8:00 Chase puts gets Elias' pj's on, reads a couple books, sings a ton of songs ("more sing" "more sing" "more sing" "more sing" is the most popular nighttime request) and finally puts him into bed.

8:20- Chase comes and joins me for a quiet dinner with just the 2 of us. Aaahhhh. We hear Elias yelling and chatting upstairs. He has a hard time winding down these days. I think it's the excitement about the new monster truck leg.

9:00- I read an article about how to make perfect meatloaf (why oh why?) while Chase graciously cleans up the kitchen.

9:50- Elias starts talking again (did he ever go to sleep?) and his chatter turns to angry yelling which turns into crying. "Mommy rock rock. Mommy rock rock." How can I resist? I rock him for a while and sing lots of songs.

10:10 Chase and I are engrossed in LOST when Elias cries again. We banter back and forth trying to decide who will go up to get him back to sleep. I'm ashamed to say that I kept watching the show and Chase went up to comfort Elias.

11:30- Night night!

11:40- Oops, not yet. Elias is up again.

11:55- Night night!

12:30 am- Ha ha! Tricked ya again. I rock Elias some more, this time with no singing because I was just so darn tired. (Quick note- nights like these used to be the norm. It was SO hard to get Elias to sleep and to stay asleep. Thankfully, nights like these are few and far between now.)

12:47 am- I don't feel guilty anymore for watching LOST while Chase was comforting Elias. That was 2.5 hours ago and I'm still awake with our sweet yet wide awake kiddo. Finally though I can creep back to my bed and fall fast asleep for good.

New Monster Truck

Elias has a new favorite thing to talk about... his new monster truck leg! Chase finished it this past Friday and the fitting went really well. We got some good pictures of Elias checking it out for his first time and then walking up and down the "prosthetic gym" hallway. The difference between this fitting and his first one, just 8 weeks ago, was huge! Those first pictures have tears in almost every one. And now he's laughing and smiling in almost every picture. The transformation has been amazing.

In my mind, getting his final prosthetic leg marked the beginning of a two-leg life. Meaning, I put the leg on in the morning and Elias would wear it all day long, even outside of the house. So far, that's what we're doing, and it's working out great! The awesome thing is, Elias hasn't asked to take it off a single time.

The library was our first public outing. Elias did great of course. It was also my first experience to realize that now we are noticed by others even more than before. Kids ask a lot of questions about the walker. I try to give them straightforward, short answers that will not make Elias feel uncomfortable as he gets older and understands more.

Our best moment of the weekend was taking Elias to church and letting him walk through the doors on his own. We attend a Saturday evening service of about 60 people. Our church family has been a huge support of our adoption of Elias. No one had seen him wear his leg yet, so it caught everyone by surprise to see him walking with his walker. Everyone crowded around and cheered Elias along. It was like a parade, and Elias took his time walking by everyone just smiling and saying "hi". He kinda had this look on his face like, "What's the big fuss about!?! I don't know, but I like it!" Later, Chase and I were hit with strong emotions as we thought back to 15 months ago when our church surprised us by giving us money for our adoption, prayed fervently for us through the process, rejoiced when we got our referral, and then prayed for us and supported us as we made preparations to bring him home. Elias was deeply loved before he ever even walked through the doors. His life is a testimony of God's faithfulness, love and redemption. Seeing everyone cheer for Elias like that was so humbling and made me feel honored to be his mother.

Here are a few pictures of his new leg. Stay tuned for the next post from the Dad/Prosthetist perspective.


M. Chase Brown, CPO presents the new leg

Elias inspects the new monster trucks

See video here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2584967620392719462

Family

Life in Pictures

We took Elias on his first sledding adventure on Saturday. He fell asleep in the car on the way there, was in and out of the car twice, and didn't wake up until he was sitting in his sled! He hardly talked or smiled the whole time, but it's all he's been talking about all week. For some reason, he calls sledding, "crash". There were quite a few crashes involved in our day, perhaps that's why. All day long he says, "Daddy big, big crash. Mommy big crash. Elias crash. Yeah."

I love making Valentine's cookies!

I think I want to kiss my cookie.

We've had record-breaking amounts of snow this week. Our muscles are very sore from all the shoveling. Makes us long for the days when Chase and I would head to the slopes after work for an evening of snowboarding! Here is our picnic table turned wedding cake, outside our back door. Forgot to get pictures of my buried car.

Wedding, Kocky Ball, and Readoption

We had a terrific time in Texas for my sister's wedding. It was a hectic few days ahead of time, as all weddings are, but fun to work alongside family and friends to pull off a great event! The wedding was beautiful and really special. My favorite part was watching the bride and groom dance together the whole time. It was hard to pull them off the dance floor!

Elias did great until about an hour before the wedding when he decided he'd had enough new people trying to touch and hold him. He just wanted mommy, who was unfortunately unavailable. Chase got him calmed down enough to be carried down the aisle by cousin Josh at the beginning of the wedding. But when I walked down the aisle and took my position up front, Elias started crying again. Loudly. So he and Chase missed the wedding, and Elias slept through the whole reception. Oh well. I think we got a least a couple pictures of Elias in his cute little outfit, but unfortunately none of the 3 of us together. (And of course we coordinated our outfits just perfectly for that beautiful family photo opp that never happened).

Elias is making some good progress with his leg! On our last night in Dallas, Nani wanted to see him stand with his leg one more time. I was behind Elias putting the belt around his waist to help secure the leg, and he suddenly started walking forward. It was awesome! We rolled a soccer ball toward him and he walked toward it and took a big kick with his prosthetic leg. He was very excited about his new "kocky ball" skills and stayed up on his leg for quite a while (with me supporting his elbows from behind). Now the kocky ball is a regular motivator to get his leg on so that he can kick it. This is the first thing he's realized he can do with his leg on, but not off.

The other night during a short period of insomnia when I was solving all the world's problems with very simple, yet unrealistic solutions (does anybody else do this?) I had an idea to just put Elias leg on when he woke up in the morning, and then leave it on all day. It didn't seem so easy that next morning, but I did try it after nap time. And he kept it on for about 3.5 hours! He used the walker to get around the house and would go from the table to his Home Depot workbench working with his tools. He can't crawl with the leg on b/c the leg doesn't bend (no knee), but he managed to get up and down okay when playing. It was great to see!

Chase wants to do one more test socket fitting, so Elias won't have his final leg for a couple more weeks. It's actually been nice to have try out different things in this long test phase so that we can get a feel for what will work best for Elias.

One more thing-- New York State requires us to go through an additional process to "re-adopt" Elias here in the U.S. (The adoption in Ethiopia was completely recognized of course, this just gives him a U.S. birth certificate and other U.S. papers). It wasn't that big of a deal to us, but we were glad to at least have this final paperwork phase behind us. The readoption took place on 1/30, and afterwards we went out to breakfast at one of our favorite diners to celebrate.

Bride and Groom

Elias and cousins

Signing readoption papers in judge's office

Playing with monster trucks in the diner

The I'm-not-so-happy-about-Mommy-and-the-PT-making-me-walk-all-over-the-house face

Smarties- the best bribe

We had another visit this morning to Chase's clinic to try out the next test socket. This one fit much better than the last one and didn't seem to hurt Elias at all. He wasn't too thrilled at first, and we couldn't get him to stand for very long. I found some Smarties in my bag, and wah la!, the mood suddenly turned around. He went across the little room a couple times with the walker and me helping him take steps. All for a little Smartie! It was awesome!

When we got home, the Physical Therapist came for one hour of therapy. Usually Elias uses a little stool to weight bear on while doing activities. But today he did it with the leg instead. The PT and I expected Elias to tolerate it for only about 5 minutes. BUT HE STOOD FOR 45 MINUTES! ON TWO LEGS! After the first 10 minutes or so we didn't have to hold him at all- he just kept his little hand on the table or wall while we kept him busy with fun activities. We put a full-length mirror in front of him so he could see himself. This was a great idea, because for the first time he could actually see his leg. He just stared at himself for the first few seconds, and I think he really realized what was happening. He didn't tire much at all, which means he was really using that prosthetic leg for weight bearing. It was so surreal actually, because it was if he had been standing on that leg all his life. It was so natural for him. This has been our exact prayer, and it was awesome to see God answer it like this!

Feeding Daddy a Smartie














Taking a few steps

Standing at the table

TWO shoes!

Today was the first time that Elias got to stand up on his prosthetic leg. It was so exciting to see him standing on two legs! Chase put Elias' shoe on the foot of his prosthetic leg, and when Chase brought it out, Elias was so surprised to see another Elmo shoe. He gave us this look like, "Where have you been hiding this other Elmo shoe???!" It was his first time to discover that he actually has TWO shoes!

Today was the fitting for the test socket, to see how it fits Elias' residual limb. Chase and the crew drew several marks on the socket and made a few modifications until they were happy with the way it fit his leg. Usually the fitting for the test socket doesn't have all the other prosthetic components, but Chase went ahead and put them all together so that we could see Elias stand up using both legs. It was a great moment! Elias wasn't too happy about it though. I'm sure it was a rather scary experience for him, and it also wasn't very comfortable for him until after they made a few modifications. The Elmo shoe factor did help a bit though. (Thanks, Lulo!)

We brought the leg home with us so that hopefully Elias can make better friends with it over the weekend. We'll have to think of some games to play with the new leg.

This is really an exciting step (pun intended) and makes me look forward to getting the final leg in a week or so- just in time for our trip to Texas for Aunt Lizzy's wedding!

Here are a few pictures of our day:

First time with the leg on

Making muffins with Levi earlier this morning