CHAMP Photos

Another thing I love about CHAMP is how they send us a CD of pictures after each CHAMP seminar. We just got one in the mail today. Most of them I can't share because they feature other CHAMPS and there is a strict policy against that. But we got a nice family photo and without the tacky 70s backdrop this year! These were taken at the end of September at Gavin's second seminar.


Our busy little CHAMP didn't want to stand still to get his picture taken and was walking in circles!


WOW. Look how much he has grown since last year!!!!

Gavin's Body Powered Helper Arm!

Today was an exciting day! One we have been awaiting for several weeks...
Look what Gavin got today!

Its his new body powered prosthetic arm! He designed it himself by picking out the fabric (Can you tell?)

The strap goes over his right shoulder and when he makes a reaching motion or shrugs his shoulders, the hand closes! When he pulls back, the hand opens.

We debated a lot about what kind of prosthetic to get for him but we decided on this one because it is more functional than a passive and not nearly as heavy as a myoeletric. Since he's not used to wearing any sort of prosthesis, we needed something lighter to get him used to wearing something again.

He did really well with it and was already learning that when he stretches out his arm, the hand closes and he can grasp small objects. It will definitely take a lot of practice to fine tune it.

Lisa, his occupational therapist, helped him use his new hand to grip the scooter.


And he had no problem pushing the shopping cart down the hall at lightening speed! (Before he declared, "No like it mommy!" and pulled it off...)


I'm SO incredibly proud of our little guy. I'll be sure to keep you posted with how he is doing with it. For now, Lisa asked us to try to get him to wear it for about half an hour a day and work up to longer periods. She also gave us a list of activities to help him learn to use it.

He will also be bringing it to daycare tomorrow so I will need to give them a little tutorial but they are excited about getting involved.

H is for Halloween

"H" week was timed perfectly, because it just happened to fall on the week of HALLOWEEN!!

We got a few Halloween books from the library but the only one Gavin cared about was called "Jack-o-Lanterns". When it came time to carve the pumpkins we asked Gavin to choose his two favourite Jack-O-Lanterns from the book and then Grampa worked his pumpkin-carving magic.


The book had happy, sad, scary and funny faces and Gavin chose two of the funny ones. They turned out really cute!

We also went to "Boo at the Zoo" with Gramma, Grampa and Auntie. Gavin had so much fun seeing all the animals. The monkeys are definitely his favourite! We also saw a HYENA. Unfortunately the HIPPOS weren't out on display. But it was a very HAPPY day! :)


One of Gavin's current favourite books is "HUG" by Jez Alborough. Gavin loved the way Grampa read it and he couldn't get enough. He asked Grampa to read it to him over and over and over...


H is also for HENNA! On the day we went to the library they just happened to be having a celebration and one of the activities was Henna art. I have always thought Henna was really beautiful so I decided to get my HAND done.


It is supposed to last for about 2 weeks but with the amount of times I wash my hands in a day, it barely lasted a week!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Happy Halloween from your favourite little Hero!


And his witch of a mother too! :P


We had a great day helping Annya with her Halloween open house and raising donations for the food bank! I even decided to get my own picture to show off my growing baby bump!
(I am 19 weeks pregnant now...almost half way already!)

Then we bundled up and went trick or treating. Gavin didn't last long and I was happy to head back home (It was FREEZING!!) I think he had more fun handing out candy to the kids and seeing all their costumes!

Hope everyone had a fun and safe Halloween!

G is for Gavin!

G is a pretty good letter. It stands for GAVIN! Also known as the GAVSTER or the GAVINATOR!

G is also for GARBAGE trucks, one of Gavin's favourite vehicles. I opted out of trying to arrange a tour of one of those, although I'm sure Gavin would have loved it! The smell is strong enough under regular circumstances and I can't imagine getting close to one with my pregnant sense of super smell! So instead, we stuck to reading, "I Am A Garbage Truck".

One of Gavin's other favourite books is the classic "GOODNIGHT MOON". He has a little board book that he has carried around so much that I had to tape the spine together. (That seems to be becoming a bit of a trend for his well-loved books. What can I say? He is a little rough.) He also has a bigger, paperback copy and he refers to them as "baby Goodnight Moon" and "big Goodnight Moon". He usually requests a specific one and if you can't find it, he does NOT accept the other one as a substitute.

G is also for GRANDPARENTS which Gavin is very blessed with. He has his beloved Lola & Lolo, and Gramma Joyce, and he was very lucky that Gramma & Grampa came down to visit for the weekend! And he even got a special package in the mail from G.G. (Great Gramma!) He is a very lucky boy!

Sammy's Friends Calendar

I have exciting news! The new Sammy's Friends Calendar for 2011 is now for sale!

For those of you who aren't familiar with Sammy's Friends, it is an online support group for those affected by congenital limb differences. I was referred to it when I was pregnant, and it helped me so incredibly much when I was going through some pretty tough emotions.

The sales from this calendar will help us raise funds to file for non-profit status.

And the best part? All the ADORABLE children featured in the calendar! I am a bit partial to the two cuties featured in the month of July! (Thanks to Annya for allowing us to use the beautiful photos she took).

CLICK HERE to get your own Sammy's Friends Calendar and support an awesome cause!

F is for Fire trucks!

Well "F" week was an exciting one for my boy who is obsessed with FIRE TRUCKS!!

Of course we had to make a special visit to the FIRE STATION!

We drive by a little fire station every day on our way to his daycare so he has been asking to see the fire trucks every day for a while. When the day finally arrived and we told him it was time to go he went right to his closet and put on his yellow boots! So I figured I might as well top it off with his FIRE FIGHTER rain coat too. His outfit was a hit with the guys at the station!

Of course he is going to be a fire fighter for Halloween. All he needs now is the hat. I was told that the fire stations give out fire hats to children, but this one didn't have any. They did give him some colouring sheets and stickers though.

And Gavin got to sit inside the fire truck and "drive" it!
He would have stayed there all day if we let him! You can see from the picture that driving a fire truck is very serious business. It requires great concentration.

Gavin is clearly an expert. I think this is due to the amount of times we have read "If I Could Drive a Fire Truck". So many times in fact that we have had to tape the book back together. This book has been slept with many nights and brought on many road trips. And just when he's had about enough of that one, there is always his back up, "I Want To Be a Firefighter". Oh lucky me!

We went to the library on the weekend and all Gavin wanted was another book about fire trucks. There is also a DVD at the library about fire trucks which I will never rent again because if I have to watch it one more time I might go insane. I think I know all there is to know about fire trucks....pumper trucks, aerial trucks, ladder trucks, tiller trucks, quint trucks, searchlight trucks, rescue trucks, off-road fire trucks....oh yes! You didn't know there were so many types of fire trucks did you?

I like this picture of Gavin and Daddy standing beside the fire fighters' big boots! They are almost as big as he is! The fire fighters always have them ready to go so they can pull on their boots and pants in a hurry!

Gavin loves to sing "Hurry hurry drive that fire truck!" Here are the lyrics if you're interested. But we always include "Hurry, hurry, put your boots on!" We have to make up our own lyrics sometimes because he wants to sing it so often that you get tired of singing the same verses over and over!

So "F" week was mostly about FIGHTING FIRES as you can tell.


But another great word is FALL!

We had a gorgeous weekend and spent a lot of time in the backyard raking up the leaves and cleaning up the yard.

Gavin was a great helper as usual!

E is for Ear Phones

Last week was "E" week. The days kind of flew by and we didn't do a whole lot, to be honest. We read books that had ELEPHANTS in them. And we had fun with sidewalk chalk one day, drawing pictures of elephants with big EARS. I didn't take a picture of my "elephant" because that would just be an insult to elephants. And after that all he wanted me to draw was trucks.

I have no idea why this picture is sideways and it is driving me crazy but I give up trying to fix it...

Gavin is always wanting to play with Daddy's turn tables and wear his EAR PHONES so he had lots of fun with that.


I had a big list of "E" words that we never got to: Earth, Elevator, Escalator, Eagle, Elmo, Engines, Elbow, Eggs...

My original plan was to pick 5-7 words and focus on a different one each day but that was before I started working full time. Now we mainly just focus on learning the ASL sign for the letter, pick a few main words and hopefully make one into a little outing. Also I like to print out a colouring sheet for him to do. We are putting together a binder with all of those but its way behind since I need to get ink for the printer!

D is for Dentist

Our benefits finally came through last week and miraculously I managed to score a DENTIST appointment in the same week! How perfect for "D" week! So of course I brought Gavin along. They don't normally start doing check-ups until age 3 but I asked the dentist if he could just take a look to get Gavin used to sitting in the chair.

Here he is showing off his pearly whites!

He didn't like his "ride" in the chair. He prefers the chair to just stay in one spot without moving up and down. But when we gave him a truck to hold, he was happy to sit there and open wide to let the dentist count his teeth. He has a nice, full set, except for his top two molars which are just starting to poke through. I have to say, he has always been a pro with teething. It never seemed to bother him much.

On the weekend we took Gavin to the park but there was some construction going on nearby so he decided he would rather sit on the picnic table and watch the DIGGER fill the DUMP truck with DIRT. He would have sat there all day if we let him. What is it with boys and their love of machines?

Gavin also got to sit in Grampa's police truck and "DRIVE" it.

Too bad it wasn't "P" week because he had the time of his life eating Pizza with Police men at the Police station (and then had a big Poo!) But it is "D" week so we had to say we were at the DETACHMENT!

I should take some pictures of his sign language. He is so cute doing the sign for "D". It is funny how he does some of the signs because obviously he can't do them perfectly. I thought "C" would have been the easiest, but its the one that gives him the most trouble. Now we have started working on "E" but so far he just does the sign for "A" because it is a bit similar.

Unwanted Advice

So yesterday Gavin and I took the bus up to visit my parents for Thanksgiving. Usually the bus is mostly empty but of course, being Thanksgiving weekend, it was completely packed, the driver was delayed and traffic was horrible. GREAT. And of course, Gavin was a complete two-year-old (and not the good kind). I badly wanted to ask the driver to pull over and leave him on the side of the road. THAT's how bad it was. YELLING , hitting me, refusing to sit down. AHHH! I was mortified. It felt like everyone was listening to us and I was failing some sort of mother test. When we finally stopped for a little break, the guy who was sitting in front of us moved to the VERY front of the bus, as far away from us as he could get.

After our little break, Gavin behaved perfectly, sitting in his seat and looking out the window. Eventually he was so tired, he fell asleep on me and I finally dozed off too. Then I felt someone patting me on the shoulder asking, "You awake? You awake?" I kept my eyes closed, thinking he would see that NO, in fact I am NOT awake, but he continued until finally I opened my eyes, looked at him and said, "Well I am NOW!"

This didn't phase him. This random old man started telling me that if I ever have any problems I can email him because he works at a school with disabled kids as a janitor. I just wanted to tell him that my son is actually NOT disabled at all and what the hell does he know about solving any problems we might encounter? But instead I just kept my head turned away and closed my eyes again to avoid having to talk to him at all. This did not phase him at all and he continued to talk to me, going on about how it takes so much extra love and patience to raise a disabled child.

I just wanted him to shut up and leave me alone. Then it got worse. He asked me "You're not having another one are you?" and actually reached over and touched my stomach!!!!! Yes, the HORROR!!!!!

I pulled away and rudely said, "Yes, I am actually!" and he told me not to eat any bad apples. What the hell is that supposed to mean??

Thank God he got off then, which I guess was why he was so desperate to wake me up out of my long-awaited sleep to have this "heart-to-heart" with me before we parted ways.

I'm sure he had good intentions but seriously.... WTF!