Overdue Update

Logan is doing great.  We are muddling through many many doctors appointments. We had a great experience at Shriners in Lexington in December.  Saw a couple of different doctors, OT, PT and met with the prosthetist.  Legs are in the works.  We were going to start while we were there but I had made the comment that I thought the little stretching I was doing on his legs was helping.  His legs are always spread apart.  His right leg will not come to the midline and his left leg does not raise in front of him.  Hearing that I thought stretching was working they have decided to wait a month.  They are skeptical it will work but feel strongly that if we can get his right leg to line up underneath him and his left leg to move forward in front he will walk more normally.  So we have been stretching the boy like crazy.  All the kids know how to stretch him so if anyone has free time with them they stretch him.

I was amazed last night with the progress we are making.  I can't wait to show them what we will have accomplished. 

Ok so I am a horrible blogger - the above was written in December.  We did great at stretching.  The Shriner's staff were amazed when we went back three weeks ago.  They casted him for prosthetics.  We should have a trial pair of legs ready in a couple more weeks.

Logan's teacher was thrilled that she understood what he had told her.  He tells everyone he is getting two big legs and one arm.  He then looks at his left arm and says this arm is good.  Although the arm is a ways off we will only do a right arm as he does a bunch of things with his fleshy thumb. He has mastered the iphone and ipad with it. 

Speech wise he has significant delays.  The reality is that years in a crib and in a large group of special needs kids with just a couple of adults did not provide him with much in the way of vocabulary.  The speech therapist is a bit stumped as to how to diagnose him.  We did one round of testing and really did not accomplish much.  So she called back and asked to do more this time with more interpretors. So back we went  - had the ST asking questions, a Ukrainian translator on speaker phone and a Russian translator in the room.  They would show him a picture of something and ask him what it was - an answer in any laguage would have been correct.  He flat out doesn't know words.  He would physically show us what to do with the object (ex. a knife he would pretend to cut, or binoculars he would touch his eyes) but he did not the names of the object.  It was a frustrating hour and a half for all of them.  Not so much for me -  that is how we communicate - a daily game of charades.  He also very seldom will use more than two words together.  If we ask him to say "blue coat"  he will either say blue or coat but not both.  There are exceptions:  batteries nee harasho (batteries no good) and helicopter charge are phrases he uses daily.  This weekend he said two full sentences:  Don't pull Mama's hair.  Don't pull Lyosha's hair.   (Yes he has a hair fetish especially when tired or upset - every night he wants to nestle in my hair before bed - you can figure out what I am telling him daily.  The consequence of meanly pulling Mama's hair is a tug back on his hair)

He is a very happy, content child.  He will do anything we are going to do.  He will eat anything we eat.  He does need a lot of confirmation that we are going home after whatever it is we do. So he will ask if we are going home afterward.  The conversation is usually:  We are going to basketball now  L: damoines puja?  M: After basketball we will eat - Patome basketball kushet patome kushet damoines. He then repeats it over and over and tells anyone we encounter.

Going to stop and post this before I get interrupted again.  I will try for more stories and pictures or videos next.