I must be trying to tell myself something.
Last night I had dream after horrible dream:
Are you sensing a theme here? I'm sensing a theme.
After thinking about it all day, I am pretty sure that my subconscious is beating me up over Torin's physical therapy milestones. He's been in PT for about a month because he's lagging physically... or not lagging, according to his physical therapist grandpa, because all the kids on that side of the family are very long (Torin's still in the 95th percentile for length) and are therefore late bloomers physically. I like to think that he's moving at his own gangly pace... he's been in 12-month clothes for a month already and I imagine it's hard to keep up!
In any case, the past 4 weeks have been grueling, because his prescription has been to do a few exercises plus most of his time spent on his belly. His diagnosis was that he had 4-5 month tummy time skills with a 6+ month brain. The physical therapist's tummy time joke was "nobody ever got anywhere laying on their back!" I opened my mouth to mention high-class prostitutes, but closed it without saying anything because I didn't want to imply that I was planning to limit Torin's choice of professions.
Let me tell you, this is a kid who despises tummy time. My days have been filled with making Torin unhappy by enforcing his exercises as much as he can handle without crying (we're up to 3.5 hours per day now in tiny chunks), which means I listen to his complainy whine all day. He has all the recommended toys (yeah, I broke down and got the noise/light-makers!) and then some, he has 3 tummy time stations throughout the house, and he has all of my attention. I do everything I can to make him laugh and smile and think the exercises are play.
He's made so much progress!
So far, he's learned to:
However... it's still not quite enough to catch up to his age.
He still needs to:
These are the precursors to crawling. I was really hoping he'd catch up in a month, but my hopes were just a liiiiittle too optimistic.
Hence the dreams.
The nightmares of last night came soon after I realized that he just had 4 more days until his second physical therapy appointment, where he'd (or I'd) be evaluated for progress, and it triggered my perfectionism. I must subconsciously feel like a bad mom or a fraud... for his seemingly endless whining, for the failure to catch up to his peers.
Whoa, Nelly! I mean Kendra. Whoa, Kendra. Stop right there, 'cause you have a few decades of parental worry ahead of you. There's no reason to start giving the poor boy anxiety over his "grades" yet, or over how they reflect your parenting. He's healthy, he's happy, and his weird parents will keep his life interesting until he goes off to explore weirdness of his own... that's more important than not sitting according to schedule.
Torin must have felt my mood after those dreams, because he cuddled me at every opportunity today. This is why I shared my friend's blog post's quote earlier:
... I love my little demon.
Last night I had dream after horrible dream:
- I was a nurse, and had stolen a baby from the hospital and after a few blissful months had forgotten that he wasn't really mine. Police showed up and took him away.
- Child services came to my door and explained that my baby had been switched with another at birth, so they had to take Torin away to his real family. My real baby had died at the hospital, so I was left with nothing.
- I was a sacred whore in an ancient brothel-temple and my baby's father came to take him away because prostitutes weren't allowed to keep their babies longer than a few months. (In retrospect, how did he know he was the father? Hahaha.)
- I went to pick Torin up from preschool, and was told by staff at the school, "No worries, his real mom picked him up 10 minutes ago. You aren't needed anymore... don't come back."
- Etc, etc.
Are you sensing a theme here? I'm sensing a theme.
After thinking about it all day, I am pretty sure that my subconscious is beating me up over Torin's physical therapy milestones. He's been in PT for about a month because he's lagging physically... or not lagging, according to his physical therapist grandpa, because all the kids on that side of the family are very long (Torin's still in the 95th percentile for length) and are therefore late bloomers physically. I like to think that he's moving at his own gangly pace... he's been in 12-month clothes for a month already and I imagine it's hard to keep up!
In any case, the past 4 weeks have been grueling, because his prescription has been to do a few exercises plus most of his time spent on his belly. His diagnosis was that he had 4-5 month tummy time skills with a 6+ month brain. The physical therapist's tummy time joke was "nobody ever got anywhere laying on their back!" I opened my mouth to mention high-class prostitutes, but closed it without saying anything because I didn't want to imply that I was planning to limit Torin's choice of professions.
Let me tell you, this is a kid who despises tummy time. My days have been filled with making Torin unhappy by enforcing his exercises as much as he can handle without crying (we're up to 3.5 hours per day now in tiny chunks), which means I listen to his complainy whine all day. He has all the recommended toys (yeah, I broke down and got the noise/light-makers!) and then some, he has 3 tummy time stations throughout the house, and he has all of my attention. I do everything I can to make him laugh and smile and think the exercises are play.
ALL the toys. Torin even has Torin the T-Rex!
He's made so much progress!
So far, he's learned to:
- Stand when supported (this took only 3 days, and was the main reason I took him to PT)
- Prop up on his elbows during tummy time (instead of doing the "superman")
- Reach forward and up during tummy time
- Roll over from stomach to back in both directions
- Roll over from back to stomach in both directions (though rarely, as he hates being on his belly)
- Sit well with support
However... it's still not quite enough to catch up to his age.
He still needs to:
- Push up onto his hands regularly during tummy time
- Bend backward from right above his hips rather than higher up his back during tummy time
- Sit unassisted. (I wasn't explicitly told this, but he just turned 7 months yesterday and it's a general rule that they sit by now. He has done it for about 20 seconds before realizing I wasn't supporting him and throwing himself backward in protest.)
These are the precursors to crawling. I was really hoping he'd catch up in a month, but my hopes were just a liiiiittle too optimistic.
Hence the dreams.
The nightmares of last night came soon after I realized that he just had 4 more days until his second physical therapy appointment, where he'd (or I'd) be evaluated for progress, and it triggered my perfectionism. I must subconsciously feel like a bad mom or a fraud... for his seemingly endless whining, for the failure to catch up to his peers.
Whoa, Nelly! I mean Kendra. Whoa, Kendra. Stop right there, 'cause you have a few decades of parental worry ahead of you. There's no reason to start giving the poor boy anxiety over his "grades" yet, or over how they reflect your parenting. He's healthy, he's happy, and his weird parents will keep his life interesting until he goes off to explore weirdness of his own... that's more important than not sitting according to schedule.
Torin must have felt my mood after those dreams, because he cuddled me at every opportunity today. This is why I shared my friend's blog post's quote earlier:
... I love my little demon.
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