My Journal - Week 86 (21Apr11)

Unassisted, Unaided Standing up!!

It's official, we have it on video.  Today, I was able to get a video of Hunter "self-standing up".  To me, it's funny, all it takes is a simple dryer sheet, tissue or paper and even an empty tissue box!  It's all about distraction and confidence.  One allows the other to cultivate and grow.  It's the story of Hunter's life.  What we know he can do, he wont - for lack of confidence.  What he eventually does he does out of distraction or deception!

So, Yay for Hunter!  With today's repetitive self standing occurring we are hoping the many amounts of times that he completed this new milestone will ensure that he is much more confident with his new ability and that he will continue to do it without looking for walls or furniture to go to first!


So what did we do to encourage this?  I know that Hunter is both a visual and kinesthetic (physical) learner - where being a visual learner is how he recognizes what to do, and is his motivator and kinesthetic is his practical way of getting there.  I figured it would help for Hunter to see how to stand up by himself (thus watching various children who were already doing this) and then to also to position him to physically go through the motions of standing up using his own body and not furniture or walls.  After watching his cousin standing up and also watching his friend Taylor Rose a couple of weeks ago, I noticed the way they each stood up by themselves.  With his (typical) cousin, "tripoding" (bum up hands down) worked and watching his friend Taylor Rose (also has Ds) she "tripoded" but used her knees to get the rest of the way up.  I noticed for our kids, where their bodies may be perhaps less muscular or shorter in certain areas such as length of arms or legs - they need to go through an extra step of figuring out what works best for them.  Most people don't realize that having to learn an action or milestone and then secondly learning a completely different way to do it (which would be physically unnatural for most others) is what can cause or is the delay.  Think about it though, is it really a delay or is it just that there is something more!  Children with Ds, or perhaps Hunter more specifically as an example, are going though more stages to accomplish physical events which in hindsight may obviously take a bit more time if more steps are involved!  I had to laugh however, it may seem backward to some, walking and running first before being able to get to a standing position unassisted, but I think Hunter is a smarty pants to have figured out how to do it this way.  Why not be mobile first?  He knew he had access to getting up so, there was no reason to delay walking whatsoever!  Whatever and whichever the way, practice does make perfect!

Oh and for the record, just how cute is it that he gets mad when I want to take the tissue away, or that he says "Bye Bye" at the end and of course the best part of all is that each and every "stand up" was done with only one hand!?!