You're soaking in it.

No, I didn't relieve myself in my Dickies; though I remember it being really nice and warm for the first minute or so. Crassitude aside, I also remember there was a cheesy advertisement (is there any other kind) on the TV years ago for a dish soap: palmolive. One of the traits of the soap they were selling was the notion that it was so wonderful that a manicurist might dare to soak her clients' hands in it before she got down to the dirty work. After suggesting to her thoroughly unsuspecting television hand-soakers that they might do something so preposterous, "Madge" gently shattered their universes with the horrid news that: yes, you're soaking in it! Aha, what to do but accept this daring foray into unorthodoxy?

Well, the other day ago, I had that annual event in my house occur where the PT and OT and any other T who has T time in her (aren't they all women?) agenda come visit our little home to see how kosher we can be with therapeutical interactive conjunctivitis mechano-troublesome-equipment stuff. Well as a 'devotee' of conductive education, I tend to be allergic to the accoutrements and more rabidly fascinated in the organic machinery that arrived with Blue: namely him.
So, anyways, I showed 'em how we stand up, walk with Dad in front and in back, use large rice-filled denim legs for positioning and such, how to use the you-walk-I-steer method and what not; and before the time was T'd up everyone seemed happy and that was that. I didn't say the "C" word once, nor the "E" word either. Why bother? Nobody wants to make a wheel when there are already so many people trying to reinvent the square. So, I squared up with them, but I took a page from Madge and soaked them in it.

now the only complaint would be . . .

that I have nothing to complain about! After so many years of "voice in the wilderness," or "pissing into the wind" this new mindset of GET BUSY is fantastic.
On principle, I stopped organizing little fly-in sessions about 5 years ago. I'd been burned once (by a very well-known Canadian charitable service organization, which I won't name here; oh, modesty prevents it) and one gets very tired of watching conductors leave and families all wondering when is next. So, I had stopped altogther.
Then Zsuzsi sent me an e-mail. A real-live conductor living in Seattle?! So close! And she was what? Working as a nanny? HOly smokes, talk about hiring an electrician to change a light bulb! So, she was available to actually take up my half-time job offer spread liberally over six months. It went very well, and just like that we were somewhat re-ignited. A local school board took interest. Proposals were begun, but nothing really happened because I am still waiting on the proposal and Zsuzsi got married and settled down in the Seattle area. Hmph. This was all still hopes and prayers until the conductor who we won't name yet decided to just come out here and go for it him/herself; knowing that I and all "my families" are behind him / her. Every possible family/client into the future is there for him/her as well.
This blog then is to somehow say that I don't really know what else to blog about now; but I will think of something.

OH Boy, Oh boy, Oh boyo boy, OH BOY!!!

Conductor's coming! To stay! There IS a God in heaven. Thank you thank you thank you to Andrew, Norman, Susie and all the great folks who cared enough to give me a kick in the butt and a pat on the back when I needed it. Had we not been blogging; this wouldn't be happening. I feel like a kid at Christmas time!

Time to start planning CE sessions! (And a host of other plans and ideas.)

food: not just for eating anymore. . .

golly, but that corner sitting stuff has been useful, but try holding your kid in the bloody corner for 10 minutes at a time. Your, well, MY wrists are starting to hurt. (It's likely just the beginnings of a little arthritis in my late 40's)
So, what is to be done? Well, go to the supermarket and drop 50 bucks on two bags of rice; round or about 18 kilograms each. Then go to your local 2nd-hand clothing store and buy 3 pair of jeans without holes in the legs. Then go to your kid's grandad who has an upholstery sewing machine. (Come to think of it, you could probably go to any local upholsterer. Be sure to bring your adorable kid in her/his wheelchair to elicit the maximum amount of co-operation. Sympathy is okay too, I suppose. If neither appears, PAY the upholsterer to sew the jeans closed.) Anyway, ya gotta cut the legs off the pants first. Bring the rice with you. After one end is sewed closed, add the rice; then ask the nice upholstery expert to fold and sew the other end closed. You help them hold it as it goes through the sewing machine. Now, when you sit your beautiful child in the corner to give their hamstrings a more co-operative relationship with the rest of the legs, you can read a book for them or dance a jig while they sit comfy and stable in the corner; hopefully laughing at you.

Tooth Brushing. . . .

Yeah, right whatever, so your kid is NOT disabled. So take them to soccer/football practice while I explain a few things. Okay, so brushing teeth: what a headache! Holding the kid who stands intermittently at the sink. That works: intermittently, until he does the half crumple and bangs his knees on that splendid vanity with the splendid marble. The stupid driveway is equally splendid for the task at hand.

Here's what we've arrived at. . . (see picture) We help Blue to kneel at the lip of the shower, and then he bears his weight on his knees and his chest; allowing us to relax and have a good brushing. This has added a great deal of pleasure and time to a task that was becoming something that it seemed we ought to stop for its precarious possibilities. Roxy thinks I'm a little nuts, but she's in there like a dirty shirt helping to brush.

Pigs

Thank God for conductive education because, without it,this morning's preparations for school would have been impossible. Why? My back, of course! That little muscle attacked me again; the one about kidney level. It tweaks, tightens, and tries to lay me out on the floor for the day. Roxy almost didn't go to work because I was so pathetically bound up.

ANYWAY, some good, hard, back-pain drugs and a few stretches later; I was mobile enough to at least get up and move around. But then there's Blue; waiting for me to help him get up, hit the bathroom, be fed, dressed, loaded into the van and make the trip to school some 14 km distant. That seemed a daunting task today; but it went off well, only because Blue is accustomed to using his legs, sitting and standing with a modicum of assistance, and carrying his own weight in walking.

I gladly admit that these skills would have never occurred as something to be taken for granted if he & I hadn't started learning it in 2000. That only happened because a splendid Hungarian woman, Gyongyi Schweigert, moved to Kelowna, B.C. when she did. We couldn't have afforded to bring my son to a CE program somewhere else. The proximity of the conductor, that simple thing we know as "availability" was the only requirement.

I sadly admit that not one of Blue's B.C. professionals have suggested, even once in 12 years, that the kid should actually learn to walk. Keep that bar nice and low, otherwise some kid with CP is going to trip over it.

ONE RESIDENT CONDUCTOR in the Lower Mainland (the suburban Vancouver area) will do amazing things. This I know. We just need one here to live, work, and build on what a handful of families have garnered from temporary programs.

My boy hasn't been enrolled in a formal CE program since 2003; but the time we had with a conductor up to that point was all we needed to lay out a useful foundation. Here it is, seven years later, saving my bacon. Well, technically, Blue saved my bacon; because he was able to help himself. Of course, that would be Canadian bacon; but I'm sure pigs are pigs the world round.

Still here, just want to say that. . .

And still waiting for the next step of our project to lurch into life. Dr. Frankenstein had it easier than he thought. And my boy, my Bluetiful boy awaits for some play time. See ya!