Before and After: Caden

God is so good! Our little Caden is going to be just fine. So much has happened since we started our therapy 7 weeks ago! If you have been praying for Caden, (first, THANK YOU so much!) and second, below you will see answers to our prayers. Bear with me, this is a hefty post with lots of short video's. I'm so proud of him and I think you will be amazed at the progress!

In the beginning, this is prior to going to Therapy. Caden would scream when I put him on his stomach or all fours to work on crawling. Not happy times. And because he was just sitting there like glue, we tried putting all of his toys out of reach to "encourage" him to MOVE. Didn't work :)

At some point he would roll on his back and then just lay there. Couldn't sit up, couldn't move over to his toys elsewhere...rough days.


AND THEN, week 1: we work on using and strengthening his core / pelvic muscles. He screams for 2 days pretty much straight. Then he shows some signs of movement, and starts to do a cutest huck-a-buck crawl ever! Very similar to a frog...he would move his arms then scoot both of his legs to get somewhere. Its movement, we are thrilled!

This is the first night he was "moving" via crawling! Its shaky, but precious! Poor thing, every time he got close to his toy, we would move it away from him trying to encourage him to keep going!

Week 2: we work on developing the pelvic muscles so that he crawls one knee forward at a time. Not a fan of this either..AT ALL, but eventually picks it up by the end of the week. Now we have a slow, deliberate, smooth crawler!

Look at him go in this video! And, I don't know what was going on with Jenna's pants. I don't even remember them being like this...you can tell where my focus was! ha

Week 3: time to work on pulling up...now that he can crawl places, he is getting curious to see what is "up there." There was a certain way we had to support and push his hips...in a certain order for this week's therapy! Took me a few times to get it right alternating both sides. Caden wants to do it, but definitely struggles strength-wise and joint-wise. We don't get anywhere the first week. We didn't get an A on our report card this week :(

Week 4: Same homework...work on pulling up to his knees. We get it this week! woo hoo. He pulls up and plays on his knees for longer and longer lengths of time. yes!

Week 5: work on pulling to stand. Disaster the first week. He gets extremely frustrated and grunts like he is lifting 100 lbs just trying to stand. Breaks my heart. We don't quite get it. Get another "F" on our report card this week :(

Week 6: same homework. again. ick. All week, we get no where, then at Therapy, after 45 intense minutes...he does it for the therapist! Something clicked and he figured it out...granted he favored one side, and couldn't stand consistently on the other, but using his go-to side, he could pop up with the best of them! yea! He starts to crawl to me or whoever is in the room and pull up on our legs. I love it! You can do it all day, buddy!

Once we learned to stand up, poor little guy got stuck and didn't know how to sit down :) We are working with him on bending his knees and strengthening the muscles in his quads but this little video is what we worked on for a little while. He is getting much better!And yes, we moved all of his toys up on a higher level so he has to pull up if he wants to play :)

And then after a good at-home therapy session....ta da! Little man can pull to stand AND sit down!

By the end of week 6, we had a huge breakthrough...in his crib, Caden is a wild man and not afraid of anything! He finally learned to pop up fast and bend his knees to jump! This was one of the major factors that allowed us to "fail" his test with the State program. Since he was not bending his knees and bouncing, he was categorized as having a major delay in gross motor development. If he had done this when they were testing him, we wouldn't have qualified for the State's program.

Week 7: We are supposed to work on him using his weak side to stand. So whenever he crawls to something, I try to run over there like a mad hen and force his hips to use his weak side to stand. Its quite entertaining :) We also get the green light to work on "cruising" down the couch to play with toys. He has a tough time transferring weight to his left side so cruising that way is our struggle this week. Also, one day, I let him go explore the bottom of the steps and up he goes! When Jenna figured it out, we were like "oh no!" but bless his heart, with Caden I was cheering him up to the top! haha And yes, we learned from the Lower-the-Crib incident and proactively have a gate at the top and bottom of the stairs already :)





That leaves us with 1 more session before our sorry insurance makes us pay out of pocket. Please pray for our paperwork through the NC CDSA goes through quickly so we can pick back up on Caden's therapy. It is obviously exactly where he needs to be and he is benefiting so much from it! Also, we are waiting on insurance and doctors (shocker!) to get Caden in for an Orthotic brace for his ankles. He has a tough time supporting himself standing for long periods of time due do the extreme movement in his ankle joint. The therapist is very encouraged that Caden will want to stand, cruise and maybe even walk more when he feels like his ankles aren't going to roll out from under him. That's our prayer! Thanks for your support and prayers...slowly but surely...

We are so thankful to have scenes like this around our house now: