Walker

Kai just got a walker to use at home (thanks MVED!). He isn't walking with it quite yet, but he can pull himself up to standing position using the walker. We have the walker pushed up against the two step stairs so that Kai has something to sit on. Some of the pictures are hard to tell that he is standing all the way up because of his pants. I think next time I will take some pictures of him in just his onesies, so you can get a better idea of how his legs are. He is wearing his AFO's (leg braces) when he does this.

So excited to be able to pull himself up to standing position by himself

"Look at me!!"

"This is getting easy, how about just one hand?!"

Sleep study

Last Tuesday night, Levi had a sleep study done. The picture above was at the sleep study. It has been concluded that Levi has mild sleep apnea with hypersomnia. Some interesting information from the study showed that the first part of the night Levi was moving his legs about 39 times per hour and his sleep efficiency was only at 69%. The second part of the night they put him on a CPAP machine and he didn't move his legs and his sleep efficiency was at 77%. There was definitely a difference with the machine. So yep, Levi is now on a CPAP machine at night. Hopefully, he will be getting better sleep.

White Belt

Gavin earned his white belt at TaeKwonDo Thursday. He was so excited! The above picture was taken afterwards at home. I didn't have my camera with when he actually got his belt, so the pictures below were taken with my phone. Yay, Gavin!!

Kai at therapy

Kai standing on his own here with the support of the walker.

Picture Quality is not the greatest; pictures were taken with my phone

Kai is working with a walker at therapy. He did a really good job today. He was grabbing onto the handles more and he even stood on his on for a brief moment.

Three boys

It's hard to get a good picture of all of them together. They don't all want to look at the camera and smile at the same time.

The boys are doing good. Kai's update is in the previous blog. Gavin is almost 5 years old (well next month), but he is already planning his party. He is getting so smart. We are looking at sending Gavin to kindergarten at the school at our church. He has kindergarten roundup on March 4. Jace is improving all the time, but is still our "wild child". We just had his school conference. He is doing good in school. He has made improvements in speaking and in socializing. He is a busy boy and keeps me on my toes all the time!

Life at the Selly house is always busy. It's never dull around our house. There are days that I am completely wiped out and just want to hibernate in my bed, unfortunately that is never an option. We had a house showing the other day, even though our house is technically off the market right now. The showing went good. These people would like to come back and see our house when the snow is gone and it sounds like they have house of their own that they would have to sell. I'm very anxious for spring. I'm done with winter and want to let the fresh air go through our house. I'm also anxious for the boys to get more outdoor time.

Happy Valentines Everyone! Until next time....

Kai is 16 months old!

Kai is 16 months old today! At his last weight check, he weighed 17 pounds 7.5 ounces! He keeps gaining, yay! Kai is doing really good. He currently is pretty healthy. He is moving faster on his hands and knees. He tries to keep up with the brothers sometimes. He is pulling himself up on his knees and not hanging onto anything. He can stand up against something for brief moments. He is also working on sit to stand and vice versa. It was suggested that we look into the start of getting a wheelchair for him. On Friday, we met up with the rehabilitation doctor at Gillette. She feels that he is not ready for one yet and because he is somewhat mobile on his own, that we would revisited the idea in August. As far as feeding, not a whole lot has changed. Kai recently had a feeding clinic appointment. They suggested to concentrate more on purees than to try chopped and bite size foods because he doesn't have teeth yet. He can have chopped and bite size, but to try not to focus the meal on that. It takes him longer to chew the food up and takes more of his energy. As far as teeth, Kai went to a pediatric dentist a few weeks ago. They want to see him in 6 months and if he still doesn't have teeth at that time, they will do a certain kind of x-ray to get a good look at his teeth under the gums. Not a whole lot else is new with Kai. Typical toddler stuff...gets into things he shouldn't, gets mad when something is taken away from him, says the word "no" and doesn't like it when he is told "no".

Randoms

Kai
Kai so sleepy after a car ride home

Kai getting into things

The Two Peas in a Pod!

Jace and Mya

I don't know how he slept like that!

Gavin, Cousin Charlie, Jace and Kai

Just like dad!

Jace admires Levi so much! He wants so much to be like daddy. He likes to dress up like and daddy and pretend that he going to work. Here in the picture he has his work jacket, pants and boots on. Usually he has a lunch bag packed just like daddy. He will fill it up with some of the same things as dad, including the Mountain Dew pop. He usually has his play keys, phone and glasses as well. And then he tells me that he going to work. It cracks me up every time! Jace is such a daddy's boy and I'm not kidding you! For awhile it was pretty bad, but it had tamed down some.

Kai's stuff

Just recently discovered that we had decals for Kai's hearing aids. So we put the soccer ball ones on. They sure now how to make these things more fun for the kiddos.

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We were recently trying to figure out Kai's crib situation. For whatever reason, there is a little gap between the mattress and crib. Probably wouldn't matter for a normal toddler, but for Kai it does. Since his legs and arms are so tiny, it wouldn't take that big of a gap for him to get a limb caught. With his connective tissue disorder and hyperextensibility, he could probably hurt himself pretty good if he got a limb caught in a gap. So after several hours of searching on the internet and pondering different ideas, we came across Cozy Wedges. We thought this would work great for Kai's crib. We got them a few days ago and I finally got it set up in Kai's crib. He also recently got a wedge for his crib to help him be a little elevated while sleeping. So yesterday, Kai's crib kinda got a little makeover. Below are a few pictures. The Royal Blue around the inside of his crib are the cozy wedges.

Maintenance

Levi's work has been picking up. They just opened up the new plant out his work. The guys got a chance to bid on a different job. Levi had bid on maintenance and has decided to take it. He used to work maintenance until almost 3 years ago. He had switched to operating a loader so that he could get on first shift. So now he is back in maintenance and still on 1st shift. Beside it being hard physical labor, I think Levi likes being back in maintenance. For those of you who know Levi, he doesn't like to sit around, he likes to be constantly doing things. Running loader was a very monotonous job, not the kind of job Levi really wanted to do. And what better way for Levi to do one his favorite things, he gets to tinker with things and fix them! It's been busy out there. Levi has been on 12 hour shifts and it sounds like that could last awhile yet. For those of you who don't know how Unimin works, the guys work 19 days on and have 2 days off. So if you do the math with the 12 hour shifts, that's a lot of hours! His work is also hiring about 25 guys, that's like doubling the amount of workers out there. So for now, we don't get to see Levi much.

Taekwondo

Gavin has recently joined Taekwondo (well, he is still in the trial period). He was so excited about doing Taekwondo, he just couldn't wait until his first day of it. The first day, he was very excited, until the group started doing things he didn't know how to do. He got very upset and quit for a little while during class. We explained to him that it was okay that he didn't know what he was doing...it was his first day. We also explained that the others have been doing it longer and that he will get the hang of it. After sitting out for awhile, he saw that they were doing something he knew how to do, so he joined the group again. Gavin is probably one of the younger ones because this group is the 5 and 6 year old group; Gavin doesn't turn 5 until next month. Even though Gavin sat out for part of the first class time, he still caught on to some things. After we got home, he kept saying "Yes, Sir!" LOL! The second class time went a lot better. He still didn't know what he was doing all the time, but he gave it his all. He had one of the instructors working with him a lot and he kept trying hard. It is so fun to watch him. I think once he gets the hang of it, he is going to enjoy it more than what he already does. He trial period is up this week. I'm positive he will still be interested in continuing. He goes twice a week and always looks forward to going. He is excited about getting a belt. At first he didn't understand why he didn't have a belt and the other kids did. We explained how he has to earn his belts. So hopefully soon he will earn his white belt.

Gavin (2nd time at class)

Gavin's first time at taekwondo