The Perfect Costume

It has been pretty busy lately! It's already mid November and I'm finally posting Halloween pics! October was a crazy month for us. Carson completed another intensive therapy session at 1 Plus 1 Therapy. Many of you know the intensive session routine: wake up, go to therapy, go home and collapse, go to bed, repeat. We did this every day for 3 weeks and although it was a tiring schedule it was also amazing. Carson always makes such great progress during these sessions and it's so fun to see him gain more strength, ability, and confidence throughout this time. Anyway, it was actually quite a miracle that Carson had a costume for Halloween. We were able to squeeze in a shopping trip to Target and thankfully they had the perfect costume... Elmo, of course.

Carson was very proud of his Elmo costume. Elmo is pretty much his hero (Although Thomas the Train is gaining popularity with him again).

We even had an Elmo pumpkin.

Carson Trick or Treated around our block riding in his wagon. He even used his "sticks" to walk to some of the houses to say, "Candy!" ("Trick or Treat" never really took off, although he did say "Thank you" at least.)

At one point Carson got confused and started handing out his own candy to nearby trick or treaters. So cute:)

Here's a few photos of Carson at 1 Plus 1 Therapy. Bubble time is his absolute favorite. Here's a picture of him mastering 1 stick like a pro! At this point he is learning to stand with the support of only one stick while he uses his other hand to pop bubbles. His balance is getting so much better and he's pretty comfortable and confident standing this way.

In this photo (above) Carson is playing with a marble toy. His only support is the thin, red rope which actually moves about 4" either direction. In other words, he's learning to maintain his balance while standing. Just a few short months ago he was using his walker to stand which is very stable and now he can stand while holding onto a wobbly rope. Great progress!

Carson's walker has been sitting in his closet now for about 3 weeks. We have officially and completely transitioned to the sticks. It's still a bit awkward for him and at this point he's a little slower using the sticks compared to the walker. He also falls once in a while which is quite a dramatic scene. Yet, these are the necessary challenges in order to progress. The sticks have significantly less support than his walker which means that he has to work harder to balance and stabilize on his own which is a good thing.

Thankfully Carson has actually enjoyed all these transitions. Every morning when he woke up he was so excited to go to therapy and he has never asked for his walker back. He's a pretty easy going little guy... we'll see how long this lasts!