Kinesio Taping

Therapy on Monday was awesome. We did a little bit of experimenting with Kinesio Taping.

Kai has pigeon toes - as did I (but it was fixed when I took ballet as a kid). Ryenne also was pigeon toed and ballet helped her over the summer.

Kai walks almost like a Bull Dog. Not only his feet, but his legs are also pointed inward.

So we did some experimenting with taping. In essence, the tape guides the muscle to it's correct position without pulling or forcing. It's a very gentle nudge to move to the right place. It makes it a little uncomfortable for the muscle to go where it wants to be.

 Above: he was playing trains and was not standing pigeon toed!

 Here he is in a semi-W position. Normally he'd have his leg splayed out farther from his body and on both sides. Here he has his leg closer in, using his trunk muscles more.

These images above are just to illustrate that even with the tape he tries to pull his feet inward. We'll keep using the tape and it should help to train his legs over time. 

Monday was a double whammy therapy day because we also had his first speech therapist, Emily, come to the house. It took him a minute to warm up, but once he did it all went great. She encouraged us to have him watch our mouth when we speak. She also said that we should let him say familiar phrases but then ask him to add on one more word. So when he says, "More nilk (milk) mama" to get him to say More milk mama please  - just adding one more word to phrases he already knows. We'll see Emily again in two weeks. He did really great emulating her. He really likes her. On Tuesday when  I picked him up from school his teacher said she has never heard him talk more and could actually UNDERSTAND him. This is HUGE.

Tuesday was also wonderful because after I picked them up we headed over to Gams. It was an incredibly glorious day outside. We brought trucks and tractors outside into the dirt and let the kids just play. They got very dirty, made leaf stew, played with the trucks. Cruz tasted dirt, sticks, leaves, and crawled all over the place. He had leaves embedded into his jammy. It was awesome. 

Today we had therapy again. Kai and I got a really good sweat in the sauna. The therapy session was just a little short today because the lady who watches Ryenne and Cruz had to leave early. 

It's really been an awesome few days for me and the kids. I'm really looking forward to starting some crafting projects with my mom in the next few days.