Coming Home

I have been a terrible blogger lately.  I have just had so much on my plate and too much to think about.  Trying to process it all on my own is something I barely have time for, let alone share it with you.  I did want to quickly update you on our second trip to Riley this week.  We went down to talk about the possibility of getting Levi a wheelchair, and it looks like that is going to be the way we go.  The more I think about it, the more excited I get for him.  One of the myriad of reasons we feel like this is the right decision is that it is just not fair to him to not be eye level with his peers.  For instance, right now at church, he is in a nursery with 1 and 1.5 y/o.  I don't like it, but putting him in his age group nursery would be somewhat dangerous for him with the other kids running around.  In the nursery he is in, he is able to be on the floor and have access to more toys than he would in the other nursery.  This has bothered me for quite some time, but there was really no good way to solve it.  It is very hard when you see your friend's children who are younger or even the same age going into classes that your child should be in.  (Have I said that before?) Next week I am going to be meeting with the director of our children's department to talk about what we can do to get Levi in a more age-appropriate setting.

All that to say...I think the wheelchair will be a great tool for Levi.  When we went to Riley to talk about it and try some out, he really did seem to enjoy it.  I think it's very similar to the gait trainer - he enjoys being up and having the freedom to play like other kids.  He is very proud of himself in his gait trainer, and it seemed to be the same way for the wheelchair.

There are a couple of different chairs we are looking at - a rigid chair (doesn't fold up) called the Tilite Twist and a collapsible chair - the Quickie.  A quick run-down of the positives for each chair:

Tilite:
- Levi is small for his age and this is the only one with his seat length.
- It fits in the van (with the double stroller) without having to fold up or take the wheel off and is smaller than the Quickie
- It has a little bit sportier look than the Quickie (I know, kind of silly)

Quickie:
- It has the option of having one-hand drive wheels, meaning that Levi could potentially steer with his right hand and right wheel only.  It's a double tubing that he would have to learn to manipulate but something that's possible none-the-less.

I think we are definitely leaning towards one over the other, but we will be talking to Levi's therapists this next week to see what their opinions are and make sure we aren't missing something in these options or another wheelchair we don't know about.

That's the big stuff going on right now in the not-so-quick update.  Now it's off to wrangle two toddlers!