Crafty

I've been feeling crafty lately.

I lost my crafty feelings for a while and with good reason. With Christian's accident and then having a new baby and a family to take care of, moving, and settling and traveling and therapy...it doesn't really leave a lot of room for crafty stuff.

Christmas time is the perfect time to get my craft on. And I've had a lot of creative outlets available lately. One of them being Lola's first birthday!

Another source of craftiness was born from this...

Okay so this is a sensory board. This homemade sensory board was given to us while we were in the hospital by Cici's Mom, Jenny. Let me just say, this board DID NOT look like this when we received it. It was nice and new and pretty. It had other things on it...and as you can see those things are no longer there. Why? Because of Christian. This is where it gets good...

When Christian first got this sensory board, he didn't do anything with it accept for maybe involuntary staring. Slowly but surely he started opening his hands to feel the fuzzy balls when I placed his hands over them. Then he started fiddling with the beads and noisy paper. Then he had bits of goobery gel cling octopus under his nails. And now? Well, as you can see, the board has been used lovingly by Christian's busy hands. Notice the finger prints?

So this board isn't just a sensory board. This board is a testament to progress. And that makes me a happy and grateful recipient of this board.

And, as such, with the outpouring of love and support we've received on this journey, I've had a serious urge to pay it forward. I couldn't wait to make a similar board for another child who could benefit from it.

That's just what I did...

It's Christmas themed, yes, but Christmas brings good things so I'm hoping this sensory board will bring Owen good things. It has a slinky, a large, silver bell, beads, fuzzy balls and the infamous gel clings.

Our friends also spoiled Christian with some more LED lights. And this time they're in a candy cane rope pattern and they're super bright.

Ooooh, pretty!

More craftyness? Well, I had to be crafty in this instance. I saw a really cool toy in the special needs catalog that had a bunch of beads hanging from an arch. Christian loves beads and I thought to myself what a great tool that would be for vision and and touch. Then I started thinking about how many strands of beads we have in our house. So I strung them up on an arch we already have and Manny affixed it to Christian's tray. Voila! We have the exact same toy without spending a bunch of money!

Pretty swell and it would have been better had Christian not been ready to crash. Ah, well.  

Can you see the shot glass? Well, we got a strand of beads with a shot glass attached. Classy, huh. Beads are beads, people. We have to use what we have, right?