Ipod videos

[marydell]

This Ipod doohickey that I won has an integrated video camera. W00t! The lens is in a totally thumbtastic location, so my shots look like pictures my dad took when I was a kid--oops--but the picture quality is nice for a little bitty thing.  And the teeny-ness means it's easy to keep in my pocket for those impromptu shots. Now to just work on the thumb situation. Uh, also after viewing these I trimmed his weird pointy bangs; wtf was going on there? Home haircuts FTW...sometimes.

Note: my moose of a boy is 27 months old tomorrow, not 4 years as you might think from looking at him. My poor back...

Comments

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

He sure is tall and sturdy for a youth of his tender years! And that "HOORAY I AM GOING BACKWARDS REALLY FAST!" expression is purely delightful.

Has he lost interest in wearing the dinosaur-arm, or did it just not work out for him? It occurs to me I haven't seen it in any of your photos recently.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

He wants nothing to do with dino-arm at this point, and based on his current ability with his short arm as compared to what he can do with dino-arm, I don't blame him. I need to write a big post about this...I've been reading studies about it and it seems pretty common (like, 45% in one study) for toddlers with limb difference to reject upper-arm prostheses, because they don't provide significantly better abilities than the short limb. We think he'll be interested in a prosthesis in a year or two, though (and we do intend to try to use the current one a bit if he will let us put it on him, but right now he really doesn't want to try), as his motor skills continue to develop.

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I wonder if a lot of "therapies" aimed at children growing up in bodies of difference are really more about reducing the visual stigma (thus sparing the parents from embarrassment) than actually helping the child lead as free a life as possible.

...Speaking from a tangential experience. This may be a new post in my journal, soon...

[marydell.livejournal.com]

That's definitely a part of it. I think when a child has lost a limb it's a whole different thing than never having had it, but that doesn't seem to be accounted for in determining goals for prosthetics use. Charlie definitely feels the absence of certain abilities, but he likes his little arm just fine and doesn't appear to think it is lacking anything.

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

I love that you guys are letting him set the pace for this! Not every parent would have the confidence in their child's sovereignty to do that. I wish Charlie all the best with however many arms he chooses to employ on any given day. :)

[marydell.livejournal.com]

Thanks! It does come partly from believing that he should have some self-determination even at a very young age, although I am a traditional bossy parent in many ways (we did not, frex, give him the option of forgoing PT when he was delayed with standing & walking. Even when he slapped his therapist...). But it's more about my feelings about bodies and how we inhabit them...I was raised in an environment with a lot of body shame (as were a lot of us) and I always promised myself I wouldn't let a child grow up feeling like there was something wrong with them by default, just for inhabiting their physical body. Society's going to shame him about his arm, and we want him to have a lot of pride and love for that arm as a countermeasure. Covering it up with a different arm has some advantages, but it takes away all of the happy skin sensation he could have and replaces it with mild discomfort, and makes it hard for him to do simple fun things like clap (he claps his hand against the end of his short arm) or tuck a toy under his arm. So we've encouraged its use, but only very mildly because it's more important to us that he feels totally at home in his body.