Motherhood…Unprepared

Well, I definitely haven’t accomplished this the way I wanted to, but any effort is better than no effort, right? Right?

One interesting thing I’ve been thinking about this week is how I look at presents for Henry differently than I do for my other 2 kids. I end up doing a lot of evaluating a toy because of Henry’s unusual interaction technique with most toys.  I end up going to Amazon.com and looking through all the toys appropriate for his development level and evaluating how much they’ll hurt when he whips them at me. Because if it isn’t nailed down or doesn’t weigh more than 15#, he will throw them.It’s not even a matter of “if”, but simply a matter of “when”. So there are many presents that look good and that I want to get for him, but I know they’re going to end up just really, really hurting me. Or Maggie & Steven. Sometimes I continue to try, though. Like with Fisher Price’s Little People. I know he loves them and I know if I can play with them with him, it’ll be okay. Mostly.

But in many cases, I look for toys that are good for his sensory development. For his birthday, I got him a Body Sox to play with him at home. Admittedly, it doesn’t hold a huge “fun quotient’ among neurotypical kids. But, for Henry, it’s the best thing ever. Right now, I’m just putting him in it, closing it up (no, really) and swinging him back and forth about 10 times. Then I put him down, open it up and he laughs and says, “More, please!” So we do it again. Let me tell ya, swinging a 35# child at approximately waist level is quite an upper body workout. So I can only do it about 3 or 4 times before my shoulders give out. But he loves it so much. Honestly, he’d do it as much as I allowed. Every time I open the bag, he’s laughing and saying, “More!” or “More swing!” I was reading through the book “The Out-Of-Sync Child at Play” and they suggested using the Body Sox with ball pit balls as a sort of laundry game.

For Christmas, I got the best idea from my aunt. Her daughter is making these handmade alphabet blocks for her niece. She did a lot of the work, and my aunt brought them with her as she’s housesitting for my parents. So I saw them when I was over last week and asked about them. She explained how she was doing them and my mind starting running. I could combine this idea with Henry’s sensory needs and come up with “sensory blocks”. Putting the letters on each block, but also adding pictures of loved ones, different kinds of fabric to feel, 3D elements like buttons, textured stickers, ribbon tags. So I got started. It’s a project that’s going to take awhile, but here’s what I’ve got so far.

Clockwise from left: Daddy, “h”, apple, Mom-Mom, Uncle Tony, Elmo, Great-Grandma, pig

Clockwise from left again: dinosaur, Henry, Uncle Andrew, Maggie, tiger, elephant, Great-Grandma (same side), panda

And again: “d”, horse, apple (same as #1), “m”, train, Uncle Eric, gorilla, Pop-Pop.

See, so each side has something different on it. This is just a small sampling. I actually got a bunch more worked on today and I’m really excited to see how they turn out when they’re all finished. After all 6 sides are done, I’ll cover them with Varethan water-soluble polyurethane to seal everything in, make it glossy and protected. I sure hope he likes them and doesn’t just use them as shrapnel.

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