Saturday, May 20, 2006

Pilates Anyone?

One morning I set Ryan up in front of Sesame Street at 6:00 am (yes, he wakes up far too early for me) while I went to take a shower. I came back to Ryan doing his Winsor Pilates exercises. It was too funny for words. What got me is that he got out the exercise mat and was diligently following the instructions. He could do the 100 better than me! I quick took a couple of pictures before he saw me. A week or so later, he did it again... so this time I got the video out! Click on the link below to see the videos. The second video is actually Kurtis getting in the action too. It also shows Ryan's slowly developing speech! For those of you who don't know Ryan, his speech has been his biggest challenge. He is diagnosed with apraxia - this is unrelated to Down syndrome, although many children with DS do have apraxia. Apraxia basically means that his brain knows what it wants to say, but he has extreme difficulty in making his mouth form the correct shape to say the words. It also means he can say a sound in one context but not another. For example, he can say "no" perfectly clearly, but cannot make the /n/ sound on command. Anyways, we are slowly seeing some progress and it is so exciting. Here is Ryan saying "I love you"... and the neat thing is that the pronounciation has improved a great deal since this video was taken.



































http://dropshots.com/annettel

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Annette, this is too cute! Thanks for sharing it.

Anonymous said...

What a smart and cute grandson we have.Keep up the good work Ryan.

Anonymous said...

What a smart and cute grandson we have.Keep up the good work Ryan.

Jan Steck Huffman said...

whoa Ryan! come and kick some Indiana booty into shape will you??

PS Tell momma that she HAS to come to Atlanta for the NDSC conference as we are going and want her to come too!!

Michelle said...

Great working out Ryan - wish I was that motivated! Loved the videos too!

The Mom said...

What darling pics and whooo hoooo on the speech! WTG Ryan! I love this post Annette! Give your boy some hugs and high fives from us :)

Anonymous said...

Maybe if I got up at 6am each morning I could squeeze in a workout. Unlike Ryan I don't have the energy or the motivation.(to get my behind out of bed!)
I look forward to reading your blogspot Annette. You are an awesome storyteller!!!
Coby and Boys
P.S. Happy belated mothers day to you too. I glad you had a good day.You deserve it! You're a great mom.

Unknown said...

Oh Ryan,,,you melt my heart...and I second Jan's request for Atlanta....as we will be there too!