The Krause Bears: Peter - Carepage - September 28th, 2008

A day at the lake!

Well, I just wanted to post an update to tell you how great Peter is doing. What finally got me off my behind to do it was that we went to the lake today and Peter had a great time. It all started with my creative husband. He tends to just find or end up with things for free....amongst them an abandoned kayak at our old town house complex. Well, he tested it for sea-worthiness in our swimming pool - and today we took it out on the lake. We tied it to the top of the van and slowly headed up into the mountains hopeful it would not fly off the top of the van. We enjoyed lunch at the resevoir, tried out luck at fishing, and took turns in the kayak. It was so nice to be outdoors. In all our wisdom (or lack there of) we left home without sunscreen. Well, we are all a bit pink in the face....including Peter who has tan lines on his face where is oxygen tube was taped. I am going to update our blog after this so that I can post more pictures - the leaves are turning in the mountains and some of the aspens literally looked like they were on fire! Here are some pictures from the trip - I only wish they would capture the colors as we saw them....

But back to Peter - can I just tell you how proud I am of my little man??!! He just brings me so much joy. I was just telling a friend that he is the child I never knew I wanted, but the one God knew I needed. His joy, perserverance, and huge heart inspire me! He is so loved, and in turn loves us all so much with his hugs, kisses and big smiles.

I am on a distribution list for the local Down syndrome association, and this week there were a lot of e-mails back and forth about feeding challenges. There are parents with kids in the 3yr to 5yr age range that are still struggling with feedings and only eat select puree food. And while I think I am the mom with the youngest child on this group, I was so proud to share how well Peter is doing. And I did one of those look back in time things again....a year ago I was in tears when Peter would refuse to eat. I was afraid we would need to get a g-tube. I just wanted to close my eyes and jump into the future when all those issues would go away. And guess what? I am there. Yes, Peter is not eating steak and potatoes but probably would if you gave him a chance. He is doing so awesome! He is loving textured foods, will about rip anything out of your hand, and seems very interested in what others are eating. He is gumming food well, and using his tongue to shift food around his mouth. He even had part of a tortilla chip the other night while we were grilling. Today he had a few chunks of chicken meat. His favorite is now the toddler dehydrated yogurt bits they sell at the store.....did you catch that? TODDLER!! Peter is eating TODDLER food and taking huge strides every day! We still have a way to get him to self feed - but he has even tried a few times to grab food and bring it to his mouth. We have a way to go - but slowly but surely that too will be a thing of the past.

Mr. Hyper-active Peter Bear is into EVERYTHING....and has been for a while. He has completely mastered moving from sitting to laying and back without the need of any support. He is getting up on all 4's and rocking back and forth a ton!! He also crawled over to the couch last night and successfully - with no help needed - pulled up into the standing position three or four times. Oh my goodness - I was so excited! I hope it doesn't feel like I give you the same updates time after time....and I realize it takes a while to hit each milestone - but because we see Peter work so hard to reach them that we must rejoice! When I take the time to just watch Peter do his stuff and work on what he is learning in therapy I just want to shout from the mountain tops how I was blessed with the most amazing child! I love all my children - but Peter has touched each of us so much more than we ever knew he could.....WE LOVE YOU PETER!!