Hand Prints

These little hands are one of  the most adorable and most frustrating part of Riley.  I love those itty bitty fat little fingers.  I love the way I can always pick his hand prints out of classroom art because of of the way his finger tips are a little crooked after having his fingers separated.  This is one of my favorite pictures of the boys where you can still see his sticky fingers.   Rex was hysterical telling people about how Riley's fingers were stuck together but its was OK because Dr Bruce was going to fix it.  Dr Bruce is the boys pediatrician and Rex was pretty sure he was just going to take a knife and slice them apart.  Little did any of us know what a big deal that surgery was really going to be.  Over a week in a cast/sling to make sure the skin grafts had time to work their magic and so many stitches his little fingers looked like caterpillars.  It is the one time in Riley's life when I didn't want him to touch me.  Just thinking about the feeling of those nasty little furry fingers still gives me the chills.  As you can the Dr at the Shriner's did an amazing job and his fingers have healed great.  He has full range of motion and other than the funny finger tips and a little scaring its pretty unnoticeable. 

These itty bitty little hands also cause Riley a lot of extra work.  It is so hard to make those little fingers do what he wants.  His hands are weak and therefore simple activities like coloring are hard.  If coloring is a challenge you can imagine what hand writing is like.  This will be one of the most challenging parts of school for Riley.  He works hard with his OT each week and is certainly making progress but its simply hard work.  This is one area where Down syndrome has stacked the deck and not in Riley's favor. His physical anatomy  is small, his muscles are weak and then you top it off with issues with motor planning and he has a lot to over come.  Good thing he is a stubborn little thing and he'll make it work.  Even better he was born in a day and age where the iPad and other tools are available and he'll have every advantage that technology has to offer to make things a little easier.