Baby Hulk ~ Test Drive

Just in my last post I said Baby Hulk was his PT's first baby with Down syndrome who hasn't needed orthotics. Well, I spoke too soon because the very next week she brought them up. And then the next week she got out the box and tried some on him. Finally last week she brought out a pair and said she wanted him to try them out to see if they would do anything for him. He works his toes too much. He grips the ground with his little toes for balance and Ms. Annie wanted to see if she could stop that with some orthotics, forcing him to use his core more for balance. We brought them home and then promptly all caught the plague and died. Mr. Grey brought home some horrible stomach virus from school. Everyone was throwing up even poor Baby Hulk. The first time ever and I am sure he had no idea what was going on.

Poor thing :'(

So for almost the whole first week we had the orthotics, they sat in my bag untouched. I was a little unhappy with the whole idea of it anyways because we just bought Baby Hulk a new pair of shoes, and the orthotics didn't fit in them! I was going to have to buy him another pair of shoes just to try these orthotics. We weren't even sure he needed them! Finally, Sunday, 2 days before we saw Ms. Annie again I forced myself to feel well enough to go find a pair of shoes. We went to Target. We needed shoes that didn't have too thick of a sole. That is asking a lot out of boys shoes apparently. All shoes for boys past a size 3 must have 1 inch of sole. I was so mad I went the next aisle over and we tried on some hot pink patent leather mary janes... yup... I put my baby in girl shoes. And then I laughed put them back and left. We did a quick run into the Kohls next door and before I even got to the shoe section Baby Hulk had fallen asleep in my arms, there was nothing there anyways. We went home empty handed.


Monday Baby Hulk had his 15-18mo wellcheck and had to have 3 immunizations, one of them being DTaP. As an adult I have had it and could hardly raise my arm! The rest of the day he was dragging one leg a bit, he wouldn't bend it. I wasn't taking him shoe shopping again while he was limping around.

Tuesday morning a couple hours before PT we ran to another Target and success! A pair of cute cheap shoes that work with these blasted orthotics!

$12.99!!! (Darling Husband says this is how you take shoe pictures.)

He fell asleep on the way home and slept until it was time to go to see Ms. Annie. The orthotics went on and he went straight into his carseat! A week to try them out and this was his first time actually wearing them!

During PT he walked funny in them. His butt stuck out a lot and his feet were far apart, his toes turned in. He looked a bit like a duck. She tried to work with him trying to get him to tuck his butt and move his shins more over his feet but to do this she would grab his thighs. I had to remind her he had just had shots the day before when he cried out and then she felt bad and we pretty much played with bubbles the rest of our time there.

I'm not exactly happy about these orthotics. I hope he doesn't really need them. They are a lot of work to put on him and I have a bad habit of conveniently forgetting to do things I don't like to do. We will see how this week goes. He wore them for about 45 minutes yesterday. I haven't put them on him at all today. It is hard for me! We don't wear shoes in the house. Putting shoes on my baby just to hang around the house may take some getting used to.

So here's to hoping these abominations are unnecessary and we can go back to being awesome, and uninhibited by footwear. FREE THE FEET!!!