The Peanut

The peanut is a red exercise ball shaped like a peanut. We first used the peanut with Anna when she began PT and OT, and since I was doing so much PT and OT at home inbetween sessions, I bought one for our home gym. I would sit her on it and roll it back and forth to strengthen her core muscles and rock it side to side to work on her reflexes. I'd flip her on her belly to work on her shoulder and arm strength and to teach her out to reach and grab items on the floor. Anna didn't always enjoy these exercises, but a lot of the time I would put Sesame on and she'd tolerate it long enough to go through our routine or most of it.

I don't use the peanut as much as I used to, but I still try and take it out and go through a modified version of our routine. Now I use it mostly with Anna straddling it while I bounce her up and down to work on her hip strength. It also helps with her posture and core strength. She's now strong enough to swing her leg around and get off the peanut or at least try hard enough that it makes it impossible for me to continue the exercise. So I have to go with the flow a little more now!

I took the peanut out yesterday, probably the first time in about two weeks or so. At first she resisted but then settled in for a quick work out while she enjoyed Curious George. She let me go through most of the exercises so I gave her a break and put the peanut aside. I went into the kitchen, and when I came out a few minutes later, there was Anna sitting on the peanut! She had pushed it against a chair and was hanging on to the chair with her left hand for balance. She was bouncing up and down and rocking back and forth, and now that she was in control, this was all of a sudden a fun activity rather than a chore!

She was making me a little nervous so I patiently watched her for a few minutes but then decided it was time to move onto another game. But this time instead of simply putting it aside, I actually had to put it out of reach. She attempted for a little while to grab it off of the dining room table but decided it was best to move on! If only I had had the video camera rolling!