Someone gave me the idea to speak with my chiro at the physio place. I don't remember who told me to do this, but thank you! My chiro gave me a ton of info on it, and told me how he would treat an adult with this same issue. We know that ~63% of babies with trigger thumbs will spontaneously self-correct by the age of 4, so there was a potential for a long wait and see solution. We started doing the massage techniques that the chiro recommended and I believe that this is what improved things greatly for Calvin. For the past few days he hasn't had locked thumbs at all that I have witnessed. I still massage his hands just in case, but now that he has gone so many days with normal thumbs, I feel better about posting the story.
They were starting to get bad - locking all the time and it would hurt him when we popped them back into an open position. The massage and resistance exercises helped tremendously and you could feel the thumb slip open by itself after a good rub. In addition to the exercises and massage, I was constantly trying to get him to copy a thumbs up sign, and waving hello with the hand wide open. He would watch with great interest but so far hasn't copied anything. It made me feel better though - just to be trying things. I would say 'fingers crossed' that he stays fixed, but that seems maybe to be the wrong good luck term for here!
We braved the pain in the back and ribs to make a visit down to see Uncle Jason, Aunt Soph and cousin Matthew. It was a nice visit and it was great to see Matthew with the baby. He was so gentle with Calvin, nice kisses and holding hands. Matthew is a very gentle boy with other kids. Not so gentle with a plastic golf club though - and he loved it. Even Calvin loved it. Kids are crazy. Jason and Soph were kind and surprised us with a Baby Bullet machine and teething ring. I came home and had that Baby Bullet unwrapped in seconds! I can't wait to start cooking up home made baby food. Thanks guys!
We have started the work on the new vegetable and fruit garden. Turns out to be a lot longer to get done than you would think. It doesn't help that my back was killing me after the drive to Toronto and back, so I was useless to Sean and didn't help much. He had to shovel 4 cubic yards of quad mix by himself into the trailer, move it to the back, then unshovel it and spread it about. Sadly, it turns out the estimate we were given for how much mix we needed was wrong. By half. Ha! Poor Sean - we will be getting another 4 cubic yards and only then can he start moving the 4 yards of mulch! At least this is all a one time thing, that will reap yearly benefits.