Little Bear's legs and feet have the possibility of causing him great pain.  In fact, I'm surprised that he can walk without a great deal of pain.  He does complain of pain, but often it is when he has to do something boring like walk through a store.  In the past I've thought that he was just fussing (like when Jophus is "too tired" to participate at mass).

I've been reevaluating that after reading that children with attachment problems can be disconnected from their physical pain.  I also realize that we've kept Little Bear in a stroller much longer that most children just because he is all over the place.

The last few days I've been watching him.  He really can't walk very far.  I don't know if he just get tired or if there is pain, but someone showed me a great tool called "Oucher" that I'm hoping will help.


It's a visual pain scale, and I'm hoping that it will help us evaluate what is real pain or just Bear avoiding unpleasant tasks.  If he really is having a lot of pain we will have to re-evaluate treatment options for Bear's feet, something that I'm not really keen to do because we will have to make some very hard decisions.

http://oucher.org/