Amazing

Well, it has been a little while, sorry. We have been through a lot lately with the family, and all is going well, but has been time and energy consuming!

Sam, on the other hand is really coming into her own. I swear this swing is like magic. She had her gait training yesterday and her PT said it was the BEST EVER. I am not surprised. She has been walking in her walker every day, and getting better every day. She really likes it, and her stamina and speed are really increasing. It is so great to see her so happy in it.

We have decided to incorporate the walker into her playgroup. She is so motivated by the other kids. She hasn't really wanted to walk when she isn't in her walker, with just someone holding her, but in playgroup last week, she was watching another kid go down the slide, and then walked over to him (with my support) when he got to the bottom, and started to chase him! It was so sweet. So we decided to work on ways to get the walker into playgroup. We were tryin it out, and had it in the room after everyone had left (except the people who run the group) and when she saw one of the teachers playing in the "sandbox" she went right over to her on her own and was all smiles, and got to play. It was so wonderful. So we worked out some ways to incorporate it. It is large, so it requires some rearranging of things, but people are happy to accomodate, and it is just wonderful. It also helped them to brainstorm activities that would be good not only for giving sam walking time, but that would help the other kids with things that they need to work on at the same time. So, I left feeling like we just improved things for everyone, instead of feeling like I was just making more work for everyone. THat felt good.

Her therapists have really noticed her increased desire to move around. She wants to GO all the time...a regular toddler! And yesterday she managed to get up on all fours and support herself! She could bear all her weight herself, and then she tried crawling. It didn't quite work out, but she is getting so close. It makes me so happy and overwhelmed with how hard she works. She is just so great. I am so happy that she is willing to work so hard.

Her speech is really coming along too. She is making many more sounds. She loves playing with people's hats and she was playing with dad's hat and then she said "at" when grabbing it. She has said "at" or "hat" several times now. She is not consistent with words, but she is saying them more often. She says "hi" and waves hi and bye pretty consistently now, which is so cute. Sheis really trying to communicate. We are working on other ways of communicating too...

Oh well, I guess the princess is ready to be attended to, so I must go when she beckons!

Happy Rainy Day!!

LiSA