Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day! For us, it was just a normal day--trying to get E exercised, me going to work, trying to clean the house up. Honestly, to plan something super duper special was just more work than Jason and I could handle!

E and I did make a cake, though. I let her decorate it. With A LOT of icing. And a candle. Hmm....yum?

A Whole New World Started February 4th

This post has been a long time coming.

On February 4th, it was a relatively normal evening--we were scrambling to get dinner on the table. E and Vivian were proving a little more high maintenance than usual. After what seemed to be forever, we were all finally sitting down and ready to begin our meal. And, just like clockwork, just as the forks are coming to our lips, E confesses: "I have to go to the bathroom".

SIGH. I'm so exhausted. "You know what? You have your shoes and braces on. Just go."

Jason's eyes go REAL WIDE. E gets down from her chair and heads to the bathroom. She's never tried this before--normally we have been right by the door, ready to spring into action to avoid a head injury. Jason and I were frozen in worried anticipation. if E fell, this could be a horrible setback. We didn't end up having to wait for thud, though...E kept giving us the play-by-play.

"I'm on the potty!"
"I'm not falling in Mommy, don't worry!"
"I'm WIPIN!"
*singing now* "I AM PULLIN' UP MY PANTS!"
"MOOOOOOOM! I decided I'm NOT GOING TO HANG UP THE TOWEL 'CAUSE I CAN'T REACH THE HOLDER."
"I'm DONE! MOOOOOOM! I'm comin' out!"
"HERE I COME!!!!"

She is practically DANCING her way back to the table! For us to NOT have to drop everything to help her to the bathroom is a HUMONGOUS change in our lives. Not to mention the confidence boost this has given E--she wants to do everything she can--get her own drink (we now put a cup so she can get water from the fridge--she can even walk to the table with it!), help bring dishes to the sink (relatively clean, light, ideally unbreakable tableware), swiff (she can even do it without holding on to the wall!), and has started putting some of her toys away (only when she feels like it). She can do these things when she is wearing her shoes and braces.

I have a feeling this will be the way things are for a while--when she is wearing her shoes and braces, she can do a certain tier of things; when she is wearing her sneakers sans AFOs, a different set of things, and when barefoot, much fewer things. That's okay--we're determined to turn those few things into many.

PT Recap: Showin' off those hips!

E has really looked great lately at PT. Her hips looks so square! In the past, she's really had her right knee cave in, followed by her right hip. Her knee still caves in, but not as much as in the past. Her right hip does drop--but she has started to fix it herself, even without a voice cue.

Here is E doing CME with Molly--hips looking good here, even though she fell.


Crate Steps--again, hips look square, and nice lifting of each foot out of the crate.


Awesome!

Rockering Live

In case you're not sure what rockering means, here's a pretty good example.

We've been working on strengthening E's ankle muscles with the hope she can dorsiflex better, with the hope she'll be able to walk without her AFOs on someday. Here's what it looks like now--note that she still drags her toes (it used to be her entire top of her foot last year), and that as long as she walks slowly, she can get her entire foot flat on the ground sometime during her stride. This flat portion of the stride is very new (hadn't happened before her SDR operation). You can also see how badly broken down her arch is--"rockering"--in the rear view video (do I even call this an arch? I don't know).

Keep in mind one of her hands is along the wall, and I am holding the other.

Super Bowl Craziness

Truth: our family hardly ever watches television. We certainly don't follow football--but we LOVE the Super Bowl! Especially when we have a reason to root for the underdog. My Favorite Aunt Stacy lives in New Orleans...GO SAINTS!

She was very excited when I told her she could wear "makeup" like the football players.


E practiced her football moves all weekend. Here is her take on "how you play football":
-When you are the quarterback, you throw the ball.
-Then a player catches it. You tuck the ball under your arm so no one can take it.
-Then you run and make a touchdown.

No Problem.



After watching the game for a few minutes, I had to explain the "tackle". I told E "when you are trying to make a touchdown, the other team wants to stop you, so they try to knock you down".

"Wow Mommy...they REALLY don't want him to make a touchdown." LOL

Snowship

Another big snow, another adventure! They're calling it "Snowmageddon" around here. We are loving it.

We started off creating a snow castle--I used a bread pan to make snow bricks. It was working very well, until E leaned on it too much and sent a wall crashing down (before I could reinforce it). Turns out that didn't really matter...with the weather as it was, and some pretty destructive boys, the Breadpan Castle wasn't going to make it through the night. Sad, b/c I didn't get a picture of the partially made, but still very impressive fortress.

So I started a new project--something E could lean on and help build. We made a snowboat! I give you Captain Elena, of the S.S. Doodle!





Lots of snow, lots of shoveling, lots of days out of school. Mom and Dad are tired.