Day 5

Highlight (: renewed motivation

Today was great. The lying program went fine and our individual program went fantastic. She we sitting on her little box a the parallel bars with one friend on one side and 2 across from her. She kept standing up (her idea) and sitting down with a plop. It was very cute. She was even smiling! I am so excited that my almost 2 year old is starting to think that maybe she wants to stand up. What a thrill. I was almost scared to be too excited or she might stop.

Another new thing was that she initiated was moving her legs up while 4 point crawling more today than I have seen yet. Progress is being made!

We began a few new excercises as well. One is standing straight up against the wall with ladder back chairs on either side of her for support. She was a little nervous and her knees buckeled a few times but for something new she did very well. The second new one is to teach her how to use her hands to scooch herself on her bum backwards to get around. This also strengthens her arms in the process. Her arms are a little too short yet but we are using a few short little boxes to bring the floor up a bit. The third one is pushing a stool and 'walking' on her knees. This gets her to swing her upper leg, strenghen those muscles, and it is a easier than walking.

At the end of the day last week and today I spoke with the conductor about a few goals for Whitney. I had mentioned to them last week that I would like to see her using a walker soon. She told me today that if we were not coming regularly that she would introduce it now, but since we have time we are going to take it. She explained how it is best to move slow, and take our time to strenghten her lower back and core as much as possible and teach her in stages. A large majority of spina bifida walkers walk with their lower back arched in and this makes thier bottom stick out. We want her walking in the best position possible. Whitney is blessed with no back deformities as of yet so, if we can, we want to prevent this from occurring. This conversation was encouraging and a good reminder to be patient, stop comparing, and to keep moving forward.