Yes, Whitney is now 3, as of January 7th! I am so far behind in updating you. I thought I would attempt to bring you up to speed. Her birthday was filled with My Little Pony, Littlest Pet Shop, and little mouse figurines. She had a fantastic time with her family and we even brought cupcakes to her therapy school. It was quite exciting!
Here are her 3 year stats:
Weight: 33 1/2 lbs (75th percentile)
Height: 38 3/4 inches (85th percentile)
Head circumference: 46 1/2 cm (20th percentile)
They estimate that she will be about 5'8! Just so you know that is very short for our family. (: We will see!
The past 3 years we have had a physical therapist come to our home once a week. When a child turns three our state no longer provides this service but it changes to a school setting. After much conversation and meetings Matt and I decided to enroll her at one of the public school programs on Friday afternoons. She very much enjoys her class. The plan is to use this class setting to prepare her for a 'regular' classroom. All of the children in her class have different needs: fine motor, speech ect. However she is the only one with gross motor or physical needs. This will hopefully be a good piece in her transition to pre school and kindergarten. There is another 3 year old girl who likes to 'help' Whitney. It is very cute.
She is also continuing to attend the Conductive Learning Center 4 mornings a week. She is still loving it and slowly but surely making forward progress and gaining strength. Her stamina for walking is increasing and she is doing a great job with her walker.
Now that I am towards the tail end of my pregnancy I can not carry her as far as I used to and still use her stroller quite a bit. We are beginning conversations of the dreaded wheelchair which will more than likely be a reality this year. There does not seem to ever be a lack of decisions to be made.
Whitney has been blessed by the most enthusiastic attitude. People often comment on how positive Fiona is and we smile because we know Whitney is even more so. She LOVES her sister. Loves school, church, sunday school, BSF (Bible Study), and donuts. (: After church on Sunday she yells, "Yeah, sunday school!" Now that I think of it she often yells when she is excited which is frequent. Her positive attitude is a blessing in our home.
Today I had an interesting moment where at Fiona's swimming lessons someone asked me about Whitney and if she had swim lessons. So, I told her that Whitney has spina bifida and after seeing the confusion on her face I gave her a brief description of what it was, and telling her she goes to swimming at a rehabilitation hospital. She said, "oh, I am so sorry". The reason why this struck me was because I think for the first time I thought to myself, "why are you sorry"? i didn't' even think it though and was not sure how to respond so I didn't. It is awesome to see a shift in my thinking and how spina bifida has become so normal to our lives. I can't tell you how blessed we are by her and how often she blesses others.
Matt also had a birthday these past months. I would say that it was his best one but I am not sure he would agree with me. (: It was a blizzard that day and we literally could not leave the house until 9:00 that evening. So, the girls and I enjoyed having daddy home for the whole day!
Our pregnancy is going great. We are getting more and more excited to meet our little one. We are now down to 7 weeks! The girls are very excited and call the baby, Snap Dragon. (: We have caught on to the name as well and so that is the name until the real name is revealed.
