Friday, June 26, 2009

Birthday Song

Today is Allie's third birthday and I'm missing it because I'm in Hungary. Not only that, Charity's birthday was this week, too, so I made this video to kill two birds with one stone.

Friday, June 19, 2009

Workin' It Out

Here are some pics the Charming and Beautiful Susan snapped with her phone yesterday at physical therapy.

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This is Allie on a swing. We're working on torso control, balance, and her grip. This is her favorite Physical Therapy activity.

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These are Allie working on crawling. She wants to craw soooo badly. She lacks the arm strength and motor skills to coordinate crawling on her own. But she's definitely motivated to move.

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Sunday, June 14, 2009

Stand and Deliver

IMG_1246 This is Allie's new thing-a-ma-jig for standing practice. They started her in it at physical therapy for eight minutes at a time and then sent us home with it. She went eleven minutes this afternoon. The charming and beautiful Susan is talking about going for fifteen minutes tomorrow.

At physical therapy when she stood in this, she freaked out. But she did well here at the house. She had fun standing playing with toys and gabbing at us.

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Saturday, June 06, 2009

Grandma Makes Guacamole

There is one thing you can set your watch by around here and that's Grandma's daily visits. She's here every morning before work. This morning Grandma was here in time to help feed Allie. Allie ate half an avocado.

She wore the other half.

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Usually, I'm the culprit in making Allie messy. It's nice to have someone else to blame for Allie's messiness. That is why I like Grandma so much.

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Wednesday, June 03, 2009

Allie's Legs

Great news: the braces are coming off soon! At least during the day. Over the next month, Allie has been cleared for weight bearing exercise in physical therapy. And if Dancer Joan says it's okay, in a month Allie will have braces on the ankle and feet only.

At night, however, she'll have to wear the full HKAFO's. Her hips are mostly healed since the surgery, but the doc doesn't want her to lose any ground, so at night she'll have to stay in the full contraption. It keeps her legs open and her hamstrings stretched. This will give Allie the maximum use of her legs in the future. (We're not quite sure what "maximum use" is yet, but this will give her her best chance.)

We take her out of her braces for about an hour a day for exercise, a bath, and even a trip to the pool. She loves to have time out of her braces, but, believe it or not, she's also comfortable putting them back on. She's used to the support she gets from them.

Since the operation, she is much more comfortable in her stroller. Especially with the braces. They give added stability and she is able to stay in the stroller longer. Before her operation, her hips hurt since they were growing out-of-joint. But now, we roll out for a two mile walk over the Blue Heron Bridge every morning. It's time together we'll always treasure.