General Update!

Age: 17 months

Physical abilities: Crawls extra fast, Takes approximately 15-18 steps at a time, Balance has improved immensely, Learning to walk and turn corners, Climbs on the couch/bookshelves, Can stand on one foot and kick with the other, Dances by lifting legs independently, throws balls.

Speech/language,vocabulary, sentence length, etc.: Has approximately 10 consistent words

Reading/pre-reading: Reads books to us and/or her dolls, Runs her finger along the words (like we do) while 'reading.' Helps to turn the pages.

Number stuff: Counts/shows on her fingers 1-2-3.

Other cognitive stuff: puzzles, reasoning, etc.: Can do puzzles with the pegs on them, will put things in the correct place without help but cannot always get them in their spot the correct way without our help.

Imagination:Pretends to eat food that's not there, also pretends to feed it to others, has stuffed animals make animal noises though not always the right noise for the right animal

Social: Interested in playing with other children, will follow them around trying to get their attention. She will also get upset when a toy is taken away from her.

Character/personality: Very loving and always willing to give a hug or a kiss, she is also incredibly friendly and says 'hi' to everyone she sees. She has recently developed a bit of a temper and is not a fan of the word 'no'.

Anything else/other: Leah is a very happy toddler. She is doing just beautifully. We are still waiting on her AFO/SMO and are hoping once she gets those her walking will improve even more. We hope they provide her with a bit of security and stability. She often relies on holding our hands when she wants to walk, we believe that she has a hard time trusting her body, but once she is up and going she often does well.

OT/PT: Leah is in OT once a week and PT once a week. We will soon be going back to OT twice a week. We are also going to be adding on Water Therapy sometime in the summer. (We tried last month and Leah didn't enjoy it). Leah loves her therapists and enjoys playing with them. They are thrilled with her progress.

Constraint Induced Movement Therapy: We are planning our second round of CIMT for April(ish). We will reevaluate then and make sure that it is the right time. We are also hoping to enroll Leah in a Constraint Camp this summer. She would be the youngest they've ever done, but the OT's think she will be ready. This is all pending the progress she makes in the next couple months.