Sorry for the lack of blog posts!! We've been enjoying summer!!
Leah is LOVING the warm weather, in the past week we've been to the beach or the pool every single day! Leah is doing great in the pool, although she does fall A LOT! She doesn't always get both arms down to catch herself and more then once has gone under without wanting too! She always recovers and gets right back up and running! I'm just now noticing how much she really does fall. I think because it's summer and I've been slacking in putting on her braces (sandals are just so much easier!!), that she is a bit off balance. I'm trying to get the braces on her for at least 5 hours a day, but it's hard when we go to the pool every afternoon!
As far as a PT/OT update--there is not much to report. I'm finding PT draining, because we are not really doing anything! We are hopefully switching to in-clinic which will be better, but I honestly don't know what the PT does when she is here! I feel like the whole time we just talk (we know a lot of the same people!) and Leah runs around! I know it's just a stage and Leah doesn't need as much PT right now, but we'll continue to do it! Leah is VERY close to out growing her braces--so we are starting the LONG state process to get new ones!
OT has been going well...we've seen some great improvements and awareness in Leah's use of "lefty". She wears the bi-valved cast during every OT session, and last week attended a Constraint Induced Movement Therapy camp. Leah was the youngest one in the room but she stayed and played with the other kids nicely. It was adorable, 4 little hemi-kids all with their little casts on! I love that Leah will have this when she is a bit older and can understand that she is not that has to go through this! I wish they did that camp more often, but I think we will have to wait until next year to do it again!
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Summer Fun!
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Vacation!!
This past weekend we drove up to the Wisconsin Dells! It's a great area with a ton of waterparks! It's about a 3.5 hour drive from us. The hotel we stayed at had 5 different water parks, 2 indoor and 3 outdoor. It was awesome! Leah was very nervous at first, since this was her first experience at a waterpark, but she quickly warmed up to the idea of splashing in the water!! One of the waterparks had these awesome water-swings that Leah just LOVED!!! I thought what great PT this was for her leg too!! Here's a video of Leah jumping in the water...
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Leah--20 Months.
Age (in months, or years and months): 20 months
Physical abilities: jumping climbing everything, perfecting kicking and throwing using both legs, marching, starting to walk up steps (holding on), running
Speech/language: vocabulary, sentence length, etc: around 50 words now, She talks constantly and has quite a few sentences, such as "who's that" or "I want this". She understands multi-step directions easily and points out pictures in books.
Other cognitive stuff: puzzles, reasoning, etc: Leah loves to do puzzles. She does small nob puzzles with her right hand and large nob puzzles only with her (effected)left hand. She can sit for awhile doing puzzles and usually doesn't need much help getting them all in the right spots.
Creativity: loves coloring and art. She can draw circles and loves to put stickers on paper or herself!
Imagination: plays wonderfully with her baby dolls/stuffed animals. Talks to them, kisses them and puts them to bed.
Social: miss social butterfly LOVES to play with her friends. She is always asking for them and when they are together she loves to hug and kiss them.
Character/personality: Leah has such a sweet little personality. She is very loving, caring and extremely affectionate. She is also very clearly entering the "terrible twos" in that she wants what she wants when she wants it! She can throw quite the tantrum as well
Therapy: Leah is receiving PT once a week and OT twice a week right now
CIMT: We just finished our second round of CIMT, where the cast had to be removed early (again) this week. The therapy clinic now knows Leah as "Houdini" because she manages to somehow slip out of a huge cast! Nonetheless, we are VERY pleased with her results. She had little to no awareness before this and is now incorporating "lefty" into a lot more. She is still using it mainly as an assist but has used it with an active grasp. The carry-over has been fantastic!
This summer Leah will be participating in a Constraint Induced Movement Therapy Summer Camp. She will be the youngest child they have ever taken, but her OT thinks that Leah is mature enough to join the 3 and 4 year olds. We still need to work out the details, but we are really looking forward to it!
Monday, June 1, 2009
Update
Sorry for the lack of blogging, we've been very busy!
1) Leah got recasted last Thursday. This time we used regular casting material, so that we can cut it off and bi-valve it.
2)Leah is doing amazing with the cast, I can't say enough how happy we are doing CIMT this round!
3)We saw our Physiatrist last week--she was very impressed with all that Leah was doing and said she is right on track.
4)While at the Physiatrist I asked about Leah's eyes. I have been noticing that when we play and look through something small, she is very right eye dominant and I wanted to know if that is a typical pattern or if she might have something going on with her vision. She said it is very typical, but looked at her and said she is looking with both eyes--but her left does go in a tiny bit. She is not concerned at all, but said we can take Leah to a pediatric optamologist if we see anything else.
5)The cast comes of on Thursday--we are looking forward to seeing the crossover that comes after CIMT!
