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.

Bathtime Fun!

Please excuse my horrible singing!!! But enjoy her adorable singing! :)

Play-Doh Therapy!

Leah had a great time playing with Play-doh today! It was her first non-therapy time playing with it.

She brought some of her therapy into it, by making towers on her left hand! Too cute!

Both Hands!

Leah has really been using her left hand a lot more lately! It's amazing to watch her, it's almost as if something just clicked! She had literally ignored "lefty" for 16 months and then one day realized that she had 2 hands! She still does not have an active grasp, but I think in time that will come. She really tries so hard to put things in her hand or grab things with lefty. It's fantastic!!

Awhile back, I remember reading a blog post about someone giving their child a sippy cup without handles to promote two-handed use. I thought this was great, so back then I went out and bought a sippy cup without handles. I filled it just a little bit and gave it to Leah, she FREAKED out! She couldn't figure out how to pick it up and how it worked, she ended up getting so frustrated that I decided that it was not the time to for this kind of sippy cup. Last week, I decided we should try it again. This time was much better!! She immediately tried to pick it up with one hand, but realized that it would be too difficult, so she used 2 hands! I was so excited that she was able to do it!! She has been drinking from a sippy cup without handles so nicely ever since!

And so it begins!

Today Leah got casted for her braces. Like I mentioned in my previous post she will be getting an AFO on her left leg and a SMO on her right. I can't believe that I'm totally ok with all of this! The amount of time we've been waiting for them has given me a lot of time to accept it and understand it.

Leah was fantastic during the casting! She only fussed a few times! It was so nice to be able to do it out of our house. Leah was comfortable with Barney on TV, a snack and a drink! It took about a half hour from start to finish. Now we wait for the braces to get here, shouldn't take more then a couple weeks!



My favorite part--designing her braces! This will probably be the only brace I ever completely decide on my own! By the time she is ready for her next one, I'm certain she will want to choose!

Approved!!!

We have FINALLY been approved for Leah's braces!!! Thankfully it didn't take too (only a month as opposed to 2 months)long! Tomorrow, Leah will be casted for the braces (AFO on her left and SMO on her right), let's hope she sits nicely for the lady. We are fortunate to be able to do it out of our house and have the PT come here to do it. So, I'll plop Leah in front of the TV and hope that Barney or Elmo takes her attention off of what the therapist is doing. I'm looking forward to picking out the patterns and colors, hey--if my baby has to wear braces you better believe they are going to be the cutest darn braces you've ever seen! After tomorrow, we wait another week or two and then the braces should be here!

I'm getting nervous about finding shoes for Leah. She has never had a pair of real shoes and my PT has warned us that finding shoes to fit over the braces could be difficult! I'm hoping that I can find some good (and cute!) shoes easily once we get the braces!

Chuck E. Cheese

We went to Chuck E. Cheese today for Leah's first time! It was way crowded because of Presidents Day, but Leah had a blast! We went with my little sister, Shelby, who is Leah's most favorite person in the world!

Leah was fascinated with the dancing and singing Chuck E! She was so excited by it!!!
When she saw him start to dance and sing, she yelled: OH!!!!!!



Leah could not take her eyes off of him!