She's Trying...

Mabel is really trying to stand. The want is there, but the legs are still not too sure. While on the floor in the crawling position she will put her bum in the air and push up with her hands to try and stand, but falls right back down on her bum. But she tries and that is the first step. Zack and I were soooooo excited to see her do that the other day. She always looks so proud and we probably do too! She doesn't attempt it much, but she does occasionally get the gumption up to try here and there. She is cruising more during the day and also cruising one handed. I think she wants to make sure she can do this before she tries. Practice makes perfect!

Monday when we went to the park we met a 18 month old little girl who didn't really walk either! The little girl could stand and take one step, but was trying to crawl around instead - that made me so happy! Mabel was so excited when she saw the baby stand up and step, but she was even more excited when she saw her crawl! So Mabel played on the toddler area again in the park. She climbed both up and down the stairs this time and I allowed her to get a little dirty. Hey, that's big for me! She also loved playing on the toddler "climbing wall". It is a slightly inclined bumpy "slide" thing. She actually could climb pretty well. Her physical therapist will be so excited!

Last Thursday at her physical therapy session I told the physical therapist how the ortho said she didn't need to come anymore. I told her I trust he knows what he is talking about regarding Mabel's hip, but I didn't feel comfortable stopping PT yet. She agreed with me. She said that he's looking at one thing, and that is true. He wanted us to go to PT to improve Mabel's hip flexibility, but there is so much more that Mabel needs. Our physical therapist said that he looks at one thing, she's looking at the big picture. The game plan is to continue to go until Mabel can walk, then we'll go back to make sure she isn't developing a limp or strange gate. That's is a stellar plan if you ask me. The physical therapy has really helped her a lot and she's still turning her left foot in and her knee out as she tries to stand, I don't want all this hard work fixing her hip to be undone by her having an issue that will cause knee or hip problems when she's older due to her learning to walk in a modified way. Her body was in a cast for three very fundamental months of her physical development. Her body loss tone and muscle. She developed modified ways of crawling and rolling and she relied on her upper body much more than she would have. Her body doesn't know these things so she is continuing to do things in a slightly modified way, we are teaching her body to unlearn some of these modified things now. I think physical therapy is the best things we ever did in this process, I would recommend it to anyone going through life after the spica.