It is amazing how much can happen for a 19 month old in two weeks. The last couple of weeks Mabel has gone from her wobbly step-step to her full fledged walking without holding on to anything from one end of the house to another. She still keeps her little hands up by her shoulders to steady herself, but now she can carry her baby doll or any toy and walk! Last week I was sweeping the floor and asked her to follow me, thinking that she would hold on to the wall and she just walked right behind me laughing as I pretended to run from her. Well, also her new passion now besides walking is sweeping the floor - I guess I make it look like so much fun. Yes, I think the cleaning gene was passed down to Mabel - poor thing. She stands there with my broom and "sweeps" the kitchen, hall, even our back deck! She will see my broom and plead "broooommm! Mama broooommmm" She was so obsessed with sweeping the floors that my mother who watches her during the day made her a paper fan because it was so hot. She showed Mabel how to fan herself and when she gave it to her and said "fan", Mabel looked at it shook her head and said "No! Broom!" And from what my mother said she swept the whole house with that fan over the course of the day! So of course I got her a little broom and now we have "Mama's Broom" and "Mabel's Broom". Perfect.
So yes, Mabel is more mobile than ever and you know I love it. I love watching her walk around and stand on her own. I also love her running narrative of "own", "up", "down", "step". She's also talking up a storm. Not only does it seem like she will say at least ten new words a day, she's also putting words together at an amazing rate. She also has taken to making her toys "talk". The other day when we were trying to get Mabel to settle down for bed, which was a strange night because of some big passing thunderstorms, Mabel and I were cuddling on the couch. I often take her stuffed animals and hold them up and talk in a high pitched voice and say "Hi Mabel" or things like that. Well, Mabel picked up her stuffed cat and held her up and said "Hi Mabel" in a high pitched voice. I acted surprised and said "Mabel she can talk!". Mabel was laughing and then proceeded to make her stuffed cat say "Hi Papa, Hi Mama" and the more surprised I acted the more she pretended it was her cat talking. I thought this was pretty funny and in my humble opinion advanced for a 19 month old to have pretend play like that. She's so funny. That's her new think, she even makes our cats say "Hi Mabel"!
Well, I think it is safe to say we've had a great summer so far. This past weekend we took Mabel for a walk on one of the local Islands. To walk the whole island is about a mile, she walked about a third of it on her own. She kept pointing at the water and saying "big tubby!" and asking to go swim. She loves the water! Zack and I bought a little pull mouse toy for her first birthday and now that is walking she finally can use it, but keeps tripping up because she tries to watch it ask she walks so Zack was obsessed with getting her a corn popper toy - you know that fisher price thing that you push in front of you and the balls pop? So I checked (because of my hate for plastic) and healtytoys.org rate it as safe so we ventured out to *gasp* Toys'R'us and bought ourselves one. Mabel walked around the store "pop" "pop" she would announce as the balls popped. She can almost run with that thing!
So yes, I'm a happy Momma right now. Zack's a happy Papa and Mabel is a happy walking talking toddler. It is so good to see her moving like she wanted, you can see the joy in her face when she realizes what she's doing. She's come a long way. We are taking a two week break from physical therapy. The doctor is on vacation, but it worked out to be perfect timing since she wanted Mabel to walk for a couple of weeks with no therapy (you know once she got the hang of walking) to see how she does. Then we go back to make sure everything looks good, no limping or favoring the right side.
What a relief to see my little girl upright!
I was so happy to read your blog today. My nine month old is beginning this journey, and I really connected to you and your family. I have so many emotions right now. I am trying to prepare for this process, and I saw that you switched to g-diapers later on in the process. Would you recommend these covers from the start? It seems like it might be easier and less expensive in the long run. Thanks again!
ReplyDeleteI know how hard it is when you first get the diagnosis and learn about the treatment, the emotions are just so overwhelming. I wish you luck in your hip journey and I'm glad my experience could help you in any little way. For the g-diaper yes, I totally recommend it. I had started using it instead of the larger outer diaper because it was actually easier for us and I hated throwing away that outside diaper when it really didn't get dirty - we would reuse it until it just started wearing out, but it still felt wasteful. The only thing is I had no idea what size diaper I would need until Mabel got her cast, you just don't know how big it is. When I was getting things ready before her casting I got size 5 diapers for the outside, at the time she was in size 2 so I thought size five would be safe, but at the hospital they had to use size 6 on the outside to get it around the cast. The hospital gave us a pack of size 6 diapers to get us started then after we used those up I got the g-diaper in the size that fit. Good luck with everything and feel free to contact me if you need any support or if there any anything I can help with. Just remember each cast is so different that there isn't one system that works for everyone, but you will come up with something that works for you and reading what other moms came up with really helped me come up with our system. I don't know if it helps to hear, but in all honestly even though it wasn't an easy process, it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be when we started it. My Mabel was always her sweet self, even in her cast and that was the only thing that I really feared, but she was still a happy girl - I even look back at pictures of that time and smile if you can believe that!
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