One Step at a time!

It has been almost two years since Lily-an came in to our lives. At first we were only concerned with the most basic elements of survival for her. Just giving her the most and very best food we could to allow her body to recover and strengthen. Rolling over and sitting up were huge accomplishments for her. The light of life brightened in her eyes and she began to reach out to the world around her and want more.

Well watch out world, here comes Lily!! We got her new braces (called KAFO's) last Wednesday but we haven't had much of a chance to try them. It takes a while to brake them in so she only wears them an hour or so at a time right now. We had some time tonight to try them out.

Bear in mind that this is the very end of the day and she had nearly fallen asleep not even 10 minutes before this - we were trying to wait for Mike to get home to take the video. We had already spent 20-30 minutes working on standing and walking so she was tuckered out! I had made the red carry sling back when we were working on trying to help her crawl and it occurred to me that it might be helpful to assist her walking. I wish Mike had been home to get video of her right after we tried it the first time, she was so excited, and so, so proud of herself:-) Mama and Baba are pretty proud of her too!

Little Rocky!

If I were computer savvy enough I would edit the theme song from Rocky into this video, but I'm not so you are just going to have to imagine it:-)

Lily-an went crazy in therapy yesterday! We have started working on moving from sitting to standing the past couple of weeks because she has seemed interested. Well no question now, that is all she wants to do. Her therapy session in 45 minutes long and that is all she did the entire time - sit, stand, sit, stand. And not just easy, tentative, beginner sitting and standing! She was using her arms to pull herself up (it took a few tries to get the message to her glutes to help out, but they got it) and then we moved her to the mini trampoline where she practiced more pulling up and the therapist helped her stand upright and bounce, and bounce, and bounce!

Of course she got to finish the session on the swing - her favorite. She has that figured out:-) She knows the therapist won't move the swing if she isn't holding on with both hands (doing anything using both hands has been difficult for her) but she put both hands on the ropes immediately and was very insistent that the swing move, even turning to swat at Kelly to make the swing move.

She was so excited and proud of herself! She was absolutely beaming through her exhaustion - and she really was exhausted by the time we got done. She had a quick snack between PT and speech but she still only made it partway through speech before she needed more food. And then she zonked out hard on the way home.

I am so proud of her and it is so amazing to see the desire and determination just steam rolling out of her. This little girl is going for the knockout!