Amelia's Journey: February 2008

I'm baaacckkk!! I know, it's been forever. I have no clue where the last five months have gone! I wish I could tell you, but I have "mommy brain". If you don't know what that is, I'll fill you in. It's a disease that occurs when you have children and they suck your brain right out of your head! So I'll try to do a quick synopsis for you.

Amelia's casts came off without a hitch on September 27th. Her feet look terrific. But she had NO strength in her legs whatsoever. She was also light as feather without those casts on, or so it seemed after hauling her around with those casts on for three months. We then had to get her fitted with her Denis Brown Brace and Markell Shoes. She wore them for 23 hours a day for three months. Yep, it was GREAT! Imagine a very precocious toddler who's movement is restricted because of this brace on her feet. Not pretty my friends. The problem we had was she was always wanting to stand up and there are these humongous screws on the bottom of her shoes/brace. Imagine the thought of those going across my hardwood floors. Again, not pretty and a source of many disagreements between the two of us. So we would wrap the shoes/brace in a towel or cloth diaper to protect the floors and to keep her from unscrewing her shoes. It worked for the most part. But there were many times when I caught her trying to put the screw BACK on her shoe. UGH....we do constant battle!!!

Hanging out with her shoes/brace on....

Now she only wears the brace while she is napping or sleeping so she ends up wearing it about 14 hours a day. She doesn't mind when I put the brace on, she's very pleasant about it. We tell her that they are her "special night time shoes". She actually tries to put them on by herself sometimes. She's a smart one!

Life without the brace is great. Amelia is a much happier child now. She cries less and laughs more. We are working on her leg strength. She is still not walking, but she cruises and pushes her shopping cart and other push toy all over the house. I tell everyone it's her "walker". Over the past several days, I have noticed her cruising more than crawling.

We have had to endure some serious behavior changes when the brace came off. Amelia has incredible upper body strength. She can pull herself up on to anything. When she would crawl, it was more of an "Army crawl" and she would just drag her legs behind her. Now, we make her crawl slowly and move her legs back and forth instead of pulling her legs along. She is really getting the hang of it and wants so much to please us. All we have to do is tell her to "slow down" and she will immediately start crawling correctly. Again, very smart little girl.

We have made some real leaps with bonding too. She actually sat on my lap a few weeks ago and cuddled with me. I was shocked and amazed. I couldn't believe it! She cries less when I leave her with a sitter too. Great strides made there. We even put her in the church nursery last week. YOWSA!

Her speech is amazing. She tries to mimic everything I say. I would say that her vocabulary is well over 30 words. She's only been here for 7 months too! Again, she's one smart cookie. We still do battle at times, but I have just resigned myself to the fact that she's just that type of child. She is rather unpleasant when she wakes up too. That's an eye opener for me since all the other kids were always so sweet and pleasant when they wake up. We're working on that though.

Her birthday is right around the corner. The festivities will be small since she is getting baptized a week later. I just wanted to post some photos for now so you can see her sweet face and see that she is growing SOME hair, but not much. Still no bows for Amelia!

Enjoy the pics.....