Before I get into more of the daily journals, I have to announce that she’s willingly vertical these days! It’s coming slowly, but it’s definitely coming. As I mentioned in Asheville she seemed to suddenly get that she could choose to stand her own self up and started. Since then there have been more instances. Being true to her nature though, you still can’t “make” her do it. She’s got to want to. But the good news is, she wants too! She was home with the stomach flu last week and luckily it passed faster then her contagious period so we got some quality one-on-one time before I succombed to her little gift. She was so stinking cute and cheerful! After a night of barfing interludes occuring every 30-45 minutes I woke up to her sitting up in bed and chattering to me about everything around us. She’s very into saying, “What’s that?” and “Right there”, while she points, index finger out, thank you very much. I’m so happy that I no longer have to allow her to stick it up my nose in order to encourage her perfection of this skill! Through out the day she repeatedly named her high chair, signed Momma, tried to put her bib on, brushed her hair with her hairbrush, signed drink, said cracker and attentively watched me try to explain how we barf into the bowl rather then bucking back to spray paint the room.

And can I tell you my secret dream? I’ve debated saying it out loud. I’m about 53% sure I’m wrong. But- I hope with every fiber of my being that I’m right and I do think it’s possible. I think I’ve mentioned that in October we noticed the Quail having ALOT more energy. It seemed to coincide with her moving into the toddler room. It also coincided with her starting back on singulair and pulmicort. Those steroids are really the most likely culprit for the ants in her pants. I know that. But here’s the thing, last year when she started taking them. No one noticed her being more active. I’m sure it could affect her differently at different times. But here’s my secret dream- that the reason for her increased energy is that the hole in her heart has closed. I think about this, dream about this and pray about this routinely now. I know some people think that if you put good thoughts out there in the world and visualize them it actually works to make them come true. I don’t know what I think about that. But it can’t hurt. A girl can dream. We won’t have another echo until next July. The reason this even occured to me was when I suddenly remembered her cardiologist telling us that we may think she isn’t tired now, but wait until her heart is repaired- she will be like another person. She’s be a madman tearing around. Well she sort of is these days- at least for her. So if you are reading this and you are of the praying or thinking good thoughts makes them come true sort of persuasion- would you mind adding the thought that her VSD could close on it’s own on your list?

Anyway, time will tell. Now back to October in the Toddler world:

10/5/10: The toddlers were out on the playground when I got there today so I tried doing most of our stuff out there with her. She picked out her puzzle to play with first so we played in the grass. She pushed the circle in by herself and then a few other toddlers came over to play with us. At first it was a little overwhelming for her, but she watched a couple of the kids putting puzzle pieces into their spots and copied what they did. She got the oval and the square in after that.

She did a great job using her kneeling positions to get to the ball and pick it up when I asked. (I’ll add in here- this has been coming along too- and is exciting. I don’t think she is trying to properly crawl- it looks more like it would take more effort to flop back down on her belly sometimes if she just has a couple paces to go and is focused on getting to something in front of her. When that’s the scenario she will now take a couple of regular crawl strides before sitting back up or flopping down to her belly. It’s so cool to watch!

Then Zuzu’s class came outside and Zuzu ran over to say hi. The Quail was so excited to see her she waved and blew kisses and they held hands through the fence. (This friendship is so stinking sweet. I’ve been trying to “use” it to my advantage. A couple of nights ago Zuzu was zooming around the house in her birthday suit while got the Quail ready for a tubby. She started her favorite game of running up to the Quail, stopping short and hollering something then running off to start over. The Quail wanted to add a hug into routine and was giggling so hard in anticipation of her sister coming back that she was willing to stay standing while she waited! Now that’s what I call working your PT into your daily routine!)

10/7: We were on the swings for about 10 minutes. She thought it was really funny when I stood in front of her and pushed her by her feet. I would say “Pick up your feet” and she held them up for me to push and laughed. Then she wanted to play in one of the playgrounds. She tried to pull herself up in it and I gave her a little boost. She stood up with her arms on the side, no belly touching for about 5 minutes dropping a toy car and watching where it went while I picked it up for her to drop again. Then she sat down and we played peek-a-boo through the holes of the playground. Then she saw one of the toddlers scooting by her on a plastic horse and pointed to him so I sat her on another horse and pushed her around following him. Some of the other toddlers started crowding her though which was distracting. She’s handling that much better now. She didn’t get upset she just nudged one of them out of her way and crawled somewhere else.

10/11: I got out her cups and worked on two-step commands of “put the cup down” and “stack the cup” she did really well with this and went really quickly so she could get to the knocking cups over part of the game. Then I put the cups on top of the big foam arch and put the smaller foam arch in front of that to help her get up the big one easier. She got over the little one with no trouble. Then she spent the next few minutes trying to crawl up the bigger one, taking rests with her head rested on her arms, and sitting up and signing “please” to me before trying again. Eventually she was able to grab one of them and I grabbed the rest for her. Then the rest of the toddlers came back inside. Ms. Ashleigh got out some books for storytime and the little bookworm crawled right up close to her and signed “please” for story time. After storytime was over I crawled away from her and she followed me over to a wall. I tried to do some standing with her back on the wall since we haven’t done that for a while. She wouldn’t put her feet down at first and then put her feet down but tried to weasle her way into hugs instead of standing. I’m a sucker for Quail hugs so I let her get away with it but I distracted her with toys and she leaned back against the wall.