I've been meaning to get some pictures of Avery's braces on here for a while, so here they are finally! She's had this particular pair for about 6 months now, and as you can see, she's starting to grow out of them.
Last time we went to see Dr Brown he wrote a prescription to have them adjusted or replaced, but she's been complaining about them quite a bit recently, so I have a feeling we'll need to get a new pair and not just have these adjusted. We'll see, we have an appointment at the orthotics place on Friday morning.
Avery can now get up into this chair
all by herself!!!! She's a pro! She just started doing it about 3 weeks ago - before that she needed a lot of help getting into these little chairs. For a few weeks before she finaly figured it out, she was doing a lot of playing around on the stairs - climbing up one step, turning around, sitting down, climbing up to the next step, sitting down - so I think that helped her figure out how to do it and then she was ready to try it with the much smaller space of a child's chair. They also sit in little chairs every day at school, so that probably was part of it too. So proud of her! Of course, the one time she tried to get out of it properly by turning around and getting down, the chair fell over and she banged her head on the wall, so she doesn't do that anymore - she prefers instead to lean forward with her arms outstretched until the chair tips forward and she lands on her hands and knees :)
You can also see she's wearing her eye patch in this photo. It used to be a battle of wills every time we put her eye patch on, but for the past couple of months she has been an absolute angel and doesn't even complain about it! I think it's because she gets to pick out a sticker to put on the patch every day, and she thinks that is pretty cool. Also, recently when she's been choosing her sticker, she's been looking forward to showing it to Miss Leslie when she gets to school! For the past week she's picked a football (soccer ball), which she calls a baseball, almost every day, and has just been so excited to show it to Miss Leslie! It's quite cute! She wears it for two hours every day, and then she gets to take it off herself, and she likes to peel off the sticker and stick it on her shirt. I'm amazed at how compliant she is - I would hate to wear one of those things every day. She's such a sweet girl.
Avery loves her little brother! She's so gentle with him and sweet. It's funny too, because everytime she sees me changing his dirty diaper, she comes over and says "He pooped!! Oh! Well done Brogan! Good job!! Yay!!" and she claps her hands and cheers! I think that because she's always struggled with constipation, she thinks it must be just as exciting for everyone else when they poop :) Speaking of constipation though, Avery has been doing marvelously recently!! For the past two weeks I haven't even had to give her any miralax, and she's been going without any fuss at all almost every day! Maybe we've finally overcome the contipation hurdle? I don't know, but I certainly hope so! I think that because she's on her feet and walking around so much every day at school, it's finally got her bowels active and moving the way they should. Exciting times!
Even in the short week that we've had this ball, Avery's balance has improved A LOT! When we first got it we couldn't let go of her without her falling off, and this morning she sat on it for about 15 minutes and I didn't touch her at all. Perfectly at ease. And look how flat on the floor her feet are. This ball is a good thing.
Avery loves it because she loves bouncing and jumping. And it's interesting because you can see it working: when she first sits on it she can touch the ground only with her toes, but the longer she sits and moves on it the more relaxed and pliable her muscles get and pretty soon she's able to comfortably put both feet on the ground. So we've moved the table out of the TV room so that there is more floor space, the idea being that every time she watches TV she can sit on her peanut and get a good amount of stretching and exercise in. It's definitely a good investment in my book, and Avery loves her new toy.
Last time we went to see Dr Brown he wrote a prescription to have them adjusted or replaced, but she's been complaining about them quite a bit recently, so I have a feeling we'll need to get a new pair and not just have these adjusted. We'll see, we have an appointment at the orthotics place on Friday morning.
Avery can now get up into this chair all by herself!!!! She's a pro! She just started doing it about 3 weeks ago - before that she needed a lot of help getting into these little chairs. For a few weeks before she finaly figured it out, she was doing a lot of playing around on the stairs - climbing up one step, turning around, sitting down, climbing up to the next step, sitting down - so I think that helped her figure out how to do it and then she was ready to try it with the much smaller space of a child's chair. They also sit in little chairs every day at school, so that probably was part of it too. So proud of her! Of course, the one time she tried to get out of it properly by turning around and getting down, the chair fell over and she banged her head on the wall, so she doesn't do that anymore - she prefers instead to lean forward with her arms outstretched until the chair tips forward and she lands on her hands and knees :)
This is Avery riding her horse Promise with the wonderful people at Many Blessings Farm. These pictures were taken the last Monday of September. You see she's sitting "normally" on the horse, with her "sidewalkers" holding her legs as instructed by the physical therapist, Kathy. During a typical 1/2 hour session she also spends time sitting sideways, and also backwards on the horse. Also, you see she is holding rings in all of these photos. They have her playing with various toys as they ride around, and the purpose of the acticities they do with the toys is to strengthen core strength and balance, etc. Some of the things they will have her do are:
