Hippotherapy again

This week Gabe wasn't working on Monday so he came out to hippotherapy with us, which was nice. For the first time ever Avery didn't want to get on the horse! She kept on saying "Noooo!" and crying when Miss Kathy took her over to the horse. Of course, she was fine once she was on the horse and it started moving, but it was strange! She's never not wanted to go ride the horse before, so I don't know what that was about. She had a cold over the weekend and still wasn't feeling completely better, so that was probably it.

Here she is "driving" Promise with her "steering wheel"!!

Flying like an airplane! She can now do this for quite a long time, which is great because of course it means that her core strength and trunk stability is getting stronger.


Clapping, tapping her helmet and high fives are all regular parts of the routine :

Next week is the last week of hippotherapy this fall :( How sad. And it might be our last time at Many Blessing Farm, which is even sadder, because they're all so nice there. But starting in the spring Carilion will be doing hippotherapy down near Rocky Mount, so we should be able to do it there with Lisa her PT, which would be wonderful for 2 reasons:

1. It's Lisa. Lisa is great. And She's been working with Avery since she was a tiny little 4 month old :)
2. It's less than 20 minutes from our house, whereas we drive almost an hour to get to Many Blessings Farm.

So, while we love the farm, and Avery not only loves the horses and the people, but also the cats and the bunnies :), it just wouldn't be smart to carry on going out there if we have the option of doing it closer to home. Also, it would be less complicated as far as insurance goes, because right now she's getting therapy through 2 providers (Center for Rehab and Development, and Carilion Pediatric Therapies), which her insurance doesn't like and it's a big ordeal to get it re-approved every few months. They want he to only have therapy through one provider, so they would probably like it better if she was doing PT and hippotherapy through carilion. Anyway, that's a few months down the road, so we;ll see how it all pans out then.