What's happening with the kid - May 1, 2012

OK, OK, OK. Enough about thrifting. No more about the Ekobrew (STILL my most-viewed post). I'll give you an update on my daughter, who is almost five and who has cerebral palsy (hypotonic - the rare kind, lucky us).

• She now can slide off a chair onto her feet and take up to four steps in a row across the room. They're wobbly steps, but she's doing it.
• She can stand for 30 seconds at a time and even shift weight and turn her body a bit. Stability before mobility - this is good.
• Her speech is improving but sometimes it sounds like she's speaking a very deliberate foreign language to which I've lost the dictionary. She has words, and she'll use them, but she'll also get frustrated very rapidly because I don't understand everything she's saying.
• To that end, we're on a waiting list to get her evaluated for an augmentative communication device/AAC. That probably won't happen for a month or two, but I'm glad we've gotten moving on that.
• She begins hippotherapy this week and I am SO EXCITED. Not just because I love horses and used to ride when I was at camp in the summers. OK that's a lot of it. But also because of the things that hippotherapy can do to help a child like mine. She's so close to walking and talking - could this be the piece of the puzzle that pushes her over the edge? We'll see!
• She's more or less outgrown her walker and it's time for the next one. I have a picture of her from about two years ago when she first got it, and the walker comes up to her armpits. Now she towers over it. I actually think we might buy it out of pocket - it's available on Amazon, I could have it within a week, and the price is extremely reasonable. On the other hand if we were to pursue it in a medical/insurance manner, it could take months, we might actually pay more due to deductibles and hoop jumping (plus time and energy and gas). Nothing's been decided, but I find it funny that in this day and age I can buy something like that. (I know about my other options - I'm just giving you one of them!) Which means that I'd love it if you clicked on any of my Amazon referral links in this here blog and bought things because every bit of Amazon credit I accrue goes toward her walker. Like, hey, I just read this really AMAZING book - possibly my favorite work of fiction that I've read this year - go check it out via my referral link!

• She's also outgrown her SMOs and is getting fitted for those next week. Growing girl!
• She's adorable, gorgeous, and funny. She has tantrums when she doesn't get her way. She loves listening to music on her iPad and making me read the album titles to her. She can read, she knows her colors, she knows her numbers, she can count aloud to three (I believe she can count higher but she stops saying things at three). I adore her.

Tomorrow I'll be taking part in a media event for the clothing store the Children's Place and I am really excited about it! Watch for a post about that in the near future. (They are not making me write a post, but they are going to be giving me a gift card with which to buy brand new clothes. My kid usually wears thrifted clothes - and I have no problem with that! - but getting her some nice new clothes is extra exciting.)