Lots of Developments & 1st Aqua Therapy Session

Today was Annabel's 1st day of aqua therapy and she LOVED it!! She spend a good 45 minutes in the water and loved splashing and floating while the therapist worked her. She got a little fussy towards the end and needed to be sung to but she really did great and wasn't at all hesistant with Allison, the therapist.
Allison said that she can already tell an improvement in Annabel's torso and gave me some other stretches/positioning to do to help her further. The best part was that when Annabel got home she was SO happy and so relaxed, with her muscles all loose. She
was kicking both feet like crazy, bringing both up to her mouth, and she was loving tummy time, even pushing up with her right arm extended. Allison does think that Annabel is ready for orthotics, especially with us having her on the treadmill and in the walker so I'm going to work with our Early On PT to get the script from PM&R so that she can get casted the same day as Mady.

Annabel has also been doing really well with holding her own sippy. She has to keep her left hand near her and lower but she does it, yeah!! She's been feeding herself more snacks too. It's amazing how little things like this are so exciting to a parent of a child with special needs, every little milestone is a HUGE accomplishment!



Mady has continued to do well drinking from the straw, we may try her on a true sippy soon. Johnathan was skeptical at first but then decided it was okay.


The trio have been introduced to more new foods lately. They did get a blueberry paczki this morning and loved it, Sunday we made one of my families favorite meals - kielbasa, kniffles (spatzle) with gravy, and potatoes and that was another big hit, and Grandma Guenther made them a special treat of finger jello, which of course they
loved too! We have been working on eliminating their bedtime bottles and so far so good, we're down to 2 ounces so hopefully another 2 weeks max and that will be another chapter done!

As I mentioned before Mady has really been developing lately. She is now saying up, stop, I got it, I did it, mama, dada, baba, and a whole bunch of other strings of sounds. She knows her tongue (and likes to show you), so big, hi-five, and the sign for all done. She has also gotten a lot stronger with her walking, even attempting to walk with only holding on to something one-handed. My Mom brought up a walker that I used as a child and Mady loves it, zipping all around the kitchen so fast! Johnathan tries to hold on behind her, it's pretty funny! We did take a video of them today, I will attempt to post tomorrow. Johnathan is now walking solidly in the kitchen too. I can't wait for this spring to get outside with them and really let them go! Johnathan has also been "talking" a lot more lately, not real words other than mama, dada, baba, but he's stringing together a lot more sounds, probably where Mady was a couple months ago.

Everyday I am so thankful for how far these kiddos have come and I can't wait to see how much more they can do. All three of them are such fighters and I am so proud of them. How did I get so lucky to be their Mom?