Right now Taylor is working on her hand motor skills, sitting and tummy time. The physical therapy exercises aren't anything amazing - a lot of what we might have done anyway - but they are the right things for Taylor and we're learning a lot about the importance of small nuances. For example, Taylor needs help with small skills that we don't even remember Lauren and Jacob learning - they just naturally started reaching for toys for example.
As Taylor's neurological pathways develop though, even small skills are a victory. Her motor skills in her hands are most delayed, so we are focusing on that a lot. We are working on helping her arms reach for toys, holding toys near her hand so she can practice grasping, bringing her hands together to hold the same toy, and passing a toy from one hand to the other. We're beginning to see a few small wins - she will grasp onto a toy if you hold it near her hand now (before we would have to open her hand and place it on the toy). Once she grasps the toy, she loves to shake it or wave it around. The fine motor skill required to reach the toy is now the challenging part for her. She also has started reaching for the spoon when I feed her - these are all good signs that she's learning. Her right arm is much stronger than the left, so we're working extra hard on her left side.
Taylor also practiced sitting and she's definitely getting stronger. She also did a new trick and attempted to put her hands down to catch herself when she started to tip over. The hands affect all sorts of skills - typically she'll just start to tip when she's sitting and she doesn't have the arm control to catch herself, so this skill is really important. She also likes to sit on an exercise ball and bounce (she has assistance of course) to practice her balance and roll on the exercise ball on her tummy (sort of like tummy time). She practiced lifting up on her arms during tummy time and this is definitely her least favorite exercise. Unfortunately the hour segment is really long for her and she was too tired after 40 minutes to keep going. The exercises are really tiring for her, so we're working on her stamina.
So that's physical therapy - no silver bullet - but the right focus. We have our first meeting with the vision specialist from the Boyer Clinic tomorrow and I'm really curious to see what she has to say about Taylor's vision and therapy we can do to improve it. Somehow, we have to improve the pathways between Taylor's eye and the cortex of her brain (part of the brain that processes vision). If we can make progress on this front, it could help Taylor in so many ways.
We've had a lot of fun the past few days seeing lots of friends. We had dear friends from Hawaii in town and we had a great time catching up. The kids had a blast playing. Lauren and Jacob are also adjusting to life without preschool since we're now on summer break. Taylor usually enjoys the activity, but every now and then, I think she's ready for some peace and quiet.
Tonight, Lauren shared that she wants to be a "movie star, fingernail painter, swim teacher, clothing store worker and a rock star" when she grows up. Jacob has narrowed it down to "policeman, baseball player and Troy from High School Musical." I love that kids don't blink at dreaming big. I hope Taylor dreams equally big when she is their age.
I read a quote today from Sarah Ban Breathnach, the author of the Simple Abundance books. It resonated with me, so thought I would share:
"We have so much. All we have is all we need. All we need is the awareness of how blessed we really are."
No comments:
Post a Comment