Therapy and more therapy

This picture is of Jake and Lauren helping their babies on Taylor's exercise ball. Totally unprompted....amazing kids, aren't they?

The last several days have been busy with playing and therapy. Taylor had physical therapy on Tuesday and vision therapy today. Both sessions were hard for different reasons.

Although Taylor has two former college athletes as parents, she really does not like to work out. She was grumpy again for Sarah and Sarah kindly summed up their session as "good quality, not quantity". Hmmm.....we have work to do. Taylor tolerates the grasping exercises with her hands, particularly as long as she gets to lay on her back. She is getting good at grasping a toy, holding a toy with two hands, and passing a toy from one hand to the other. She will tolerate sitting a little bit, but Sarah must work her harder than we do, because she tires much more quickly for Sarah. Like the last session, she was ready to be done at that point, before we'd even gotten to the hardest part - tummy time. Without a doubt, she does not like tummy time. I haven't had many parent moments that make me as sad as watching her struggle to straighten her arms during tummy time. She struggles and cries and Sarah has to keep coaxing her. She gets lots of hugs afterward, but she has to work hard to get better. You hate to tough love a baby, but we're trying. She is typically wiped out after physical therapy and takes a long nap. She fell asleep within 20 minutes of Sarah leaving. As Julie says, imagine doing your hardest exercise for an hour straight - you wouldn't be thrilled either. She's so right and I'm trying to keep my expectations in check.

Today was vision therapy at the Boyer Clinic. I hadn't actually visited the clinic before and was prepared for a sad day. David had gone to drop off some paperwork previously and he had seen a lot of kids in tough shape. We're still torn between embracing the special needs community and desperately not wanting to belong. We'll figure out the right balance over time. As it turns out, the Boyer Clinic is an amazing clinic with three preschool classrooms, multiple physical therapy rooms (similar to Gymboree), other therapy rooms (all with parental observation rooms) and other offices. It's a cheerful place, if you can get over having to be there. Everyone is really nice. We met with Mary Ellen, our vision therapist and she was really encouraging. She thought Taylor was tracking objects much better than our last visit several weeks ago. She basically holds many different objects at different levels (horizontal and vertical) to help Taylor practice following objects with her eyes. Mary Ellen remarked that she seemed much less light sensitive (she tracked better with bright light this time) and that is positive. We're going to focus on Taylor reaching for toys (not just grasping when they're given to her) and reaching up (when she wants to be lifted out of her crib, high chair, etc). It seems like minor goals, but reaching with her arms and focusing on objects will help her in so many different ways. Mary Ellen also encouraged us to push Taylor to be self-sufficient (such as holding onto her bottle) and reaching for food. She's a sweet lady and she always makes us feel good during our session. And, I hate to admit, we didn't see too many challenged children in the halls which makes it easier for us.

So, those were our appointments this week. We need for these appointments to become routine - right now they're exhausting for Taylor and selfishly, emotionally hard for me. We'll both get better. In the meantime, when Taylor isn't doing therapy, she's a happy camper. One of her new tricks is she hugs on to you when you hold her now - which is really special. As Mary Ellen has quickly noted "she has a sweet disposition" and we agree.