Making progress

Happy April....the time continues to fly by. These pictures are from Palm Sunday - yesterday, before church.

We've had a busy last week or so.....last week I had to fly to LA for a short trip, and then David's family gathered to celebrate Grandma Doreen's life on Wednesday. It was a special time to remember her and how special she was to our family. We were also thrilled to see a lot of David's family from Canada, and his brother and his family from Utah. We hadn't seen most of them since his family reunion last summer and it was really nice to catch up. It was also fun for them to see Taylor - several commented on how much she has grown and how far she has progressed. It's always nice to hear such positive comments as the day-to-day can merge together for us.

But....we've had a great week or so of therapy and it's been so exciting!!! Taylor has her stamina back and is able to go the full 1.5-2 hours again - which is a really long time for anyway to exercise, including our little baby girl. She is working on lots of new tricks - her hands are tolerating much more pressure and she is able to spend lots of time taking weight on her hands. Susan has her on all fours now in the crawling pose and she rocks back and forth taking weight on her hands. It's so fun to see her in this position. I'm like a carnival personality when I take her - while she practices these new moves I'm constantly entertaining her with a revolving door of musical, stuffed animals. Her favorite is a stuffed dog with jingle bells on his tail and ears that sings Jingle Bells while dancing. She really doesn't cry much even though she's working incredibly hard. It's been a real gift to see a bit of a breakthrough.

Alas, she also has another ear infection. She wasn't eating well late last week, so on Friday I decided to take her to the dr. to check her ears before the week-end. And, another ear infection....the poor baby. She really can't get a break. They keep saying "bring her back in 3 weeks and we'll make sure it has cleared" and we can't even make it three weeks without an ear infection. If we have another one or two, we'll seriously want to consider ear tubes for her. Jacob has had two pairs and it made a world of difference. We're hoping she will outgrow the ear infections over the summer, so we've been hoping to get there and re-evaluate in the fall. But, we've definitely had a rough last few months. Today she finally felt better and was so smiley - it's wonderful to see how happy she is when she isn't sick.

Our other gift this week-end was the SUN!! This has been a long month or two of rain and we were so excited to see the sun this week-end, with relatively warm weather. Today it was 70 degrees. Of course, we made the most of it this week-end with trips to the park, the zoo, sidewalk chalk, bike rides, and shorts. Unfortunately I don't think Taylor felt great at the zoo, but the big kids loved seeing the animals, particularly the gorillas.

I think I've also had a breakthrough of sorts. Over the past two weeks, we've had the pleasure of seeing several friends who have children younger than Taylor. While I'm always thrilled to see our special friends, I've worked on not being sad for Taylor as kids much younger than her are more physically capable. Our little niece, Kyla, visited from Utah and she was so much fun to play with. Taylor enjoyed seeing her too and they played with Taylor's toys together. At only 8 months, Kyla is a mover and a shaker and will be up and walking before we know it. Thankfully, my breakthrough came the previous week-end, when some other friends were visiting with their daughter. She was about 14 months and really on the move. This is usually my favorite age - I love the toddler stage and all the excitement and wonderment that goes along with it. While watching our friend's daughter explore, at first I was sad for Taylor as she sat and played with her toys - watching her friend. Then, I realized how lucky we are because we still have deep faith that Taylor will reach that stage too. Rather than be sad that we aren't there yet, it's much more helpful to recognize how fortunate we are because we believe Taylor WILL get there. While not exactly on the same time table, what a gift we have to look forward to and how sweet it will be. This is my new mindset and I want Taylor to feel this optimisim and the belief we have in her - not any sadness. She is a gift at every stage.

The sun has also helped us look forward to summer - the days are longer and we're looking forward to a wonderful summer for all of us.