Monday, August 31, 2009

Puddin' Painter

Everyone that has ever met Romy knows that she's pretty mellow and rarely throws tantrums, but today was something else. She was whiny and irritable, even after her nap. I checked her temperature and rooted around her mouth to check for emerging teeth. Nothing. Come to find out she was just flat out bored.

So I plopped her in her highchair and let her "paint" her tray with pudding. It was gross, sticky,messy, disgusting and super duper adorable. You could tell how much fun (and yummy) it was for her.

P.S- I am aware that Romy has really crazy hair! It's so unmanageable but Daddy and Grandma Dude won't let me cut it!






Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Early Predictors of Independent Walking in Children With Spastic Diplegia Cerebral Palsy.

A while back, I read an article with the same title as my post. It stated that many children who had diplegic CP who were able to sit independently by the age of 2 had a strong chance of walking independently. Romy has been able to sit unassisted for a few seconds here and there and almost always needed the help of a toy between her knees to keep her balance. Although I take everything I read about CP with a grain of salt, (every case is so drastically different and there is no absolute test to confirm Romy's prognosis) it became a personal goal to help Romy sit without any help by her 2nd adjusted birtday, which is in April.
This is what Romy did yesterday:




We're going to continue working on her posture, but I tell you what, this girl is amazing.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

We LOVE Hawaii!!


We finally got all of our stuff a few days ago and we're just about done unpacking everything. It feels so wonderful to sleep in my bed instead of an air mattress! Romy has all of her toys and her crib now, and it seems to be calming her down some. I love having my sister and her family living literally half a mile away! Romy plays with her cousins every chance she gets and it's really stimulating her social skills and she's more verbal than ever before.

She's been doing so many things lately and it's so amazing to watch her learn about the world around her. She can now give hugs AND kisses whenever asked. She can feed herself using a pincer grasp, but still has no interest in sippy cups or holding her own bottle. She gives hi-fives! Her dysphagia is clearing up and she loves drinking straw after straw of water, we still thicken her milk because she likes it that way and it adds a few extra calories. She has finally begun to say "Mama." She mimics growling, raspberries and gasps. She's a consistent roller both ways, she's getting pretty good at army crawling. When we go out to eat she can sit in a high chair like a big girl. She thinks Dell commercials are hilarious and is mesmerized by the TV show Yo Gabba Gabba. She has an intense attachment to her Daddy and cries whenever he leaves the room, and my favorite, she belly laughs like a maniac. So all-in-all it's been a very eventful 2 months for Romy and we couldn't be more proud!

She will be starting her therapy within the next few weeks and she'll get occupational and mobility therapy once a week and speech once a month. She's getting another round of botox this Friday. We met with her new neurologist today and he seems really great so far. He was appalled that she's never had an MRI of her brain so he's gonna get one in the works for us within the next month or two. He wants to make sure that her CP was caused by PVL and not a stroke. Overall he thinks she's doing wonderfully and was impressed with how well she uses her hands and how calm and mellow she was even when there were multiple people poking her, shining lights in her face and banging on her knees and elbows to check her reflexes. She did the funniest thing too, the doctor put her face up close to his so he could check out her visual tracking and she leaned in and planted an open mouth kiss right on his nose. It was pretty adorable, slobbery but adorable.

Now that we're just about settled in, I will update more often, I PROMISE YAYA =)





Thursday, August 6, 2009

Mini update

Romy developed her pincer grasp! She's actually had it for a few weeks now, but it's been much more refined lately.

She's 16.5 pounds!

She's been eating much better since being put on Miralax, hopefully she'll keep it up.

We got a dog! A sweet German Shepard mix that Romy cannot stand. She's not a fan of slobbery dog kisses or when Daddy is playing with "Sam" and not her.

We moved into a new house!! It's wonderful, but Romy won't let us out of her sight without screaming her head off. I think the new house has her a little weirded out. It's much bigger than our old place and the echo of an empty house (still haven't recieved our stuff) scares her a bit.

Romy will be starting her weekly therapy's again soon!

She absolutely will not wear her glasses for longer than 8.3 seconds. No amount of begging, pleading, or yelling will get her to do other wise. Any suggestions?

Pictures will be up soon.