A short update to announce a huge milestone…
A tremendous victory today – Julie started crawling! Her feeding therapy is making some progress, too.
Over the weekend, Julie started making some “baby-steps” towards crawling and today she did her first crawling exactly 59 weeks since she was born. She is still slow and a little unsteady, but she is definitely moving from place to place. And to think that she wasn’t able to roll completely over until the beginning of April!
Julie is also starting to pull herself up to a standing position. She hasn’t quite made it up on her own yet, but it’s only a matter of time. Julie’s physical therapist has been teaching Sarah how to help Julie learn balance and strengthen her hips. He was a little concerned that she might learn to walk before she crawled since she was progressing so fast.
Feeding therapy has made a major breakthrough as well. Julie is now responding to rewards for allowing Sarah to give her food. We take a toy and tell her that we will give it back if she will open her mouth. Julie is responding positively to this and is getting fairly consistent. Feeding therapy is more of a game this way. This has decreased the frustration of feeding therapy and increased results. Julie still isn’t eating any measurable volume of food. For now, we are looking for consistency and breaking through the barriers that Julie has erected in her mind.
Julie still isn’t speaking, but she is definitely understanding more and more. She has been vocalizing consistently for the past 2 to 3 weeks. Her responses to verbal commands are hit and miss. So, that makes her a teenager, right?
I’ve included some “after” pictures of Julie and her birthday cupcake. You saw the “before” pictures in the last update – all clean and pristine. These are… well…um…not so much. There are two similar pictures from feeding therapy with powder from a stick. Also, a picture of Julie in her car seat from our trip to STL last August. Finally, there is a picture from today’s main event – crawling!
We invited some friends over to celebrate Julie’s achievement. They provided dinner and even packed several boxes for Sarah. It has saved us tons of time. We are planning to move the weekend of Mother’s Day.
Everything is good here,
Andy, Sarah and Julie
Julie’s physical progress has surprised everyone. In less than two months of therapy with the new PT, she went from a blob on the floor to crawling. She could barely keep her head up when Patrick started working with her and suddenly, she can move around the room at will.