ELENA WALKED!!!!!!

20 months old and she finally walked!!! I am so excited! Last night, Elena was leaning again the wall, standing up. Her cane was leaning against the wall too. She found her cane and suddenly decided to let go of the wall. She stood for at least 5 seconds just making sure she could do it. She was totally stable. Then she walked about 4 steps to the couch. I couldn't believe it! And I had left the camera upstairs!! I was so excited that I put her back to the wall, hoping she'd do it again. She let go of the wall again, this time for about 10-15 seconds but she didn't walk.

After waiting for like 10-15 minutes and doing everything I could to motivate her to come to me, she still wouldn't walk again. I decided that was good for tonight and we'd try tomorrow. As we were walking to her chair so she could have dinner, she started walking and standing by herself again! She only did a few steps at a time and she walked in circles but it was awesome. She no longer had an interest in food so we walked up and down the living room for like 30 minutes. She stilled used my help a lot but she also did quite a bit on her own. She even laughed while walking and threw a fit when I made her stop.

I am SO proud of her! Hopefully she continues with this and doesn't get scared and quit. She has another physical therapy appointment in 2 weeks. If she continues like she's doing there's not telling what she'll be doing in 2 weeks!!

Oh I almost forgot to say, as long as Elena had her cane in her hand, she would walk. It didn't even have to be touching to floor. She just had to be holding it. I guess the cane gives her the confidence she needs. :D

Time has Flown!

My goodness I can't believe it's been so long since I last wrote. Life has caught up with me and I haven't done so well with balancing it. So much has happened. It's all been very exciting and very exhausting.

Elena got her first cane! It's a free 25 inch cane from the National Federation of the Blind. It's so cute. First she would only hold it if my hand covered her hand but now I have gotten her to hold the cane in her right hand while I hold her left hand so she can walk. She still can't walk by herself but Damon (husband) did get her to walk a few steps on her own. It happened once and only once. He did it by holding her around her waist while she walked. Then he let go and she kept going, until she realized what he had done. Now she leans back on your hands like she's saying "I don't think so! You're not letting go again!"

Elena is an avid reader. YAY! She loves reading. As soon as I ask her if she wants to read, she immediately turns around on my lap like she's ready to go. She rubs her hands on the pages, turns the pages and even "reads" the book to me. Her babbling sounds like words. I can even pick out a phrase or two sometimes! She now knows the word "again" and uses it ALL the time! She'll read the same book a thousand times.



Now for the bad news. Elena has been having ear infections at least once a month since around November. They get really bad and last time she had a 103 fever. We finally got her in to a Ear, Nose and Throat specialist, today. He said her ears are full of fluid and so swollen that nothing can get through, not even the Wally's Ear Oil that I bought at an herbal store. People tell me this stuff is a miracle worker. Anyway, because of all her issues she will be getting tubes put in her ears next Friday. They will have to put her to sleep to do it. Usually they don't suggest putting tubes in ears of kids so young but Elena has them so frequently and so bad that she has to have them. One of my brothers had a lot of ear infections when he was little so my parents put tubes in his ears. I think he was around 2. They said he never had an infection again. Please pray for Elena to have the same results!

Video

This is a video from June 2009. I make a noise that Elena thought was just SO funny. Thought I'd share the laughs.

Time to brag

As all parents do, and should, I'm going to have a brag session for a minute. Elena has been doing do many cool things that I just can't help but shout it out to the world, especially since her vision therapist said she's never known a baby at her age (18 months) to be able to do some of the stuff she's doing, regardless of vision problems!! I'm so proud! (Can't ya tell?) lol

Hhhhmmm where should I start? I guess...words. Her vocabulary is growing every day. She's such a fast learner. You only have to tell her something 6-12 times and she's got it for life! I've been trying to keep track of all the words she says like are recognizable. Here they are: shoe, wipes, cereal, star, square, circle, squish, bless you, push, meow, moo, chair, simpsons (Yes she is a Simpons fan!), dada, eat, done, whats up, awesome. There are MANY other words that she says that aren't understandable unless you hear them in context and hang around her all the time. And of course all the words she does say have a "accent" to them. For example, "done" is said "DA!" and "meow" sounds like "ow". She copies almost every word anyone says.

Elena can also tell you what a cat, dog and cow say. Today she learned what a duck says and almost has it down. She can name many body parts including head, ear, mouth, nose, shirt (yes i know that not a body part), tummy, foot, and diaper. She also grabs her foot when you ask her where her shoe goes. If her give her a brush she will stroke her head a couple times.

Elena not only knows the names of shapes (circle, square, star and almost has down "triangle") but she can also pick them out of her box of shapes, when asked! Her therapist said she doesn't know any at this age who can do that. Today we had a funny experience with the shapes. Elena was holding a toy cow that has shapes on the side of it. Her therapist asked her to bring it to her and show her what she had. Elena turned around toward her. :) Then I asked her where the circle was. Instead of finding the circle on the side of the cow, she immediately pulled herself up to her toy box, found her box of shapes and pulled out the circle while naming it!! It was SO funny and I was SO proud! She's my little baby genius!

She can climb the stairs all by herself and, until she discovered the wall, would zoom up the stairs. She is so close to walking on her own that I just can't stand it. We got her a small pieec of PVC pipe to use as a cane until we can get her one. She seems to be more stable holding that than holding my hand while walking. I keep expecting her to let go of my hand and start walking around the room like it's nothing.

Elena loves to read. Well she probably likes turning the pages more than reading. She turns them so fast I can't even finish the page! On her touch-and-feel books she knows where all the touchy things are. In one of her books it talks about a lambs tummy. I don't even have to read it and she immediately touches her tummy!

Well I think that's enough bragging for one day. I will hopefully have some video of her awesome skills soon. She senses when the camera is out and stops doing cute stuff. Goodbye for now!

For Laughs

This video is from early December 2009. Elena thought it was funny that I laughed at her.

Therapy

This week Elena had 3 different therapist visit, nothing unusual for her. With a new school schedule and recovering from the holidays, January has been a crazy month. I have had to cancel several times cause the family was sick, especially Elena. I even double booked this week! I am looking into getting a Smartphone so I can more easily keep track of everything. I'll probably get it for my birthday, in 2 weeks!

So this week was development, vision, and physical therapy. Wednesday I accidently booked vision and physical at the same time. It turned out ok though and Elena did great. She did a lot of walking around with her lion push toy. She loves that thing. We got it for her 1st birthday but she hasn't been able to use it until the last couple months.

Elena does the cutest thing with her loin. While holding onto it, she will walk to the front and push the nose so it will play music. Then she goes back to the purple handle on the back and says "Ush! Ush!" as she pushes it across the room! SO CUTE! I tried getting it on video but the camera was being weird. I'll try it again next time she does it.

Today Elena had her developmental therapist come. She did not stay the whole hour because Elena got really tired and cranky. Elena played with shaped "blocks" and was able to pick out the circle when I asked her to. She called it "circir". :D The circle is definitely her favorite. She didn't seem to interested in the others (square, star, cross, triangle). When I asked her to find the square she put her hands on her cheeks and squish them together while saying "Squish! Squish!" LOL. I guess square and squish sound a lot alike. Squish is something she loves to do. She thinks it's so funny.

I'm glad Elena has the opportunity to have therapists but it's takes up so much time. I'm so glad they come to the house. That's a big time and hassle saver right there. I am very happy that her therapists think Damon and I are doing a great job and almost every time they comment on how on top of things I am. Often they don't even have anything for me to be working on with her because we're already doing it. A few of them think I should become a therapist since I seem to have a natural gift. I don't know if it's true about the gift but it sure feels good to have someone tell me I'm doing something right.


NOTE:
This is for anyone who wants to know where I got stuff, etc

• The therapists are from a program called Kids on the Move. Their office is on Orem, UT.
• The push toy is from Walmart. It's about $35. There are cheaper ones (around $20) but this one seemed to be more stable.
• The shape blocks are from Walmart. They are $10.
  

Light at the end of the tunnel

I am beginning to see a light at the end of the long, lifeless tunnel called medicaid. Elena hasn't had any insurance since she turned one. We have been fighting for it but are fighting a losing battle. The Medicaid office not only doesn't know what they are talking about half the time but they also don't seem to care.

My most recent talk with medicaid was anything but helpful. And I'm sad to say that getting Elena on Social Security Income has actually causes more problems than it's solved. Because the government now classifies Elena as disabled the medicaid office automatically put her on Disability medicaid which has an income limit of $1500 a month BEFORE taxes! What three person family can live off of $1500 a month BEFORE taxes?!?! It's outright insane! I asked them if we could we put on a different medicaid program that has a higher income limit and they said if they did that they would have to count Elena's SSI as income and we would be put over the limit. Keep in mind that when we got Elena on SSI they promised us that she would automatically qualify for medicaid, something which the medicaid office denies is true! So let me ask this, WHO THE HECK KNOWS WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT!?!!?! And when medicaid finally said we could get insurance they said we'd have to pay $180 a month for it!!! If I had that much money I wouldn't need to be on medicaid!!

*deep breathe* Sorry for the rant...back to the good news. Anyway, so yesterday an angel from heaven called me, AKA-Ben Norton, the best childrens physical therapist ever! Ben, being the wonderful man that he is, called just to see how Elena was doing. Keep in mind this was Ben himself, not an office assistant. (We had to stop going to him when Elena turned one because of not having insurance.) I told him she wasn't make much progress and that I'd LOVE for her to go back to him but we are still fighting insurance and don't think we'll get it. He immediately said call these people and these people and these people. I was like THANK GOODNESS! He told me a two places to contact about insurance and another place that gives free legal services to people with disabilities in case we believe we aren't getting treated right. Dang straight I'm gonna call all those!

The insurance battle ranges on! Cross your fingers for us. I only have one thing left to say, THANK YOU GOD FOR DOCTOR BEN!