Baby Steps

We've reached a plateau in R's physical therapy.

She had been doing great, improving in one way or another after every session, but this last week brought no change, in fact, she refused to play along with the therapist. The break in progress was hard to swallow.

What really killed me is the dream I've built up of walking with R along the beach. We're making the long drive to Florida soon to visit family again, and to take R to the beach for the first time in her life. I knew I couldn't expect her to walk independently on the sand, but I at least had hoped to balance her between Senpai and I, each of us holding one of her little hands, and letting her feel the grains of fine, white sand slide under her feet as she took wobbly steps. I'm not sure that's going to happen. It may be too soon to get discouraged, there are still three appointments ONLY ONE appointment (edit: the PT receptionist failed to notice when she scheduled the appointments that the therapist was out on vacation all this week. That was fun to be informed of at the office that I dragged R and I to when I was ready to fall over from food poisoning.) left between now and when we leave, and she may surprise us. How sweet would it be, though, to have that dream become a reality?


The good news is that she spends much time standing, sometimes independently, but mostly with support. She sidesteps along walls and furniture like nobody's business.


She got a walker for her birthday that I hadn't been putting her in because she'd get frustrated that she could only scoot backwards; the forward motion seemed to elude her. She knows now that one foot goes in front of the other to get her going forward, so I pulled the walker out from under the side table in our dining room today to see if she would have better luck with it. It was such a monumental task just to get her in the walker, she did not want anything to do with it, and then it took some coaxing to get her to move: "Here, Ladybug! Mommy's holding Tigger. Come get him!" After some pouting, she did it! She moved those feet and began to cruise around the room. She needed help maneuvering over the floor rugs, but hardwood was her fast lane. We even collapsed the leaves on the dining room table and moved it to the wall (not a big feat, in fact, it happens every Tuesday when I practice my dance routines) to give her more space to roam around.

Today's breakthrough is just the booster shot of hope I(we?) needed.


After all, everything starts with baby steps.