Walking and Tying

Poppy Walks!

She started taking steps at the beginning of July. Then she interchanged walking and crawling. Now she zips everywhere on her two little legs.


Ms. Sue saw her at Storytime and said she couldn't believe her eyes. Poppy is walking!


I thought to myself that I didn't remember Rosemary looking like this when she learned how to walk. And then it occurred to me that Rosemary was a full two months older. Poppy started walking at 14 months, the age when Rosemary first got her orthotics. Poppy still has some of her babyish charm, where, at 16 months, Rosemary was starting to look more like a toddler.



Growing Up

Rosemary is intent on learning how to tie her shoes. She leans over the laces and proclaims, "I do it!" Until she has trouble, and, instead of accepting my help, says, "No, Mommy, YOU do it."

She can lace the straps on her orthotics through the buckles. Mommy still needs to tighten them down.


When I was a kid, I was given a shoebox prop that had holes poked through the top and shoestrings laced through just like a sneaker. I made one for Rosemary. She could spend a whole hour knotting this thing up.


She'll bring it to me and say, "Look, Mommy! I made a present for you!" It was cute the first couple of times. The laces will be all knotted up over and under themselves. I'm not sure how to redirect her back to trying to tie an actual bow. I'll ask where her granny knot is, where her bunny ears are, and, "will this knot help you keep your shoes on?" She just takes it away to play with it some more. I can't blame her. I spent a good deal of my childhood knotting string all across my room, until it looked like a drunk spider had tried to spin a web. I meticulously knotted it all up, and then spent equal time undoing it all.

There's no wonder where Rosemary gets her focus from.


Just look at that smile.

New Orthotics

R got new braces.


These ones are three separate pieces EACH (as if one would be different from the other, lol), and I am so paranoid of losing a piece, though that fear has already subsided since she first got them a week or so ago. There is a plastic shell that goes over her foot, a little foam piece that fits over the top of her foot for padding, and then the leg cast that fits over the foot shell and fastens it all together. It's the foam pieces that kill me because they're so easy to potentially lose. I did lose one on a day when I was in a rush to get us out the door for some reason, probably Storytime. I had put the brace and shoe on one foot, then found myself looking high and low in search of that missing piece. Eventually I suspected that it may have been inside the one shoe that was already on her foot, and, sure enough, that's where it was.


It's awesome that they still fit her old shoes.

Before the new orthotics had been completed, we had to stop using the old ones because they had become way too tight; we aren't up for foot-binding around here. We figured that what we could do in the meantime was buy R a pair of sturdy boots. I had to download photos from my phone to find pics of her actually wearing the boots.


Here she is modeling her boots on the carousel at the zoo.


And here she's on a tire swing fashioned into a horse. Ride 'em, Cowgirl!

Even though we have the new orthotics now, the boots still get some use. We're heading into potty training territory (more to be said in a later post), and orthotics and pee just do not mix. Boots and pee don't mix either, but when we need to take her outside for a minute after she's been walking around the house barefoot, the boots are quicker and easier (they have zippers!) to slap on than six total pieces of orthotic and laced shoes on top of that.


Whew! Well, I was able to pop out three posts tonight. Stay tuned (at a later date!) for more posts about friends, potty training, pumpkins, and overall Halloween goodness. Yeah, I'm really behind. :-p