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.

Blogiversary

Today is my three year blogiversary! (I know it's been three years because Rosemary is three years old.) :-)

My first post consisted of me wondering how I looked when I ran an errand at Target. Rosemary was almost four months old then and I was lucky to have a moment to myself, even if I looked like I had been run over by a semi.

Fast forward to today, and everything is so different. Our family increased by one and is now complete; no more pregnancy clothes for this mama! Poppy is a year old, and every day she walks farther and farther away from being a baby. Rosemary is an independent little lady, about to start preschool this fall.



My, how things change.


I wouldn't have it any other way.

She Walks (and Talks)

Thursday.

Last night I watched R walk around most of the house without a push toy. She would start out with uneven steps, get into a good stride, and end with a tumble. Then she'd get back up and do it again. Our baby is finally a toddler.

Watching R grow has included a lot of waiting; she's been behind in most every milestone due to her prematurity. Wait for her to roll, wait for her to sit up, wait up for her to crawl, wait for her to walk. She walks now. Yippeeee! She feels more confident when Mommy or Daddy hold her hand and walk with her, and she still zips around with her push toys, but she takes steps on her own, too. She takes steps on her own. I am so happy. The waiting for her to walk is finally over.

One sign of growth she hasn't made me wait for is speaking sentences. Just a couple of months ago I was worried that she didn't speak too many words, but she knew a key sentence, "What is that/it?" She points and asks what everything is, and she must be cataloging our answers. She won't repeat the word after we say it, but the next time it's relevant, she just may pipe in. Senpai taught her the color red, and she says up and down more frequently. Going back to sentences, every morning I ask her, "Did you sleep well?" Sometimes she'll reply, "yes" or "good." This morning, before I had a chance to ask, she exclaimed, "I didn't sleep well!" I was surprised. Was she trying to parrot my usual question? Is that what I heard her do? But no, she didn't say you, the did had two syllables that ended with n, and she started the sentence with I. More than repeating what she hears me say, she had created her own (correct!) sentence. True to form, R surprises us with first sentences as opposed to first words.

The last way she has grown since last blog post is that Senpai turned her carseat to face forward. We went to the zoo yesterday. R's rear-facing carseat was behind my passenger seat as Senpai drove. I couldn't take a nap. I was super exhausted, having fallen asleep at 2 am the previous night, and I really really wanted to sleep on the drive down to the zoo but it was impossible. The carseat interrupted where the headrest could go, which isn't a problem when you're sitting up, but when you're trying to lay your head back, man, it sucks. And my seat was pushed all the way forward, so there was no room for me to scootch down in the seat because my knees hit the dashboard. I was not a happy passenger. I told Senpai, no more. R faces forward. He changed the carseat in my car as well, and when I drove with R to the craft store today it was odd to look back and see her staring at me. We'll get used to it, though. Aside from the nap frustration yesterday, I've been thinking for awhile that I needed to change her carseat position, as she had gotten too big to easily fit in the space between the carseat and the doorframe in my car. Putting her in the seat involved much contortion on my part. The nap was just the last straw.

I love watching her grow.

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.

Disappointment

The disappointment falls unexpectedly with a thud, and rests heavily in my heart. "What?" I answer to the receptionist on the other end of the phone.

"I said we need your half of the payment before the orthotics will be be made."

"I was under the impression that the orthotics had already started being made. We thought they'd be done at the beginning of next week."

"No, we need your payment first. They will be ready two weeks after we receive it. I have a note here that we left you a message."

"I never received any message..." I reply slowly, thinking, The note was for you to call me and leave me a message. The ability for my daughter to walk rests in your company's hands, and your misunderstanding of a note just cost us another month. I do not like you.

I give her my credit card information and end the call, feeling the disappointment spread its black wings from my heart until it has devoured all of me. I am upset. It's so easy to blame the receptionist, You didn't call us. You were supposed to call us. But a nagging thought reminds me that I am just as guilty of neglecting to move the orthotics forward, "Here is my card," the doctor had said, "My assistant should call you within two days to work out payment, but call this number if she doesn't get a hold of you." I stare at the card stapled to the inside of the file folder and point the finger squarely at myself, I was supposed to call her. Why did I forget to call her?

Since Wednesday, May 18th, when we took Rosemary to an orthopedic doctor to ask why she walks on her ankles when she pushes her alligator push toy, I have been keeping this file full of business cards, x-rays, doctor visits, and consent forms: yes, we have insurance, yes, we will pay what insurance doesn't cover, yes, our daughter will walk. Cavus and weak leg muscles be damned, Rosemary will walk on her own two feet; we just need the help of physical therapy and ankle braces to get her there.



I'm sorry, Rosemary, for not getting your braces sooner. You are one day shy of being 14 months old, and too tall to still only be crawling. I know that you want to walk. You pull up on chairs and push them across the room. Anything that can be pushed, you push it until it hits a wall. I can't wait for you to break your hands free of supportive objects and see you take your first steps unassisted, save for the sturdy orthotics in your shoes that keep your ankles squarely above your feet. Oma reminded me that you don't know you don't have the orthotics yet, don't know that you even need them, but since Daddy and I have discovered that you do need them, they can't come fast enough. And I cost you another two weeks.

It feels like forever.

I'm sorry.

Cupcake on the Move!

What I Talk About When I Talk About Walking

Yesterday I walked with R in the Baby Bjorn from our house to our little Main street shopping district. We went to Panera Bread for (my) lunch, stopped in a friend's shop to chat, walked over to the library to read a book or two, and then headed back home.


She fell asleep in the Bjorn as we were walking back.

We walked a total of 2.2 miles, and the entire trip lasted 2 hours.

I love to walk. If the weather is nice and the destination is relatively close, you can bet I'm walking. R isn't a big fan of her carseat anyway. That just makes me wish more places were accessible on foot. I once backpacked over 200 miles of mountains out in New Mexico (ever heard of Philmont?). I used to backpack the Appalachians all the time. If I go to the gym I don't run on treadmills but briskly walk instead. I like walking. Get it? I love riding my bike even more, but R is still too little for me to do that with her.

The only problem I have with walking is that I get so excited about the idea of it that when I'm out there actually doing it, I'm suddenly reminded of its physical aspect. I remember that I've been mostly sedentary for the past year. I remember that those glorious days of backpacking up and down mountains were over 10 years ago. I remember that now I'm not just carrying my own weight, but a 17 lb baby as well. Then I think, "I'm worn out! But I still think it's a good idea that I did this!" Thankfully, yesterday's trip was ONLY 2.2 miles. Two years ago I got the bright idea to walk the entire way around a 7 mile path. I was in better shape then, and that's before R joined the picture, but I was one sorry puppy when we finished. My walking enthusiasm needs a censor.

And, somehow, I never learn my lesson. Even after the 2.2 mile jaunt, last night when Senpai came home, I joined him (with R in the Bjorn, of course) and the dog on an 8 block walk, and this morning we are headed to the gym. My enthusiasm knows no bounds. I'm glad to get up and start being active again, but man, am I sore.