2016 has been a busy year for Team Bex. Chris accepted a new
position and we have relocated to the Atlanta area. Making this change was a
hard decision for us. Bex was a big
factor. In Charlotte, we were blessed
with wonderful therapists. They truly cared about Bex as well as our entire
family. We always felt that they had her best interest at heart. You form a
special relationship with your child’s therapists. It was from them we learned to celebrate the small
steps forward in development and finally felt empowered with ways to help
her. Leaving those relationships behind
was hard and also scary because we didn’t want to lose any momentum with her
progress. However, she has taken the
change well and continues to make progress. Here is a little bit about what she
has been up to:
Zipzac: About 8 weeks ago, Bex’s PT arrived at our
house with something new, a Zipzac. She told us that she was on a big mobility
kick and trying to brainstorm ways to help some of her patients gain
mobility. She could not have introduced
this to us a better time. Bex continues
to make progress with her gross motor skills, but when it comes to independent mobility,
it is just plain hard for her. We could often sense her frustration that she
couldn’t get to things she wanted as efficiently as she wanted to. Plus she wanted to be upright when moving
and she couldn’t do that while army crawling. The Zipzac would provide her with
a means of upright mobility….and more importantly, some independence to explore! And isn’t that what all toddlers want more
than anything? There was a learning curve with the Zipzac. She quickly picked
up on how to go forwards and backwards. However, turns were a source of
frustration for her. She required lots
of prompting and hand-over-hand assistance for about 6 weeks. Then all of the
sudden, it clicked! In about 2 days, she went from being totally dependent to
getting around completely independently.
We LOVE watching Bex enjoy her new independence! We can’t help, but
smile as we watch her move around and explore with ease.
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| Easter Egg Hunt! |
Up Upsee and Away! : One
other item that was recommended to help Bex with mobility was an Upsee. It is a harness type mobility device that
helps children with motor impairment stand and walk with the assistance of an
adult. You can read more about it here -
http://www.fireflyfriends.com/upsee. The plan was to have Bex try one out
before we left Charlotte under the guidance of her former PT, but we never had
the chance. One day recently, Bex seemed
very interested in taking steps as we supported her and at that moment we
decided on a whim to buy it. So far we
have no regrets as she loves it! You can
check her out in the video below. The goal, of course, is to keep Bex
motivated to move and, more importantly, allow her to interact with people and
explore her environment in similar ways to her peers. The Upsee provides these experiences and at
the same can help reinforce step and muscle movement. To see her get excited to stand upright and
walk around is amazing and we love every minute of it!
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| Goofing around with Dad! |
Other Things and
Closing Items: In the past several weeks, Bex has also found her voice more and is
really enunciating her “Yea’s” and has also started saying “No” more
clearly. We can’t get enough of hearing
her little voice and we hope that she continues to express herself verbally
with other words. We know we will get
our fair share of “No’s” when she is a teenager, but we are just fine taking
them in bunches now!
One of our biggest concerns with this relocation was the
imminent lag time for Bex with physical and speech therapy. Not to mention she absolutely adored her PT
in Charlotte and now she’d have to get used to new therapists. However, we have seen her continue to
progress and we’ve continued to work with her on exercises and activities. We’ve also started the process of getting her
set up for therapy sessions in Atlanta and will continue to push these to start
ASAP. We also have her set up for a
neurology appointment at the end of the month.
We are very thankful to a friend and his family (you know who you are)
for helping to set us up with specialists in the Atlanta area.
The funny thing with this move is we were very worried about
the kids and how they would adjust. Much to our surprise, they’ve taken it in
stride! Regarding Bex, we were concerned
she’d struggle with the transition and potentially lose motivation with
physical and speech therapy without her therapists’ guidance. However, she has been a real trooper (as well
as Rhett) through this relo. This goes
to show that this little girl can take on a lot and then some…and still keep
smiling!
