Gracie update

So as many of you know Gracie has been crawling now for over a month. And let me tell you, the girl never wants to sit still. She worked on cruising with her therapist on Tuesday and she said how quickly she is improving and said she will be walking in two to three months. And she said she won't be walking for long..she'll be running. Just in time for her baby sister to arrive.

I have no idea how I'm going to manage a running toddler and a newborn. Each day my anxiety grows, but I am also getting very excited to meet this little girl. We are slowly narrowing down the name selection. I'm sure by the time she arrives we will figure this out. I just think girls names are harder than boys and we care about the meaning of the name as well so we take that into consideration when picking out the names.

Gracie recently got her Bennick glove, which is made of neoprene, and helps to keep her hand slightly opened and her thumb out. She is suppose to wear it during the day but sometimes I forget. She has a purple one and a black one because everyone knows that black goes with just about any thing! :) We have an appt. next week to get fitted for her AFO (leg brace). This one I'm not so thrilled about but it will help her walk and since she is always on her feet these days, it is important to get her in it asap. The therapist explained the feeling of it like a ski boot. I know she isn't going to like it at first but with time hopefully she will get use to it.

I was in the bank yesterday and the teller asked why she had a brace on her hand. It's hard to know exactly how to explain to a stranger why she needs it. I'm sure some days I'll just say something generic and some days I might feel the need to explain. And in time, Grace will decide what she wants to tell people. Gracie's OT is a hemi-peligia and she says she appreciates when people would ask instead of just stare! At the end of the day, I hope that Grace doesn't care what people think of her, and that she can be confindent in herself and her differences. I don't want her to ever feel like she has limitations in life.

I believe her perserverance and her determination (she displays those qualities now) will take her far in life. Everyone that meets her and gets the chance to know her believes she is special, and it's not because of what happened to her brain, it's because of the little person she is today and will be tomorrow.

Here is a short video I took of her when she first started crawling. Her PT and OT said it's not common for a baby with hemi to crawl bilaterally on all fours. We couldn't be more proud!