Thankful

I did this last year and I thought I'd give it a try this year.  In honor of Thanksgiving, I like to remind myself how much I have to be thankful for each day of the month as we celebrate Thanksgiving.

So for November 1, I am thankful to have had our LAST DAY OF PT today!  After having regular physical therapy for her entire life (all 15 months of it), we got the official release today.  The Squirrel is totally up to speed on where she should be developmentally.  We have been so grateful for our physical therapists, Mahera from way back in our NICU days, and Elaine, from Methodist Outpatient Physical Rehabilitation.  Their dedication, hard work and persistence has our 15 month old right on track for where she should be today.  What a great way to kick off November!

Peek into PT

I often get asked about what Harper does in physical therapy.  I thought I'd show you the latest session.  We're working on strengthening her core muscles since her omphalocele has caused delays in anything that takes lower abdominal strength.  Its amazing to think about how crucial those muscles are. 

Crawling Practice - getting her knees up is a challenge

You can see Elaine, who has worked with the Squirrel since we left the NICU.  We love Elaine and she is SO good with kids.  She takes a look at how Harps is doing each week and then adjusts what we're working on accordingly.  We work for 45 minutes - 1 hour and then Jared and I work with the Girl at home. 

Swing - works on balance and abdominal strength

We've increased our PT sessions to weekly over the last month and leading up to surgery since Harps will, most likely, have a small window of time where she's not able to do as much.  She'll be able to start back to work about two weeks post-surgery.

Can you guess what her favorite activity is???

It might look like play but each activity has strengthening or skill exercises involved.  And let me tell you, the this Squirrel is always up for a GREAT nap after a hard session of PT!

Rody Horse - Works on balance and coordination