It's a good Friday

Our Fridays start with PT at 7:30am...well truthfully they start whenever Sweet Pea wakes up which is often 5:30am but let's pretend she is nice to mommy and daddy and sleeps in. Ms. C comes to our house and has recently been bringing this big purple peanut. It's an inflated peanut shaped ball. Sweet Pea absolutely loves bouncing on it and so we bring it out once she is frustrated with us trying to work with her. Currently we are working on:

• Leaning to the side while bending her legs
• Quadruped (basically on all fours)
• Kneeling and keeping her knees together while doing this
• Reaching while twisting her trunk
• Reaching while in quadruped or kneeling so that her other arm is supporting her weight
• Supported standing
  

We weren't making much progress back in December and so we dialed things back in hopes that she wouldn't be screaming through the entire hour session. Daddy & I started being more involved in doing the positioning, listening to her cues and trying to recognize when she is frustrated and when she has really had enough. We also started taking a few steps back in what we were trying to get her to do...Mommy & Daddy would read their "Gross Motor Skills in Children with Down Syndrome" book and follow the examples for the precursor steps to the skill that we were trying to develop. The very first weekend of this step back brought us tremendous progress and it's been continuing ever since. She stays in quadruped for 30+ seconds now and is showing great strides in the side sitting and supported standing. She now gets through about 30 minutes of the session without any real fighting. The remaining 30 minutes can be a struggle, but we call it a day when it's gotten to be too much. Daddy & I are happier and we believe Sweet Pea is happier as well.

Here are some pictures from tonight of her bending her knees (some more than others) and reaching for her ball & piano. She likes to do these things on her own and we have to learn to sit back and let her. When we try to bend her leg she stiffens it immediately. I think that once we show her it a few times she gets the idea in her head and will try it out when she is good and ready. Stubborn little girl...hmm...wonder who she got that from?