Catching up from our new home in Texas

Megan loves our new home; she loves all of the open space she has to walk and push her shopping cart, baby stroller and wagon.  She will walk back and forth non-stop until we distract her with something else.  She was also thrilled to see stairs again.  The first time she saw them she climbed up and down them until we made her stop.  Because we have spindles she can even walk up them when she wants to.

She can now climb on and off of her bouncy horse by herself.  She can also climb her slide by herself, though she still needs supervision with it since she sometimes tries to skip a step.

She has also learned how to climb onto and off of all of our furniture.  She had started trying to get on our furniture before we moved but she was only successful about half of the time.

Megan has been feeding herself for a couple of months now.  She is even using the spoon with breakfast with Will holding onto it to keep her from throwing it - but she is doing all of the work herself.  She is getting good with using signs or the pictures to ask for "more" food.  We are adding more pictures into her day to help her communicate.  Two nights ago she used her green sheep book to tell us that she wanted to go to bed.  She found the page with the bed sheep on it and kept touching it until we figured out what she wanted.

A couple of weeks ago Megan was yelling to get my attention and I told her to use her words.  She stopped, got a look on her face like she was really thinking about it and then she tried to say something - she opened her mouth and tried to say something but nothing happened; then she got upset and grunted and yelled at me.  It was a great thing that she tried but sad that she couldn't do it and got so frustrated.  She has started using more and more signs again.

Yesterday at Megan's ortho appointment she was identifying animals on the pages of a new book.  I told her what they were and then would change the pages and go back and ask her to touch the animal and she would do it.  She did great.

Megan has been walking a lot in public now.  She was in the grocery cart the other day and was unhappy, so I took her out.  She wanted to get down and then she proceeded to follow Will as he walked through the store.  She then walked all over the sidewalk outside while Will was checking out.

Since being in Texas Megan has gotten new glasses (twice, because she broke the first pair) and new orthotics.  Her new glasses a little stronger and she likes them.  She still messes with them and will take them off but it is so much less than with her old ones.  She looks so cute in them too.  Her new orthotics just slip into her shoes to give her a little support, but she does great without them too.  Her new orthopedist said he would never have guessed she had low muscle tone when he saw her.  Her alignment is the same when she is barefoot.  We did see a difference when she got them so we will keep using them, she seems more confident and she doesn't fatigue like she was without them.