Lara has been doing incredibly well with her physical and occupational therapy. She actually cried when the OT left this past Thursday (Lara was having a great time with the toys the OT brought in).
Occupational Therapy
The muscles in her legs are obviously very tight, which is sad, because it prevents her from developing at a "normal" pace. However, we are not completely sure that the muscles in her arms are tight (high tone). They could be, but the OT thinks there is another possibility: Lara does not have good stomach muscle strength, which means she has to work extra hard at balancing. To compensate for this lack of strength, she tightens up or "fixes" her arms to balance herself. Lara is able to use both hands very well, and her fine motor skills in each hand are great. You will see her use her right hand more often, but this is not because her left arm doesn't work as well, which is the typical assumption of most people when they watch Lara play. There's a suggestion that she is simply relying on her left arm to control her body, as her stomach muscles are not. As I have mentioned to some people already, when babies have high tone in their arms, this means their hands often curl in to make a fist. They are usually unable to uncurl their hand: cannot pick up or release objects and rarely use the hand at all. The OT explained to me that Lara is able to use her left arm/hand very well, so if there is any high tone, it's doubtful that it is truly affecting her arms. Lara does not have a wide range of movement with her arms, but it's because she knows if she throws her arms up in the air with glee, she will loose balance and topple over. This is good news, because the OT explained that this is a temporary problem. Once we increase Lara's stomach strength, her arms will soon be freed up to do as they will. SO, I put Lara on an exercise-type ball and we work on weight shifts. The OT does this as well. In the meantime, we have been told a rule: Stability over Mobility. The reason Lara is doing OT is to increase abdominal strength, and therefore increase her range of motion with her arms. She is such a fast learner, and the OT enjoys working with Lara because she is seriously motivated and takes on any challenge (this is what the OT says).
Physical Therapy
Physical therapy is only a couple times a month, as it isn't felt Lara needs it more, though I would like to see us do more. She does well with PT also. But this is really where the difficult-ness lies. She has a really hard time getting her legs to do what she wants, and it makes her really frustrated. This high tone basically makes her hips and legs stick straight out instead of bending. And it's pretty hard to do much when your legs are like a couple of sticks! (Well, it's not really that bad.) There's not much else to do except really stretch her legs out whenever we can to neutralize the muscle tone. We are also working on getting her to transition from laying down to sitting up. The combination of no hip rotation and little abdominal strength makes this a huge feat to accomplish for her. She is getting really close to being able to do this though.
However, she is pulling up! Congratulations, Lara! On her birthday weekend, no less, what a nice time. She did this by herself.
-----------------------------------------In the meantime, Lara is just the cutest bundle of joy. She has been doing so great with strangers lately, giving big smiles, or at the very least, patient stares. She is very friendly. Alright, now, done with the talking and on to the pictures!!
Lara really enjoys all of her birthday presents! Thank you, everyone!
The funnest part of birthdays.
Oh, so cute. She is a little ham.
We like butterflies!
Here we are at cousin Megan's baby shower (Dustin's cousin, to be exact).
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