Moving Forward

Lara is at Grandma and Grandpa's this weekend, so Dustin and I have taken advantage of this free time to relax and take a date. Thank you, Grandma and Grandpa!

Lara has tall braces now, which seem to already be helping her toe-walking. Miss Gretchen even went so far as to try to encourage Lara to walk by herself at therapy Friday. She did not, of course. Not only does Lara need more time, but she really needs some confidence. She is so used to always holding onto something, that it might be awhile for her to be brave enough to just let go and try. But she will get there and it is encouraging that we are at a point where we are even taking that next step to incorporate some of those walking exercises into her therapy routine.

But that's Lara's only limitation. It's a big one, but our life still moves forward at a normal pace. This limitation doesn't hinder our progression in other areas. I realized this is one reason why I am so relieved that the potty training is actually working. Honestly, I just wasn't sure if Lara would have good bladder control --I wasn't so sure how much her CP affects other muscles in her body. Something as serious as CP, you just always expect to deal with so much more than what we deal with. You expect it to pop up any minute and say, "Wait, I can't let you go any further." I don't think Dustin feels that way, but I do. But we are lucky. And people talk to me about it all the time. How happy and good-natured Lara is. How "normal" Lara is. And I understand. Everyone tries to say it really subtlely, apologizing later because they didn't mean to offend me by telling me that Lara is "normal," implying that her CP initially made her not so. But, trust me, I get it. I get it in that I expect an abnormality to pop up. And it never does. Lara is a typical 2-year-old. The muscles in her legs are just too tight. In a way, you feel frustrated because you would love to see her playing and running with the other kids her age, but at the same time, you feel completely delighted in all the little new things she says and does because we're relived...that we just keep moving forward no matter what.

Lara is wearing her new braces above. She is standing up and throwing some balls. Gretchen is just lightly keeping Lara's "bad" foot a little more stable, but Lara's doing it mostly alone. She was even able to bend down, pick up some of the balls, and stand back up without any support at all.

By the way, here is Baby #2, who is already giving me anxiety. My house is so small, I have no idea where I am going to put everything to make room for the baby. And this baby is going to be here really, really, really, super soon. I am 22 weeks. So I have 18 more to go. Judging by how those first 22 weeks flew by in the blink of an eye, this little one is going to be here before I know it. Of course, that's all dependent on my personality. I want everything perfectly in place. I want things organized and looking nice. Unlike my friend, whose house is so small, she just put the baby's bed in the kitchen, no worries for her! I guess the baby doesn't need her own little room set up yet...she'll be in my room the first couple months because that's easiest for me with those nighttime nursing sessions. But there will still be a lot of changes that we will need to make...oh, my. I am, however, standing in the eventual baby's room in the above picture. The walls are a light lavendar, so if she IS a girl like is suspected, that is a change that will not need to be made. Dustin said it doesn't matter. HE said that the baby will have purple walls even if it is a boy because the boy won't care and Dustin hates painting. But the wonderful thing about my hubby is that he always does what I want in the end. :-)

I have begun preparing for labor. I am using the Bradley Method again, of course. This time I will focus on strengthening my back because that was a problem with Lara. I had back labor and the contractions left me with such a sore back that I never had those moments of relief between contractions. For 8 hours, it felt like just one looooooooooong contraction. And poor Dustin!! That man NEVER left my side, for 8 hours straight, he rubbed and rubbed and rubbed my lower back. The experience left him with pain in his wrist for months, and still to this day, it is much weaker. So we are certainly going to invest in some back massage tools before the big day. And prayers are going up that maybe this time I can be spared the back labor and just have normal labor? They say back labor hurts a lot worse, and I don't mind finding out.

I hope you all are staying warm. For those of you so not in my area, we suffered a freeze-out this past week, with a wind chill of -40!! So Lara and I stayed indoors and made cookies. We didn't really want them; we just made them because Lara absolutely loves to do real cooking. So Dustin's co-workers ate them up.