Sorry about the lack of updates, but I wanted to wait until I had enough for one big post, instead of a lot of little posts. Since January, Aly has been working hard on a lot of her development. She has had followups with Occupational and Physical therapy and she has tested well enough on both that she is no longer going to therapy! She still gets Early Intervention twice a month, so she is able to work and be watched there. Aly started Speech therapy late last year. She is very delayed in speech and only has a handful of words that she uses. She is doing well with sign language, she can sign: more, food, baby, butterfly, caterpillar, fish, hat, help, dog, cookie, drink, banana, elephant, all done, and she is learning thank you. She also has a picture board where she can use little pictures of activities like "brushing teeth", "going outside" or "TV" to tell us what she wants to do. It's been helpful, although she constantly wants to brush her teeth.
Aly has had followups with her eye doctor and her rehab doctor and both were good visits. Her eye doctor thinks her glasses are working and her eyes are staying aligned. Her rehab doctor said her muscles are developing correctly and she was not concerned about her foot turning in.
She recently had a second MRI as a followup with her Neurologist. We went to the Riverton branch of Primary's instead of the Salt Lake location. Aly loved the waiting room with all the fish and aquatic theme. She also loved the toys, including a little pink car that she had fun driving around. She did well under the sedation for the test, and we will have the results pretty soon, but we won't see her doctor until September.
This May, Aly has made some good progress in Speech. She has finally started saying "Mom." You don't want to know how excited that has made me. It really makes me feel like a real Mom when my baby calls me that. When you child doesn't talk, it makes every little bit of communication and speech more precious and sweet.
Just because Aly can't talk, doesn't mean she's not smart. She understands a lot of what people say to her, and she can answer questions and do simple tasks. She loves building towers, digging in the garden, kicking a ball, putting together puzzles and coloring. I feel like she is a mostly "normal" girl, even though she goes to the doctor a little more than the average kid. She loves Daniel Tiger, Dora, Cailou and playing with the iPad. She seems to take everything in stride.
GO ALY!
