Addison has had her cast off now for about a month and a half and she is doing just great. She has adjusted well to the Ilfeld Brace but I have to admit, because we have control over how long she wears the brace we are not exactly vigilant with ensuring she is in it 20 hours a day. When your little one has had to endure two surgeries and wear a body cast for 3 months of her new little life, you hate to confine them in anything longer than you have to.
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| Just hanging out, wearing her brace |
Just after her brace came off we took her on her first family vacation to Park City, UT. She did so good on the long car journey down and back, we were so impressed with how easily she traveled. When we got to our resort in Park City we made the most of the pool as we had not been able to give her a bath let alone take her swimming during the hot summer months, so we spent as much time the pool with her as we could...and she loved it!
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| Our little bathing beauty |
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| We just love watching her kick her little legs! |
We have been giving her lots of floor time in hopes that it will stimulate her stalled motor skill development. Most of the time we give her brace-free floor time but on the occasion that we do put her down on the floor in her brace, little monkey that she is, she figures out a way to roll (very awkwardly) with the brace on! It doesn't look like it would be all that fun to me to try and move around in that brace, so most of the time she is given her floor play time without her brace. She is now 8 months old and has really fine tuned her rolling skills. She moves around the floor by rolling herself to where she wants to get. When she is rolling around on the floor, you can see in her eyes that she really would love to crawl, she just can't figure out how to tell her body how to do that yet! Sometimes she gets frustrated when she is trying to reach a certain toy or grab the cat's tail and can't quite reach it, and can't quite figure out how to get to where she needs to be in order to grab whatever she wants...but we know she'll get there soon enough!
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| "I really really wish I could crawl!" |
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| Thankfully her brace works in her stroller too |
Just over a week ago, her grandma taught her how to sit on her own and she was pretty proud of herself indeed with that little development! Now she can't get enough of floor time, showing off to everyone her mad sitting skills. Her dad was a little melancholy about her new found sitting skills, it is just one more milestone that indicates to us she is growing up and will soon no longer be our little squishy baby. I can't imagine how he is going to feel when she actually does start crawling!
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| Look what I can do Mom! I'm pretty smart! |
Eventhough we are supposed to have her in her brace most of the time, we don't...but we take extra care to ensure that she is as frog-legged as possible at all times! Poor thing probably wonders why we are forever adjusting the angles of her legs! Thankfully she sleeps well in her brace, and has come to see it as part of her sleepy time routine, as soon as the brace goes on she knows she is in for a nap or bedtime, it is kind of funny how she reacts by rolling to her side and putting her thumb in her mouth, preparing herself for sleep!
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| Getting some snuggles with daddy before bedtime |
We don't have another appointment with her orthopedic surgeon until mid-December, that will be 3 months post- cast removal and we are not sure what will happen at that appointment. I suspect they will want to check the angles of her legs, etc. and ensure all is looking good...but whether that will entail an MRI or an x-ray we are not too sure. Our ortho has indicated that she will likely be in the brace until her first birthday...so here is hoping that timeline works out and after her first birthday she will be free.
