Playing Catch Up

Well, it's been more than three weeks now since Claire started walking, and she's been catching up by leaps and bounds.

She now stands up from a sitting position entirely on her own, whenever she wants to stand up. Her physical therapist has noticed that even when Claire is next to something that she could pull up on, she generally prefers to stand up on her own, without pulling up. So, to this day, she just plain doesn't like to pull up on things. Why? It's a mystery. The therapist says she's never seen anything like it before. Once again, I would just love to have a window into this kid's psyche.

Claire also started walking backwards within a week or so of walking, and I even think I saw her try to take a few running steps a week or so ago (that hasn't been repeated). She no longer walks with her arms up, like she did when she first started, and she can squat down now as well—in fact, she often doesn't even need to use her hands to balance when squatting. (When she first started walking, she didn't seem to realize she had to bend her knees in order to squat).

And Claire has made great progress on things like climbing stairs and climbing into chairs. In the past week or so, she has figured out how to turn around and get seated on her butt once she's up on a chair or the couch. She can also get off the couch by herself by turning around backwards and sliding down on her stomach.

Stairs have been just a bit trickier. For some reason she has never wanted to crawl up stairs, using her knees. The therapists said it was fine if she went up on her hands and feet, so we've been working on that and she's doing great at it. (She also has refused to go down backwards, but she now knows to slide down on her butt.) However, the therapists have noticed that when Claire climbs stairs by leading with her left leg, she tends to push straight backwards instead of up. She's fine when leading with her right leg and has no trouble at all. They think this indicates some sort of weakness in her left leg. (Although, the oddest thing of all is that she wants to lead with her left leg instead of her right. Go figure.)

Because of that, Sara tried to check Claire's hips at our last PT session, but Claire was highly uncooperative. I mentioned that we had Claire x-rayed at Children's for hip problems over a year ago, and that they hadn't found anything wrong. Sara said that she was checking for muscular problems, not joint problems, and muscle issues obviously don't show up on x-rays. But since Claire wasn't interested in having her hips checked (she was probably having flashbacks of being bound to the table at Children's with masking tape), Sara couldn't determine anything. She suggested that I check Claire sometime while she's sleeping, because she thought that would be the only time Claire might allow somebody to check her hips. I was like um, yeah, sure, whatever. First of all, I have no idea what to look for, and second of all, I know for a fact that it would wake Claire up! So, Claire's hips will probably have to remain mystery #942 regarding her motor skills.

In other areas, Claire is talking a bit more but is still very difficult to understand. So, same old same-old when it comes to talking. But every once in a while, she comes out with something that surprises us all. During our last session with Sara, she asked Claire if she wanted to stack some blocks, and Claire turned away from the table and said what sounded exactly like, "I don't wanna." She has also, on several occasions, said, "I do that." (When Elsa's doing something fun and she wants to take part too.) And she's been saying, "I got it," for a long time when she catches balls. So I find it interesting that she seems to understand the concept of "I" at least a year before Elsa did! (Elsa called herself "Elsa" until she was well over 2 years old.)

Claire is also surprisingly good with names. She's called the following people a semi-recognizable version of their names: Karina, Tommy, Sara, Shawna (the PT intern), and David (one of the kids we carpool with). She absolutely loves riding in the car with the other kids we carpool with—it makes her crazy-hyper and giggly every time. Lately we've been telling knock-knock jokes during the carpooling, and Claire loves to join in, yelling, "Nah nah!" at the top of her voice.

Sometimes when I look at Claire walking around and saying her words, I think, "Whew. We made it." She's finally walking and talking and communicating relatively effectively. Which means that the hardest part of babyhood/toddlerhood (in my opinion, anyway) is finally behind us. We made it, Claire! And we love you!