It's always a good story if it starts with "today at walmart" haha. Well, I go to Walmart with Abigail after almost every visit to the doctor or physical therapy..I've figured out this way that Abi likes to be held and it works with pushing the cart too. Try to imagine - I am pushing the cart with both hands while Abigail is draped, face down, over my forearms..arms and head stretched over one and legs over the other. It's quite funny..and so far we have a 2 for 2 record on it working - but today at Walmart a lady saw it and commented on it and then said "she's such a good baby!" I smiled and said "Yeah, she's great." It's true! I have a good baby. :)
So in my last post I told you all about Abigail 2.0 - I have been meaning to blog so many times but, like I expected, I'm a slacker. Biggest news since Abigail 2.0 is that Abi had 2 seizures like the one back in May..but none since June 16th. She had one on June 15th and another the next day on the 16th - but, like I said, nothing since then. She has had several really good days despite the hiccups a few weeks back. Her head control is still coming a long great and she's smiling and cooing quite often! She still has moments of sheer anger but I think that's most likely due to the reflux she still is still dealing with. We still have her on reflux medicine but I'm hoping that with the recent weight gain warrants for an increase in medicines (since medicine doses in babies go by weight) - But YES! Abigail has finally started to gain weight again. Let's see if we can keep this ball rolling! She is over 11lbs again! I swear I remember the scale reading 11.8 but when I asked I was told 11.5 -- either way that's almost 2 lbs heavier! So we will just keep doing what we are doing and hope to keep the progress up! Maybe by the end of the summer we can actually move her up into size 3-6 month clothes! haha
We've also been continuing with physical therapy - Last week I got a little disheartened about taking her to physical therapy because it started feeling like the P.T. wasn't really doing much with her - but I went again today and Abigail was more calm and we got a lot more results - so then I realized it's not that the P.T. isn't do much with her as much as she can't do much when Abi is fussy and unresponsive to the therapy. So we will stick with it - today was very promising - such a great session today. I had early intervention come over yesterday for some P.T and that lady seemed to do a lot more stretching then the one in St. George - they all agree that Abigail's arms are a little tight but her overall tone seems to be just fine. With head control still a main goal - our next goal is to try to get her to start reaching out for things. She eats her hands (ALOT) and will even bring them to her mouth (kind of) but hasn't noticed them or anything, but when I was watching the early intervention P.T show me a stretch she inadvertently got Abigail to notice her hands. So the P.T. was showing me stretches that I should do with her fingers and the placement of where Abigail was and where she was doing the stretch was a good spot because I then noticed Abi looking at her hand as the P.T. was opening and closing her fingers - So I thought "I will have to continue doing those stretches in front of her and try to "trick" her into watching her hands!" It's definitely worth a shot! Another shot I started taking is taking Abigail to the pool. Apparently swimming and being in the water can be a miracle cure for a lot of things - my thought it the resistance and buoyancy of the water may help facilitate movement in Abigail's arms and legs. That maybe the water can help her get a better sense of her limbs while making it easier to move them! I have taken her to the pool only once since my hopefulness of this idea and she didn't hate it - she actually didn't really respond at all for the most part - but it was just the very first time and so I would still like to try that. The only reason I don't more often is because it's so dang windy here so often that not only is the wind bothersome to her but then its freezing when you get out of the water! I just can't justify bringing her on days that is too cold for me to get in (even though i'm such a wuss when it comes to even thinking about being cold). But both P.T.'s agree that it could be helpful and don't see any reason why I shouldn't try it..It won't hurt, that's for sure!
In my last Abigail 2.0 post I mentioned she's been sleeping through the night really well - that must have been a jinx because even though she is still very capable of sleeping through the night on some occasions she has woken up in the middle of the night more frequently that I would prefer - but what can I do but nurse her and go back to sleep, right? Except, that last few nights she has been waking up in pain and then going back to sleep - So I still really want to get a sleep study on her.. I will talk to Dr. Meier (ENT) about that during our appointment next week. I told my pediatrician about the waking sleep thing and that she is still having blue spells frequently and he ordered a test for low Iron - he says it does sound like breath holding spells and low iron can cause it? or perpetuate it? or something like that. But i'm good to do any test that may give us answers. I mean, lets knock out anything and everything we can, why not?
So overall Abigail is still doing GREAT! And today I was told I have a good baby! I've always believed Abigail is a good baby - just dealing with some isms that make her uncomfortable. But it was sure nice to hear from someone who had no idea. Today was a good day with happy news - The P.T was pleased, my pediatrician was pleased, the lady at Walmart was pleased ( :P ) I was pleased. Happy day. She is sleeping now - I wonder how long she will sleep tonight. She didn't get a whole lot of sleep today but that's typically how it goes on days we are traveling to St. George - it seems that no matter what time I schedule the appts. we are always driving during feeding time and the appts. during what should be nap time - so these days are a bit rougher on her by the end - but she's a trooper and makes it through just fine. As for now we will just keep on keeping on and hope this progress continues! I fall more in love with this little baby every single day..it's crazy actually. She's so goofy and quirky! She's so AbiNormal! I love my little goober baby.
Well, thanks for "listening" - it feels good to talk about it! That's all I can remember for now -- I've really gotta get better at keeping up with this thing..
This is AbiNormal!
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