But it happens way too fast!

The girls have been changing so much lately I can hardly keep up with it. I have had so little extra time lately to blog etc and with them changing so fast, I am so far behind in updating everyone it feels like I am in first place. Amidst all of our appointments and therapy etc I have been trying my hardest to market my website design business so that I can continue to stay at home with the girls. I have had a few great jobs you can check them out here, here and here. However jobs are not falling from the sky but the bills are so I have been pounding the pavement trying to market myself. If any of you readers out there know of anyone with a small business that needs a website, a website redesign or any website related help I would be happy to help them out, send them my way.  You can also send them to my business website here.

Anyways enough about me. The girls have come a long way since I actually wrote a post of a decent length. Lena has made leaps and bounds. She is trying to sit so hard. She wants to be upright so badly that when she is in a reclined position she tries to pull herself into a sitting position (power sit ups). She is going to have abs of steel. When she is sitting she does fairly well in long sitting (legs out in front) for shorter periods of time. The length of time she lasts really depends on the tone in her hamstrings at that moment. She sits like a pro with her legs bent over at a 90 degree angel like on a table with her legs dangling. She just needs to gain some balance and she will do it on her own. Baby steps.

Lena has also gained a lot of strength in her upper body and in her neck and head. She has awesome head control compared to even a month ago. She now consistently “has a neck” and can rotate her head to look in any direction she desires. She is responding more to visual stimuli now, not just sounds so her vision must also be improving. Lena’s fine motor control is not great but her gross motor control in her upper body is improving and they tell me you have to have better gross motor control before the fine motor will come along, I think it will come in time.

In the past few months Lena has become the happiest kid. She smiles and laughs all the time. She wakes up smiling and cooing in the morning. It is not uncommon for me to all of a sudden hear her burst into a fit of jiggles while she is hanging out in her chair. She loves to dance, swing and be tickled (yes Nana she LIKES it), she gives great belly laughs for all of the above. Her newest thing is to make noise and rub her fingers back and forth on her lips so that it makes a funny sound. She does it so much she has a red spot above her lip by mid day and it doesn’t go away until she goes to bed and gives her poor little lips a break. It is so good to see her healthy and happy.

Kassie has turned into a toddler somewhere along the way. I am not sure when it happened, all I know is that one morning I woke up and the baby was gone and there was an toddler in Kassie’s bed. She has become so independent yet totally dependant. She wants to do everything herself and gets terribly frustrated when something does not go her way or is out of her reach (especially if it is out of her reach on purpose). Some one once told me that you can encourage movement by placing toys just out of reach. Not in our house, the only thing that encourages around here is WHINING. Kassie figured out around Christmas time (when Daddy was home for 2 weeks) that if you whine long and hard enough they will eventually get you what you want. So my day is full of chatter and whine.

Kassie has figured out that toddlers are supposed to play shy or at least have very distinct moods.  When Kassie is at home is a totally different kid than when we go out or for that matter when anyone that she is not totally familiar with is here. When we are home alone she is a chatter box, smiling, chatting and playing HARD. The minute I put her coat on or she hears someone strange in the house it all stops, she becomes this quiet, stoic little girl. Its crazy really, everyone thinks she is so serious and she really isn’t.

This is the real crazy Kassie. Boy oh boy are we in for trouble later. She is such a trouble maker, and she thinks it’s hilarious.

Kassie has improved greatly in her fine motor control. She can feed herself finger foods now and loves doing it. When we are eating she has to be eating something too. She prefers foods she has to chew and likes to pick them up herself (though after awhile she doesn’t mind some help). She wants to try everything and wants to touch and hold everything in her reach - yep a toddler (who will not toddle - yet). She has mastered the art of taking things out of a container, now we are working on putting them back in. She gets very frustrated when she can’t get at something and I think she gets bored a lot easier too. I am finding it a bit of a challenge to keep her occupied.

Oops, I left the yogurt where she could reach it!

Kassie is sitting like a pro and can now be left to her own devises if necessary. She rarely falls over and when she does she can anticipate it and slow the fall so she doesn’t bang her noggin, she really hates it if she falls onto  her stomach though so we are working on rolling and getting back into sitting. Our major goal is to get her standing more. It’s a real hit and miss, some days she doesn’t mind it (I think she may even like it) and other days she wants no part of it. Shelley (our PT) and I have been toying with the idea that she may have an increased sensitivity in her right leg 9due to her hemi-plegia) and that is why she doesn’t want to stand. As far as musculature goes and balance she has both so it’s a matter of getting her used to it. So our goal now it to get her standing as much as possible and work towards her pushing herself into standing. Some days she will stay standing for periods of time and others she just sits back down (so stubborn , I don’t know where she gets it from).