We also might borrow a more supportive stander for awhile. Rachel's neurology appointment is tomorrow so I'll update again soon.
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In PT Rachel was able to lift her legs while in the walker. She didn't drag them either. If Bev tapped her leg Rachel would lift it forward. We have a neurology appointment this week and we'll probably ask if we can go down on her bacofen again.
Speech gave us more ideas for helping keep Rachel's mouth happy. Spritzing cool water and giving her small amounts of cold water and asking her to swallow. So that eventually she'll swallow on her own a lot better. I never knew how much work it was to swallow!
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Rachel had a great 4th of July, she was happy and smiling most of the day. She didn't do as much talking but she was much happier than she had been back when we thought she had an ear infection.
On the 5th though she was just crabby. She didn't want to really do anything... she crabbed at Kari. It was actually pretty funny because Kari would ask if she wanted to push the button to make the bubble blower work and Rachel would make crabby noises at her as if to say she didn't. I don't know if she didn't want to work that day or if she was tired out from all the activity on the fourth. But it was a complete opposite from how she was acting the day before. She wasn't in any kind of pain, just grumpy.
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Wow, time is just flying by this summer! In therapy they are looking at ordering Rachel a new wheelchair. She's doubled her age and more than likely her length since we first ordered her stroller-like wheelchair. Luke's hoping this next one will be more sturdy, because even though the other one was $3,000, pieces were falling off of it all the time.
Rachel and Kaleigh both have colds... then we were thinking that maybe Rachel had an ear infection. The Dr. said if it's still bugging her tomorrow to bring her in.
We were in Duluth for my youngest sister's college graduation party and we got to see family and then Luke and I went out with a couple of friends. Rachel threw up a few times and it was either from the traveling or was because we were feeding her with a 60 cc syringe instead of her feeding pump. We still feed her slowly so we're not sure why the difference but she was fine once we were home again. Rachel has been the same weight for a year so each of her feedings is going up by 30 mL or the equivalent to one extra feeding a day. In one week she already gained two pounds so it will be nice to get a little more weight on her. I have to e-mail the nutritionist after a month of the increased feedings and keep her posted. We've been upped the amount for two weeks with no problems until we were in Duluth, and now she's back to doing just fine.
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Now that I'm looking through Rachel's notebook I see I forgot to mention a couple of things that happened this week. Let's see, in speech therapy Rachel can turn the pages of a book, it takes her a while but she doesn't need help. She's also getting better at pushing with her legs when they're helping her play on the therapy ball.
Today we went to church and it was the grand opening of the new wheelchair lift. Well actually we used it last week when we went upstairs for Sunday school. It looks like a glass elevator so I make Luke go in it with Rachel and I carry the bags and the baby up the stairs. Then at home I weeded the flower garden and both the girls sat in their strollers outside. Luke was watering everything and ran cold water over Rachel's hand a few times. She'd smile and lift her arm up out of the way. She liked being outside so I hope we don't have such a hot summer this year so that she can get outside more. She's almost as pale as I am!
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Since a bunch of photos were taken off the site when the server crashed here are some more:
Here's a pic from when my mom came up to help me with the kids while Luke was in the Boundary Waters. Hudson's trying to snitch cookie dough and Kaleigh's trying to climb onto the tray under Rachel's stroller.
Here's Rachel with the doll she picked out for her birthday. The bump on her tummy... in her tummy(?) is her baclofen pump. Not sure if it will be obvious to others but I thought I'd point it out.
Here's Rachel completely zonked after a busy birthday. She's really tall now! Oh she also has her hand splints on to help keep her thumbs out. Otherwise she squishes them in her fists all day and that's not very good for her hands.
And the image quality is bad but here's Kaleigh after finding sidewalk chalk under Hudson's bed.
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I talked to Kari and as the test went on the words got really hard. But considering she just turned 4 she still had an amazing score! She did the usual stuff in therapy on Wednesday. I don't think they did it yesterday but last week they put Rachel on the flat swing and then put a big stack of blocks behind her so she could knock them down. At first they had to tickle her to get her to push her legs to make the swing move but she loved making the blocks crash all over the floor so she kept getting better until she was pushing out with her legs more on her own.
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Sorry I haven't been updating lately. Karina's started crawling and all the other things that pop up during the summer don't leave me a lot of time to sit down and add an entry. But today at work I updated some of the "static" pages on the side. Rachel finished her vocab test with a score of 94 so that's only a little below average for a 4 yr old. Since she just turned 4 it's still pretty impressive. I'm not sure how it was high as 5 yr old the other day and then at the end was lower, I haven't gotten a chance to ask Kari how that went yet.
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On Wednesday Rachel slept through most of speech therapy. That's what she used to do all the time. The second it was time for speech she'd be snoozing. PT probably wore her out, she did a great job with headcontrol practice and Bev's been working on stretching her out more these past few weeks. In OT they were working on getting her to push a button with her cheek but she wouldn't do it. She was still just getting up from her nap or she was just being stubborn.
Kari helped Rachel play with her Cabbage Patch baby. When Kari asked if the baby had a "stinky diaper" Rachel though it was hilarious.
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In PT her therapist worked on her shoulders and hips. Both are a little tight. Rachel wasn't too happy about that but it's good they're getting worked out and that she's not so floppy anymore.
In Speech therapy she had a vocab test. For each question on the test there were four black and white drawings on a page and then Teresa (ST) would read a word and ask which picture it was. Then Rachel would either look at the picture or if she wasn't cooperating then Teresa would point to each picture and ask "Is this it?" and Rachel would blink twice to say yes to the right one. Rachel was crabby about it because she wanted to play but she went along with it anyway. You fail the test if you get 8 wrong in a row and through the entire test Rachel only got 5 wrong and she has the vocabulary of a 5 year old! She even knew what a porcupine was! She got fence and railing mixed up but even that's pretty good!
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Luke was in the Boundry Waters for a week long trip so I didn't update at all last week. Rachel's grandmas helped with the kiddos so everything went well. The cutest story I remember from speech therapy is they had Rachel be Simon for Simon says. She would use her communication board (the pexiglass one) and look at the picture of a person standing for "Simon says" and then look at a picture of an action that she wanted Kari and her therapist to do. This built skills because she had to look at "Simon says" first and then the action. So it was kind of like learning to put two words/phrases together for her.
Rachel had a very nice birthday. We brought her to Target and we got her a couple movies and a feather boa and she picked out a Cabbage Patch baby. Luke was showing her different dolls and she started "talking" when she saw that one. Then Luke got me from the movie section and when we went back to the doll aisle she did it again. When we opened family presents at her party we would show her the present and she would smile and start "talking". She was doing really well, was really happy, and I was very impressed with her reacting to each present.
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It's Rachel's 4th Birthday today!! [ 1 comment ] ( 2 views ) | permalink | related link
Lately Rachel seems to be trying to copy what we say. Luke was copying her noises and Rachel was mimicking him right back. Then Kari noticed the same thing, when Kari would talk to her Rachel would try to make similar sounds/syllables back. Then Luke was teasing Rachel about something cute and Rachel angrily made her "Da da da" noises. I think she was scolding him.
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The server that hosted Rachel's site crashed over the weekend. Thankfully I still have the nurses's communication books to have a record of Rachel's accomplishments at school and therapy since Kari had such good notes on how each day went. Dina's e-mails from school had a lot of good information as well and I didn't delete those so thankfully I didn't lose all record of the couple months lost. If anyone has anything more recent than Feb 20 printed out at home please let me know. After Rachel's accident regular Baby books (the ones where you record first steps and stuff like that) didn't apply and I'd been relying on this as a sort of scrapbook instead.
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Whew it's been a while. Therapy has gone well, she's been sleepy lately.
Speech therapy has been working more on her communication board and getting us to use it more often. Having her choose between 4 activities. And asking her to look at the "all done" picture when she wants to quit. School went well, we dressed Rachel in pink sparkle pants, a kitten valentine's shirt and a pink zip up hoodie (that matched the hoodie Kari was wearing).
Since people have mentioned how much they like hearing from Rachel's teacher, here's some of last week's e-mail:
Rachel was dressed so cute for our Valentine's Day party. Kari and her arrived right on time and settled in with the other children. Kari read to Rachel and some others for a short time before Morning Circle. We opened with our "Welcome Song," and practiced each others' names. Next, our speech pathologist came in for group. She read a Valentine's story, reviewed vocabulary and concepts. Rachel's PT helped her during her OT group activities. They were really working her hard. She always seems to enjoy getting down on the carpet with the other children the most. After OT, she decorated her "Valentine Keeper" with pretty hearts and stickers. She was starting to fade at this point. The kids really liked her "Hello Kitty" valentine pouches, and everyone had a great time.
Kari said they had a tablecloth full of paper hearts that the kids sat around and shook the cloth and so they'd go up into the air and fall down around Rachel. She really liked that activity.
Last night Rachel took a late evening nap and then was up until 12:30 am and so today she's very vocal and crabby.
Sorry for fragmented sentences and bad grammar I'm super tired and I figured I better hurry and post something before I get too behind.
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