Summer Break: Week 2

So it has been another busy and exciting week of Summer Break. Here is what kept us busy on our second week of break:

Sunday: On Sunday David was not feeling well, so Morgan and me headed by ourselves over to Matt's Parent's house. They were having a big retirement party for his mom, Mary Ann, who just retired from 21 years of teaching. She will now not only get to enjoy retirement, but her grandson Lucas. She will be watching him next year during the week. Morgan had a blast as always hanging out with her cousin Lucas and swinging in his swing. Georgia has been our "photographer" this summer capturing many pictures of Morgan. I think from every event she has at least one picture of Morgan in a swing.

Morgan swinging in Luke's swing at the Johnson's.

Monday: On Monday, Morgan and I headed to her three year check-up appointment. I was very excited about this as I couldn't wait to hear how much she had grown. She looks taller, everyone says so and she feels heavier. I was just hoping she hadn't gained too much. Well, I didn't have anything to worry about weight wise, she hasn't gained an ounce since March, in fact she has lost 3. They weighed her on Monday at 25 pounds 2 ounces. Such a peanut. Then they measured her. We tried to stretch her out as much as we could, but they measured her at 33 inches still. No growth! I think they may be off by about 1/2 in. though because I couldn't get her knees completely straight. I wish she would get a bit taller, but at least she is maintaining a good balance between her height and weight. She is in the less than 3 percentile for both and has a BMI of 16%. Everything else checked out well; overall she is healthy. We did switch her over to a new "tummy medicine" to try out for a couple of weeks. He now has her on prevacid. If it is working we will test it out for 2 months and then try taking her off to see if the reflux has cleared up. To end the appointment Morgan had to get a shot. She was so brave. She had brought her baby doll and doctor kit with her, so while we waited for the nurse to come in she practiced giving baby a shot and putting a bandaid on her. I think Morgan was more concerned about the style of bandaid she was getting than the shot. She barely whimpered and didn't shed an actual tear from the shot. So brave! When she got home she was so excited to show her daddy her bandaid.

Tuesday: Tuesday morning we took it easy. We spent the whole morning in our pjs just playing. Morgan and I had a lot of fun working on sitting and reaching for toys and candy. She almost got all the way onto her tummy in a crawl position by herself. I really didn't do anything but place my hand on her to make her think I was helping. It was very exciting. We also worked on sitting and trying to scoot. She tried so hard to use her hands to push herself forward while sitting on the tile. We ended up scooting all over the floor by her holding onto a jump rope while I pulled her. She loved this new game. Then after nap time we got dressed and headed to another pool party. This time it was at Georgia's house. Morgan was so excited to see all her friends; especially Maggie and Lindsey. She had been asking for them all morning. The weather was beautiful, the pool temp was perfect. It was a great afternoon.

Morgan and Lucas hanging out in their floaties.

Once the girls arrived Morgan wanted back in the pool. She had a blast jumping in the pool with Maggie. At one point the girls were holding hands and jumping in together.
I tried to encourage Morgan to "monkey walk" like her friend Lindsey. She wasn't too sure about that; it was a lot of work.

After swimming for a long time the kids were all exhausted, and so was I. We headed inside for some snacks and some more fun playing. I had brought Morgan's walker down. I wasn't sure how she would do, but she is doing so well at home I thought I would try it. Plus by having that there I could put her down somewhere for a second so I could have my hands free for something else. Morgan ended up doing really well. She walked all through the kitchen area and even a bit on the carpet. Her friends, Maggie and Lindsey, also wanted to help her along the way. They are such good friends to her.

Morgan and Lindsey playing basketball. David has taught her how to slam dunk and to say "Slamma Jamma" when she does it. It is hilarious!

Morgan and Maggie hanging out. I had just missed capturing a sweet moment of the girls giving each other a hug.

Wednesday: Keeping up with my intentions of giving Morgan multiple opportunities to drive her wheelchair I arranged for an early morning playdate at a playground across town. It is a fully accessible playground designed for kids in wheelchairs and walkers. Instead of the usual steps, most of the playground is ramped and has railings and side guards so the wheelchairs don't slip off. It was a very long drive to get there, but well worth it. Morgan enjoyed being able to control where she went on the playground. They even had a "sway swing" that she could drive her chair right onto and then "sway" back and forth. She really enjoyed that.

The Playground


Cautiously driving onto the playground for the first time.
This girl loves to drive!

She found the swings.Morgan and Seth on the "sway swing".
All the kiddos tuckered out from the heat. Left to right: Lucas, Seth, Morgan, Ben, and Parker.

After the playground we were HOT and tired. We headed home for some lunch and a quick nap. As soon as nap was over Charley came to pick us up. We headed down to their house to spend the afternoon and then we were all going to meet David for dinner. Morgan was SO excited to go to her grandparent's house. It had been over a week since she had really hung out there and had the chance to play. She and Grandma had fun reading some books together; their new favorite is Fancy Nancy's Christmas book because it says "Ta-da" which Morgan loves to repeat.


After reading some books Morgan wanted to head outdoors to play in her "bathtub." Donna and Charley have a small "pool" they fill with water so she can splash around and play. Before heading into the water though Morgan had to check out her sunflowers. A few months back (I think in March) Donna bought Morgan and Elmo planting kit. It came with seeds to plant tomatoes and sunflowers. The tomatoes did not do well, but the sunflowers did well and were growing so much they had to be replanted twice. First, they transferred them just to larger pots, but soon they needed to be put out in the actual garden. Now, they are huge and the first flower has bloomed. Check them out:

This one is about 6 feet tall. They have about 8 others that are just as big.

After playing outside for a while we headed to meet David for dinner. Morgan enjoyed her usual large helping of chips and salsa. She eats so much like her parents!


Thursday: On Thursday we had a really easy going day. We spent most of the morning hanging at home since Morgan had both speech and OT. In speech she had a blast playing with her new favorite activity: the parachute. Her therapist brought it once about a month ago and now she asks for it every time. In fact, last week she had said "Randi, parachute." To which I replied " well, I am not sure, she may bring it." To which Morgan said, "call her, right now." She wanted me to call Randi to make sure she brought it. Well...this week Randi did in fact bring the parachute so that is what Morgan spent most of her session doing was playing the parachute and working on her plural words like 'balls.' She can say the 's' sound, but for some reason continues to just say ball even when she knows it is more than one. About 15 minutes after speech is done our Ot, Mandy, comes. By this time Morgan is usually getting worn out and today she was especially tired since she woke up around 5 am. Morgan and Mandy did some work on the ball together with sitting up, then worked on snack with opening and closing her lunch box. To end the session Morgan wanted to play in her bedroom. She asked to sit in her rocking chair and read books. Well, I placed her in the chair and then turned it to the bookshelf and asked her to stand up and get the book she wanted. To my surprise she did! She pulled herself to standing from the chair all on her own!!! She was able to do this last year, but had lost the ability since all this stuff with her knees, but now she is getting it back!!! I was so excited. After therapy she was exhausted. She ended up crashing at 10:30 for a nap.

Friday: We are now preparing for our trip to Phoenix for the weekend. We have many fun things planned with her Nanny, Pa, Auntie Jen, Uncle Mark, Caity, and Lindsey. She can't wait to see them all. I will post about all the happenings next week when we recover from our trip.