Celebrating the little and not so little things

Since Morgan was born we have always celebrated all her accomplishments. Some have been big things and some little. Like when she was two days old and was removed from the oxygen machine (even the nurses helped celebrate giving her a certificate). Or the first day she reached up during a diaper changed and pulled my hair. I shouted with joy because we worried if she would ever be able to hold anything. Well today we are celebrating another little thing (to typical parents) but a HUGE thing to us. Morgan is now learning to kneel to play! She is finally over the pain of casting and bracing and is up for trying new things again. One of the suggestions we were given for working on building her back strength and gluteus maximus was to do lots of tummy time and kneeling to play (she will need these muscles to be strong so she can learn to stand and walk). Well Morgan has hated tummy time most of her life and before there was no way she could kneel; her knees just wouldn't bend that way. Well that is all changing. Now she will actually ask to play on her tummy (very rarely but it does happen) and is learning to kneel to play. She is not straight up on her knees yet, but has made huge progress just in the last few days with tolerating being on her knees. She is even starting to enjoy playing in this position. We are just so excited for her and tonight we are celebrating the little things! That is one thing Morgan has taught us for sure to appreciate is the little things in life. She is such a little miracle and we adore her (oh, by the way she learned how to say "adorable" this week and it is just that).
Morgan kneeling at her bookshelf playing with just one of her many baby dolls. She has taken to waking in the middle of the night and yelling for us to get her a baby doll.


Here is another shot of her kneeling. This time she doesn't even have her knee braces on (which is why I am providing a little help). It was raining outside and Morgan was enjoying watching it. She loves the rain because when it rains she gets to take out her Elmo umbrella (another one of Morgan's adorable words she can say).

I like it HOT, HOT, HOT!

Those of you who have been around Morgan enough, especially at dinner time, know that Morgan enjoys eating (as do her parents). She gets a lot of her eating habits from us like her love for bread, pizza, and ice cream. One thing she for sure gets from her mom (and Grandma) is a love of salsa. That's right salsa and the hotter the better. Since she was very young Morgan has not been fazed by it. She will dip her chip and then just suck off the salsa. One night we even caught her trying to use a spoon to eat it. Last night we were finally able to catch some proof of her love for salsa. We went out to dinner at Manuel's to celebrate Donna's birthday. We started her out with a bowl of the hot salsa (I was starting to sweat from this stuff). After devouring about half the bowl she finally started to feel the affects so we switched her to the mild stuff. She then polished off most of that bowl too. At one point she had lost her chip in the bowl and was using her fingers to scoop it into her mouth. Too cute!

Big Wheels!

So we all remember when we were kids racing down the sidewalks in our fashionable "BIG WHEELS." I can remember my own vividly, it was a pink and purple Barbie one with a basket in the front to hold my Barbie dolls. It of course had the amazing pink and purple streamers coming out of the handle bars. In case you don't remember them, here is an image of something similar to the "good ole" ones that they sell today.

Well, yesterday at physical therapy Morgan's therapist lent Morgan her own "Big Wheel" to cruise around in. As you can see below it is not exactly the "Big Wheels" we are all used to, but Morgan loves it and it is amazing. As soon as she got it in she started zooming around. It is great for both playing outside (which Morgan loves!!!) and for indoors.
Yesterday afternoon it was beautiful outside so we spent some time cruising her grandparents driveway. Then later last night we put her in it again inside. She had a blast chasing Sophie (their dog) around. She would roll over to her and run right into her until Sophie would jump up scared to death and run away. Morgan thought it was hilarious. She was cracking herself up. This morning the whole way to her grandparents she kept talking about chasing "Sophie Dopey" (She learned this nickname from her Grandpa who is constantly calling Sophie by this name).

These new "Big Wheels" are on loan from the clinic for the next two weeks. In the meantime David and Charley are trying to put their heads together to figure out how they could build this themselves (buying it is over $1200.00). If you know anyone who can weld let us know.

Preschool Here I come!

I can't believe how fast the time has gone. It seems like just yesterday that we were bringing home our tiny 5 lb 4 oz little girl from the NICU. But now look at her. She is a very bright, happy little girl who is so excited for school. Today we went for our transition meeting to begin preparing for Morgan to exit the AZEIP program and enter the Vail Inclusive Preschool. Morgan was so excited to be going to preschool today. When we pulled into the parking lot she started shouting "Mommy, preschool! Mommy, preschool!" As we entered the preschool other kids were leaving as the morning classes had just ended and Morgan stopped along the way to say hi to every kid she saw.

Today's meeting was just the first of three to begin getting ready for next school year. We basically just discussed where Morgan is at and what services she will need while at school. We also made plans for evaluations to be done and for her future meetings. It was decided that it would be best for Morgan to attend the preschool at Cienega High even though this is not considered her home base school (technically she should go to the District office school as her home school would be Acacia, or in her case Sycamore where I teach). Anyway, they decided Cienega would be best due to the playground and Morgan's wheelchair. I didn't argue with this because not only did I agree that the playground there is safer, but it is also literally around the corner from our house.

The next meeting will be in April when Morgan actually will go into a classroom to work with the teacher, speech pathologist, and other kids so they can observe how she will interact in the classroom. After that we will have an IEP meeting in May and then she will start preschool in July and will attend three mornings a week for three hours each day.

Morgan is so excited about school. I know if she could have gone today she would have in a heartbeat; she just loves being around other kids. I am sure I am going to have a much harder time than her when it is time to officially start school.

Horton to the Rescue!

So the other day during speech therapy we played the cutest game with Morgan's speech therapist, Randi. It was called You to the Rescue! You wear this adorable Horton hat and have to find clovers hidden around the house and pick them up with the end of the nose. It was such a cute game and great practice for Morgan to work on her wheelchair inside.
Morgan had so much fun with the game that I went in search of it this weekend. I was not able to find it in any stores, you have to buy it online. Well, being the teacher I am I decided why not just recreate the main objective of the game, finding objects in her wheelchair. I found some old plastic Easter eggs, Morgan's Halloween basket, and created some colored cards. We then hid the eggs around the house and made Morgan draw a color to see which egg she had to find. She had a lot of fun with this, especially since we put a piece of Reeses pieces in each egg. Of course she didn't look as cute playing this version; that elephant hat was just too cute on her.

Morgan Surprises us!

Morgan and David made it home safely from Philly late Thursday night. David didn't venture to try the back brace out on the plane (who can blame him) and because they arrived home so late and we both needed to work in the morning we weren't up for testing it out that night. So... we left it for Grandma and Grandpa to test out in the morning. I called at lunch to check-in and see how she was tolerating the brace. I was expecting to hear that she hated it and was very fussy. Instead, I got the opposite. Morgan was doing great! She hadn't complained once about the back brace. They gave her a short break for lunch and then put it back on for naptime. She took a decent nap and by the time I got there to pick her up she was still wearing it. We then left it on most of the afternoon taking it off only for her bath. I couldn't believe how great she was doing. In fact, if I asked her if she liked her brace she would say "Yes!" That night Morgan slept pretty well, waking only 3 times and when she did wake it was to complain about her knees, not the back.

Not once has she complained about the back brace. We did, however, figure out why she threw up on Thursday. On Saturday afternoon we went with Matt, Georgia, and Lucas to a Pima Community College basketball game to watch some former Cienega players play. While at the game we had Morgan in her back brace and she was wearing a long sleeve onesie and pants (It is winter). Well during the game she started getting fussy (I figured she was tired because she barely napped) and her cheeks began to get red (again, bad mom, I figured this was just because she is getting her molars). A few moments later we discovered what it was when she starting throwing up all over. We immediately ripped off the brace and stripped her down. Within minutes she was fine; she had overheated. I am glad we now know the cause, but now we are constantly worried that she will overheat again. Morgan is a hot body to begin with. We are trying to keep the house a bit cooler and keep her stripped down to the brace when at home and only putting on really light shirts when we go out. Our biggest worry is how she will survive this in the summer when it is 110 degrees outside.


Here are a few pictures so you can see Morgan's new back brace along with her KAFO's.




As you can see she is basically in a full body brace. She deals with it so well though; such a trooper!

Below are a few pictures from therapy today. I just had to post them because they were so adorable. She is doing great at PT and is surprising me each week with how well she is manuevering her wheelchair around the clinic. Today she drove right up to the window to check-in, raised herself up to say hi, and then backed up to go to the therapy department. When we arrived there she immediately went to play with the toys without even waiting for me to help guide her.

A new do!

Since birth Morgan has had a full head of hair. At first it was an unruly mess on top of her head that we tried to calm with hair clips, but it seemed to grow quickly and soon we were able to start putting in small piggies. By the time she was 18 months we had her first haircut and then it really started to grow. I was having to learn how to perfect those piggies and recently had to learn braids too. Morgan's hair had grown much longer, past the middle of her back. It was very cute, but was also starting to look a bit straggly. The back was no longer a nice straight line across and the sides were all different lengths. It also had not seemed to thicken at all, so I decided it was time for a cut. I was hoping to even it out a bit and that by trimming it her hair will hopefully grow in thicker. Below are the pictures of her outing to the hair salon and then the after shots.

The big girl sitting all on her own. She was so excited to get her haircut!