A Quick Update

So we interviewed a ton of nannies. Good nannies, not-so-great nannies, and one nanny who didn't even show up for her interview. We ended up hiring her -- I like an air of mystery about my support staff. Just kidding! What I really meant to say is that we found a really nice woman named Selena who now comes in the mornings to take care of Sadie while I hide out at a coffeeshop and attempt to return to some semblance of a normal work schedule.

Sadie has been progressing in leaps and bounds, which I attribute partly to her not being in day care anymore, partly to twice-weekly physical therapy, and partly to my working with her a LOT. Scott gets partial credit, too, but he's been out of town a lot so by default, I get to claim most of the credit for all of the cool things she's finally started doing.

It's so great to watch her learn -- she's quite literally packing months' worth of learning into a few short weeks. Just in the last week she's doubled her crawling speed, almost figured out how to pull up on furniture, started to take the first tentative steps towards cruising (walking along on furniture), and in general become fearless around the house.

Outside is a different matter; she still sobs her way through PT and is very shy and prone to bursting into tears when in an unfamiliar environment. Joy, the therapist, refers to her dryly as being on a "constant emotional rollercoaster," which is a nice way to saying that she's kind of a shit head.

This morning Joy told me something great, which is that in her estimation, there's nothing about Sadie's physical makeup that is keeping her from learning typical skills. Despite being long and skinny, she's strong enough to move around as well as any other kid -- and she proved that by learning how to crawl in the span of about five days, something that kids with hypotonia "just don't do," in Joy's words.

What really holds Sadie back, in Joy's opinion, is her natural tendency towards cautiousness that manifests as wussy-ness. Rather than wanting something and impulsively throwing herself towards it, as a typical baby might do, Sadie stops, considers, and weighs risk versus benefit. If the motion requires too much effort, or is unfamiliar and potentially scary, she doesn't want to do it. Hence she can stand while balancing against a chair until the cows come home, but the thought of sitting down by herself makes her shriek in terror.

The way to combat this is to help her through the motions, over and over again, until they become rote instead of something she needs to think about. Stand up, sit down, pull up, walk over, sit down again. Eventually she'll have the confidence to do it every day.

Although I don't think that a career as a bullfighter is in the cards for her.