Getting Active

Ever since New Year's, Sadie has devoted herself to learning to walk, with a vengeance. She's beginning to really put effort towards getting on her feet, and seems to have picked up some new ideas about how to do it. These are exciting to watch, and we respond to each new skill by screaming with praise.

At the Vancouver house, she watched our friends' god-son Dash get to a standing position from crawling by straightening his arms and legs (a la the "Downward dog" yoga pose)and then using his arms to push himself up to standing. Since then she's begun doing the first half -- stiffening her legs -- but doesn't quite have the strength or the balance to stand up by herself. Give her something to pull herself up on, though, like my outstretched arm, and she does it in a heartbeat.

Her balance is improving, too. She's begun pushing herself away from surfaces for a few moments at a time, standing without aid until she loses her nerve and abruptly sits down (or, in an alarming trend, flinging herself backwards with the assumption that one of us will catch her). What's especially heartening is that things that used to unnerve and upset her, like being jostled or losing her balance, don't phase her at much as they used to. Overall this speeds up progress, since she can now handle the occasional bump or trip without bursting into a crying fit or giving up.

In the meantime, we do what we can to strengthen her even further. She adores crawling up on raised surfaces, so I encourage her to climb up onto anything she can find -- although of course some places, like the arms of the couch, are off limits. I discovered a new "game," in which she stands on the top step of her plastic slide while I get down and peek through the slats on the side, saying, "Down!" and then stand up to look her in the eye, saying, "Up!" She mimics the movement, so I'm basically tricking her into doing squats under the pretense that we're having fun. Or maybe she's the one tricking me.

She also loves to walk between me and Scott, with each of us holding one hand. Sunday was a beautiful sunny day, so we walked the dogs to the park and did a lap all the way around the playground, holding hands. It was further than she'd ever walked and it completely exhausted her, but she loved every minute of it.

We've completed her sessions with Dr. Meyer, and all that reminds is to go in one last time to get the results of the testing and to hear Dr. Meyer's suggestions about how to make life smoother and easier for Sadie in the future. Were these sessions enlightening? Yes, to an extent. Were they necessary? I'm not completely sure. Much of what we "learned" about Sadie, we already knew: she's cognitively ahead but physically behind; she's got strong social skills but is very deeply attached to me and is easily unnerved by unfamiliar situations if I'm not there.

Our last session did lead to an interesting breakthrough. Dr. Meyer was evaluating Sadie's physical skills, and Sadie was having a great time with it. As she went after a ball that had rolled past her, Dr. Meyer cried out, "Sadie, good job!" in an unusually loud and high-pitched voice. Sadie, startled, stopped immediately what she was doing, stared at the ball for a few seconds, then burst into hysterical tears.

As we calmed her down, I tried to explain that she's always been sensitive to being "scolded" or harsh tones of voice. I recalled the incident that permanently scarred my poor father, the time he was trying to stop her from tossing some eggs on the floor and said, "No!" right in her ear, without meaning to. (The resulting sobbing fit upset him more than it did her, I think.) As I explained, I began to muse that this could very well be a reason why Sadie gets upset over seemingly nothing, and that perhaps some people -- like the owner of Happy Star day care or poor, long-suffering Joy -- intrinsically rub her the wrong way. Low, mellow tones of voice makes her happy; sharp tones throw her abruptly out of whack and, apparently, deeply upset her. It would also explain why she naturally takes to men, whose voices are lower and who are less prone to raising their voices.

If it turns out I'm right about this, it's going to help us out a lot when it comes to introducing Sadie to new people and situations. If and when she goes back to daycare -- and that will happen when it happens; I'm not going to push it anymore -- we'll know that she needs an environment that's relatively quiet and calm. When we hire babysitters and nannies, we'll know to hire people who have calm personalities and soothing voices.

It also most likely means finding a new physical therapist, which makes me feel bad. Joy has done so much to try to help Sadie, and has gone the extra mile in a way that, from what everyone else is telling me, is exceedingly rare. But it's pretty clear that the match isn't working, so next week I'll start a new search. I'm also considering starting Occupational Therapy, which typically is done in conjunction with PT and which kids more traditionally "enjoy" since they get to learn and practice real world skills rather than just working out. One thing Sadie and I definitely have in common is a shared suspicion of the gym.