December 18th, 2008

Today Kinnick got on her knees and hands all by herself.  She quickly shifted to her side and rolled to her back, but she did manage to get up all by herself.  Of course, I missed it.  Nurse Marci has been working with Kinnick on hands and knees for a few weeks.  Kinnick learns quickly when she wants to do something.  It's so exciting to see her continue to make advancements.  Just a month ago she was working on getting to a sitting position by herself.  She has completely mastered that task.  Now she can sit up and lay down by herself within seconds.  Hopefully she'll be trying to crawl over the next month.  I'm just so thankful to have such determined nurses.  They work so hard with Kinnick and Carver. 

I broke down and bought a baby walker today for Kinnick.  She's struggling with moving her legs right/left.  It doesn't seem to make sense to her.  The treadmill training that we will start next month is supposed to reinforce this motion.  However, it is only 10 minutes once a week.  We're looking at gait trainers.  This is more of a medical walker.  The gait trainer that we are looking at has a harness system that is similar to the harness system that will be used for treadmill training.   It is made by Kaye Products.  Hopefully we'll get one ordered after the first of the year.  I need my PT's help in ordering the correct size.  I'm probably making a mistake buying the baby walker, but I thought it might help Kinnick figure out the whole walking thing.  It will give her something to work on while we wait on treadmill training and her new gait trainer.    

Carver has also been getting on his knees.  He can't get on his hands, but he can get on his elbows.  He just doesn't know what to do after he gets up.  He gets so excited that he just pushes and pushes until he falls flat.  He's really showing signs that he can see things.  I can't wait to see what he will do once he can hear.  We're still scheduled to activate Carver's CI tomorrow at 11:00.  I'm crossing my fingers that the weather is good and he gets his first shot at hearing tomorrow.