Movement

It's amazing watching her move, what little movement she can do anyway. With the MMD her movement is very limited because she just doesn't have the strength to hold herself up the way babies do when they crawl. It's taker her this long...a little over a year just to be able to hold her head up when she's on all fours. The good thing about it though is she is extremely flexible. The way she'll reach for items directly in front of her is she'll be sitting with both her legs out straight in front of her and she'll fall forward, purposely, and her stomach will be touching the floor in between her straight legs and she'll turn her head in the direction of the object she's trying to reach and then if she can get it she'll walk her hands back  up into the sitting position. We had to teach her a few tricks to lift herself back up when she fell over because her sitting/balancing skills aren't the best when she's on uneven ground....like a bed. She'll constantly fall over and have trouble getting back up. We had to teach her to use her hands to walk herself back up to the sitting position which she caught on pretty quickly and is getting really good at it if she can get into the position. Tummy time doesn't even exist because she's learned to roll to her side and walk herself up or if she's in the crawling position she'll do the same thing. She's only so far having trouble going from her back to sitting up. We're trying to teach her to roll onto her side to get up but her arms are always in the wrong position. She can roll to the side but one arm is always stuck behind her and she can't lift up enough to bring the arm that's behind her to the front of her. You never really think of how much strength it takes to make just the little movements. When your, or in her case her muscles are not there or just weak it's so sad to watch her struggle to make the smallest easiest movements when she can't or doesn't know  how. Just watching her I can see she wants to move all over the place but is frustrated because she doesn't know how. She's starting to figure out how to turn around, which she found out all on her own. She surprised me and her papa one day finding her in a 180 degree position a few minutes after we had set her down. Now she just turns circles on her bottom. I think it's the start of her scooting. I hope within the next few months we'll see her start to scoot. I like to give her time on her knees and on her crooked little feet to practice standing to get the sensation of what it feels like and get used to the weight bearing. I think the fact that her feet are turned inward and they are still so small will make it a little more difficult. I did get her some jelly shoes that have a hard sole and that makes keeping her feet straight easier. We have braces for her feet that I don't like to put on her because it causes pressure sores in certain spots and she shouldn't have to go through that. Her neurologist said it's really only necessary at night but we're bad and we don't even do that. These braces are for her clubbed feet that she was born with and have been fixing over time.

her arms move relatively well. Her legs are very very active as well and she's pretty coordinated with them they just refuse to weight bear. She's starting to use her knees a lot more I think once she starts to use her knees more the feet will be next. We're just being patient and letting her figure things out. I don't think she'll weight bear until she actually wants to. Her physical therapist through the state says its probably the sensation of weight bearing on her feet and the sensation of feeling like she's going to fall forward that delays this. I can relate though. Like when I go snowboarding and its hard for me to go to fast because of my feet being locked in a position and feeling like i'm going to fall forward, how am i going to catch myself if i do without breaking my wrists etc. I'm a terrible snowboarder it's just getting over that sensation and having the determination.