Down and Up and All Around

I have mentioned before that Thanksgiving brings with it some hard memories and it is no secret that tomorrow is the big day. Yesterday Claire had PT at CCS. She had a great session, she worked so hard on high kneel and her standing balance, the new AFO's are helping so much!!! For a long time we have really been working on walking, so she hasn't had much time on the floor at PT. Lately, our PT has been working on crawling as a strategy to help with the walking. I had heard about how well it was going, but I hadn't been around to see it and yesterday I was. It was so hard to watch. In the beginning Sue had to prompt both her hands and her legs, at the end she was doing the legs and Sue only had to help with the hands. I took me back to when she was Chloe's age. Claire was such a fast crawler, I would struggle to catch her after the bath before we could get her pjs on. Here she is working so hard at it, while I watched it felt like somebody was reaching inside and slowly ripping my heart out. Then Abbey got there. Abbey is Claire's friend that we met in Music Together 3 years ago. Abbey has CP. I remember looking at her mom and thinking how I couldn't imagine how hard that must be for her, Claire was so much easier to handle than Abbey. In 3 years time Abbey has been making steady progress and Rett has been playing it's cruel and nasty tricks on Claire. Even though she is doing very well, it was a reminder of just how far away we still are from when she was 12 months old. Then just as if she knew I needed some encouragement (maybe she can see the tears behind my sunglasses) that night she started to really use her hands more. First she got her hands tangled in my yarn, twice, she also knocked the washcloth off the table and reached to touch her computer screen. It allowed me to go to bed with a little hope instead of just a sad heavy heart. There was no school today and I was hoping that they might sleep in, that didn't happen. So we slowly got going and went out for coffee before we had to be home for ABA at 10. Our apartment is above our garage, so I have to carry each of the girls up a flight of stairs separately. I took Claire upstairs and set her on the couch, her talker was already there as she had been yakking away during Elmo just before we left. I went back down to get Chloe as Sara our ABA therapist arrived. She walked in and found Claire, sitting on the couch rocking out to Listomania (see pic above). Claire was so proud of herself, it was great! Sara then tried to "run the session" as she typically does. She asks Claire which activities she wants to do and they do them. Today was the exception, Claire was saying no to EVERYTHING! As I was listening to this shenanigans it occurred to me what might be going on. I had told Claire that we could watch Beauty and the Beast after Sara left. I then heard Claire's voice say "car parking lot thank you highway dvd player watch". The little diva was trying to politely excuse Sara a full 90 minutes early. It was so great! As the day continued it just got better. She sat on the couch to watch the movie and would call me over by saying, "I am not so well" I would go to check on her and she would then tell me "I'm fine goodbye" I felt like a human yo yo but just loved this game! Again, I find myself so deeply humbled. That I was convinced that Thanksgiving would be forever stained for me. Then we have days like this and I can dream of the day that again, Claire puts food in her mouth. I find myself being so thankful for all that I have, as broken and messy as it might be, I am truly blessed on levels that I am not even aware of. I wish you all a moment or two that you can take during this holiday, remind yourself that I am thankful for you, my friends and family on this journey, thank you!