THE ROTH-HURST FAMILY: Ella- 20 months old

*FIRST- She pushed herself to standing in the middle of the room, while using her baby doll’s crib (which stands about 4 inches off the ground) as her support. She has tried this a few times without any support and has been unsuccessful, but she was able to get that tiny bit of leverage that she needed with the toy crib. She stood up, flapped her arms, grunted loudly and then plopped to her bottom. These milestones are such a joy to watch. She gets so overwhelmed with her achievement that is usually doesn’t last very long. She is always proud and grinning from ear to ear when she is done though and that is just priceless.
SECOND- SHE IS TAKING STEPS!!!! Her record is about 25 steps, but she mostly sticks in the 5-10 range. She still has a lot of anxiety about being on her feet. We are taking it one day at a time, trying to take advantage of any opportunity we have to get her on her feet, but she still shows a lot of resistance. At this point, the “walking” thing is all so new and exciting that we haven’t been able to closely examine her footing. I’m usually practicing with her by myself, so it is difficult to analyze the position of her foot angle. This was a concern in PT, but we weren’t sure if it was just because she was nervous and unsteady, or if this would be an issue we needed to correct with a type of orthopedic shoe. I’m going to give it another week and see how she does before we check back in with the physical therapist. If she continues to progress, and her feet do not seem to be the issue, she will be discharged from PT. However, if we have any reason to think that the angle of her feet could be slowing her progress, then we will head back to PT for a shoe fitting. It’s hard to tell (even for the physical therapist) if the position of her feet is because she is a new walker or because she some sort of weakness in her foot. Her right foot, in particular, points outward (in the “duck walk” position) and this doesn’t seem to be changing.
*She likes to cuddle after nap. She usually wakes up happy, but sometimes acts a little cranky. When I go to get her out of the crib, she insists on holding her “nigh nigh” and buries her face into my neck. We will go out and cuddle on the couch for 15-30 minutes. I LOVE this time! A couple of times she has even gone back to sleep. One day she slept for an extra twenty minutes and another time she slept on my for over an hour!
*When we put her in her car seat, she automatically puts her hand to her cheek (her own sign for “nigh nigh”) and smacks her mouth (her made up word/sound for “give me my pacifier”).
*When we ask her, “Ella, can you stand?” she will let go of whatever she is holding on to for support. Every little bit of practice she gets is a huge help, so we try to encourage this a lot. And now sometimes she will squat a little bit and then grab back on to her support. She’s a little showoff.
*She loves to walk around the house with her little, red fire truck. She basically uses this as her walker. But as long as she is walking ,we don’t really care what she uses for support. Again….practice, practice, practice is our motto. She has also gotten to where she will walk beside us while only holding on to one of our hands or fingers. Prior to this, she required both of our hands in order to feel secure.
*When daddy gets home from work, she races toward him and wants him to pick her up immediately. She then says “bye bye” and points to the door. She desperately wants him to take her somewhere. One time, she grabbed a set of our car keys off of the computer desk, crawled to the door and was banging on the door while saying “bye bye”.
*Words: “pee-pee-pee-pee” (piggy piggy), “nana” (banana), “mamaw” (Grandma), “meee” (Mary), “ma-ma-ma” (Melinda), bye bye, “boo” (book), “ba” (ball), “poo-poo” (this needs no translation- thank you Meghan and Jaycoby for teaching her this LOL), “mo-mo-mo” (more), “day-day” (thank you)
*She says “hi” constantly to strangers. Sometimes she is so persistent with her greetings that it can be a little bit embarrassing. And she will often times get shy, or act as if she never said anything at all, when they acknowledge her. But all in all, her “hi’s” are getting louder and more frequent.