Anne has made good progress since starting school in January.

She has her own walker that she uses with the PT at school. Anne started at the beginning of the month walking 75 ft. and has increased her distance to 150ft.

Anne has had problems keeping her legs straight when she walks. She “scissors” her legs – or crosses them over each other as she walks. Lately, her scissoring has decreased, and she is walking with a more normal gait.

Anne couldn’t count very well when she started school, but now she can easily count to 20.

Her oral fixation is improving slightly. A few weekends ago, our family was eating at a restaurant with close friends. At this restaurant, they give the kids a huge bucket of crayons and paper. I sat, waiting for Anne to pick up a fistful of crayons and drop them on the floor or throw them across the table, and then eat the rest of them! But she didn’t. She picked up one crayon, held it with the correct tripod grasp, scribbled and placed the crayon back in the bucket. She colored with lots of different crayons, always putting them back in the bucket, and only one crayon went in her mouth! We were thrilled!

She’s slowly getting better at tracing her letters with her right index finger. She can trace T, L and E easily and is starting to do well at A, N and W.

Anne is continuing to gain more self awareness. She is often angry and frustrated, especially at night. She talks about how she is angry at God for letting the car crash happen. She also gets angry at me when I have to dress her, brush her hair or help her go to the bathroom.

She has been kinder to Kate lately, showing her affection and telling her, “I love you Kate!”. She continues to play well with canon. Their imaginary worlds and games are getting more complicated as Anne makes more cognitive gains.

Her language skills continue to improve. Her sentence structure is excellent, and she corrects our grammar at every opportunity. Her memory for song lyrics is unusually astute. Today she said to me while I was singing, “No mommy. It’s ‘took’ not ‘takes.'” Seriously?!

Her private OT sessions are very challenging for Anne. They are working her left hand very hard. It takes so much effort for her to even try to move her left arm or squeeze her left hand. She usually leaves those sessions exhausted…

In the hospital, I would tell her that God was helping her to get better every day. Anne would always ask, “even today?” And I would respond, “Yes, Anne. Even today.”

I still tell her that God is helping her to get better and better every day. And she still asks, “even today?” And I say… “Yes Anne. Especially today.”

Trying to trust God with my little girl… -kathryn