Happy New Year

Another year has flown by at lightening speed. I thought it would be a good time to reflect on all Elizabeth's achievements during 2008, there are so many I know I will forget some but here goes. Increasing Independence is probably the biggest; Elizabeth can go to the bathroom on her own now and is accident free, she is able to remove her pants, shoes and AFO's now, she is starting to drink out of an open cup (huge, huge achievement), she can use a spoon and a fork to feed herself and she is enjoying picking out her clothing. She can walk independently for short distances (another HUGE milestone), falls are getting fewer, she can stay seated going down a slide (no more head bumps), she is climbing onto things now and can get on the couch on her own and she is starting to dance and shake her butt (it's really cute). As we finally have snow here another huge thing is Elizabeth can now move in the snow, she can crawl in her snowsuit and crawl up the snowhills, last year was difficult as she was so frustrated about her immobility. Language is as usual crazy, she is very eloquent and quite descriptive ('Mom this dinner is horrible', 'Auntie Katy what is wrong with you? You need to take a pill or something' and 'Hey Mom, my room is freezing you need to do something about heat in this house'). Vomit, we are down to once or twice a month now, I guess our last years tribute to no barf has worked, I just realized the other day that I am not looking for 'a safe place' to vomit in the places we visit now and that ball in my stomach is gone when we are out. I never realized the anxiety of waiting for the next public vomit that I carried around until I noticed that we were out and I had not looked for the largest bowl or bin. That is an amazing milestone and it has lightened my laundry load. Fine motor is really improving Elizabeth can copy simple pictures and is printing some letters, she even spelled Dad the other day.
I know I am forgetting lots but here are some of our major highlights of 2008. Happy New Year.