Trotting

Elizabeth has started trotting at her hippotherapy now and of course she loves it. Elizabeth and her instructor (with much of Elizabeth's persuasion) have worked out a plan, if Elizabeth works hard in her session she gets to end with a trot. It is just a brief trot but she squeals with delight when the horse speeds up. Watching her is like watching a rag doll being bounced around as she still has pretty low tone in her trunk but she hangs an with a big grin. She now is doing most of her session holding on the reins which shows how much of an improvement she has made. Elizabeth has tried a couple times to get her horse into a trot when she shouldn't but so far the horse has not been persuaded. Elizabeth is already upping her requests to begin jumping but for now we will keep with trotting.

Olympic Spirit

Elizabeth has really been enjoying the Olympics and we have been having some Olmypics events here at home. Elizabeth loves watching the skeleton race so we have devised a skeleton run with the board that Daddy uses to work on his car. Elizabeth has perfected the pose that the riders do with their head up and legs straight and squeals with delight as Daddy pushes her around the house. Using Ramon's CME boxes we devised a bobsled run with organza and a rubbermaid box, I am not sure what Ramon would say of his use of the boxes but at least we got the dust off them.

Gymnastics

We have come to a point with Elizabeth where physiotherapy sessions were not benefiting her as a child as a whole. Elizabeth does well at physio she does what is expected and works hard but it must be stressful for her to have to comply while being watched and coaxed by therapists. She was not being socialized with other children only to adults in her weekly phsyio. We enrolled her into gymnastics and for the past year and a half she has been thriving in gym class. In gymnastics Elizabeth is being challenged physically and she is also being socialized with other kids, she is waiting her turn, talking to other kids and getting out in the community.

Elizabeth loves gymnastics and her long time teacher loves having her in the class. I stay with Elizabeth and help her as she needs help for most things, Elizabeth is not physically able to do what the other children can do but she is mastering things on her own pace. Two of the biggest things she can now do is jump on the trampoline (she can actually lift her feet up and can jump for up to 5 consecutive jumps) this is HUGE for her. The other thing she can now do is when holding onto the uneven bars she can lift her feet to the bar, when we started she could not even bring her legs up an inch.

What I love about her current gym class is there are only 3 kids in her class and they have the gym to themselves. Distraction is still a big issue for Elizabeth and the limited kids keeps her engaged. We just have get her teacher to pay as much attention to the other kids as she does for Elizabeth as you can probably see the poor little guy in her class is bored to tears, I spend a bit of my time in the class praising the other kids as they feel a bit left out. Elizabeth still goes to biweekly physiotherapy as it is important that a trained professional keeps an eye on her and helps her progress but being in the community is just as beneficial.