Month: August 2015

Madison was back at orientation at her new school this morning.  She did a great job with the paints and loved story time. Her favourite part was having choice of what she wanted at snack time.  She kept shoveling everything in her mouth as fast as she could so her bowl would be empty and she could pick something else to eat.

After a well deserved nap Madison went to see Dr Eric to check her AFO’S. Madison received her AFO’S 5 months ago and has already grown 1.5 shoe sizes bigger.  He attempted to add an extension to the toe part of the boot and calf part. We drove to the mall to quickly pick up a bigger pair of runners to size for the new extenders. After several attempts in his shop and 2.5 hours later we left her AFO’S with him for the weekend to figure them out. The length is better but she still has pressure marks from them not fitting perfectly. Hopefully we will get them back next week for all her up coming therapy.

Madison was back at March of Dimes this morning. She was solo as Ben’s brother was home sick. She had a visitor from Bloorview observe the class. It was a physiotherapist who also works in their robotics division who is gathering some observations for her research. Madison’s teacher made a comment today about how strong Madison’s receptive language skills are. We agreed as we were quite impressed with how many instructions Madison was able to hold on to, mimic and follow through with. She did a great job with all her activities today.

Madison had an appointment this afternoon with her family doctor from the Ajax hospital. We discussed our concerns with Madison’s eating and sleeping and he gave us some good suggestions. We also discussed the need for upcoming vision and dentist appointments and checked in on her growth percentile chart. She is still following the same growth trends and continues to be on track with her height and weight. He was impressed with her cognitive abilities (colours, names of people, animals etc and memory) He also recommended that Madison was reaching the age to have an MRI to determine the area of damage to the brain, type of damage and development. We discussed some of the pros and cons and still remain “on the fence” as to our decision. He has put forward a referral to a neurologist at Sick Kids for us to meet and discuss our questions and concerns with a specialist. Any other parents of a child with a similar diagnosis to Madison – did you have this done? What were the benefits? What was your experience like? Thank goodness for calendars…these appointments are getting out of control!  We may be searching for a personal assistant soon to maintain Madison’s schedule.

This morning was Madison’s first day at her new school. She is going various days over the next two weeks for orientation sessions to get use to the daily schedule, new teachers, new surroundings and new friends. She did a great job – we were so proud of her! She listened well, participated, played well with others and tried everything.

Here are some pictures from her first day:

Posing with her new backpack

Fun in the gym

Painting & Sensory Play

Water Play

Story Time

Snack before music

This afternoon Madison headed back to Grandview for a physio session. One of the skills they worked on today was learning how to fall without hitting her head. When Madison is sitting or kneeling she knows how to stop herself from hitting her head when falling over.  When she is standing tall she still is hitting the back of her head on the ground.

Madison also received an amazing gift today. Our talented neighbour Pam made Madison a special bag for her walker. Madison’s OT recommended that we put something on her walker for her toys to go in. Madison has been more concerned with holding her toys in her hands then holding her walker. Now she has a place to carry her toys as she uses her hands on the walker. Not only is is extremly functional – it’s beautiful! Thank you Pam! Madison loves it!

Today was day 1 of a crazy 2 weeks ahead. Madison was back at Conductive ed this morning with her buddy Ben. We could tell Madison had been on a break from there for a bit as she was a bit hesitant throughout the activities and quite stiff. They both listened so well together and did a good job trying everything put in front of them. It’s alot of fun watching their growth from class to class.

To beat her stiffness and the heat we headed to the pool this afternoon. Madison did some good stretching and hopefully will be less stiff tomorrow when she goes to her daycare for the first morning!

Madison is very lucky to have so many people thinking of her and looking out for her.

Our friend Corinna had two types of chairs made for her son when he was small. He is no longer in need of them so she gave them to Madison. One is for sitting up straight/good posture with sliding foot rests and the second is a floor corner sitting chair to long sit.

Thank you so much!!

Madison started off her day by shopping for her new “big girl” bed. She will be moving into her new bedroom sometime in the late fall so the search is on for new furniture etc.

Unfortunately the store we were at only had big kid furniture on display- no toddler stuff. Most toddler furniture is online but we want to have Madison try the bed before purchasing it so we can see her height standing next to it and see if it is low enough to the floor so she can get in and out on her own.

Madison spent most of her afternoon napping and terrorizing Stitch.

After a big shopping trip for fall items for her various programs and people’s houses she will be at etc. Madison was off to Nana and Papa’s for dinner. She brought her new Elmo and bus friend with her.

Madison did a great job helping Papa season and roll up his famous corn for the bbq.

And no dinner would be complete without the Papa and Madi Selfie pictures.

Madison spent her morning playing around the house and practicing on her new walker with Dada.

After her nap she had a good stretching session on the couch. She decided to get the full spa treatment by lying back, watching Elmo on TV and eating her snacks while Mama worked away on her super tight legs.

Madison ended her night by hanging out with some of her favourite ladies! She wished her Auntie Lauren and Jeff safe travels for their move to Florida.

Good Luck Lauren and Jeff! We will Miss you!

Also…

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY NANA AND PAPA!

Madison visited her new program centre today – Centennial Child Centre for a speech and language assessment. She was assessed 5 months ago at Grandview and passed but Centennial wanted to do their own assessment to establish treatment and goals for September. Madison once again did a great job and is on track so she will not need speech therapy when she starts at Centennial. The therapist said she would check in with Madison’s teachers every few months to make sure she continues to be on track, but has no concerns at this time.

Madison also received a call today from Grandview. She is next on the wait list for a botox assessment.  She is booked for the assessment the first week of September to determine if botox will be an appropriate treatment for her. It’s been a good news kind of day!

Madison was back at My Gym today with her friend Charlotte. They chased each other up and down the slide, played in the balls then threw them out into the gym space and popped bubbles at the end of class.

After class the girls went for lunch at a nearby cafe. Charlotte was such a good friend to Madison giving her hugs and sharing her grilled cheese. They play so well and are so cute together.

Madison also received her Happy Soul Project shirt in the mail today for the different is beautiful calendar photo shoot. She is scheduled to have her pictures taken September 6th.

Madison was back at Grandview today to work with Kate and to get her walker fixed. Jen from Motion Specialties dropped in to make some adjustments to the height of Madison’s hip guides and to look at the drag and roll backs on the walker. Madison took it for a spin and it’s all fixed and ready for more use.

Madisons OT Kathy also dropped in to check on her fine motor development and see if we had any current concerns. Our focus the last 2 blocks has been PT since her OT stuff is going well which is why we havnt worked with Kathy in a while

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Madisons Social Worker Stephanie also stopped by to check in. She is looking at getting us an appointment hopefully in the near future with a CP specialist at Grandview to address Madison’s sleeping issues. We are also being put into touch with a nutritionist to check in on Madison’s eating habits.

In the afternoon Madison spent some time with Pam and Medford playing while we finished up the basement. We have a few more little things to do and then we will unveil Madison’s new play room.

A big thank you to our awesome neighbours for entertaining Madison while we caught up on things around the house. This is our last week to get the house in order as starting next week Madison is downtown everyday for programming/therapy for the rest of the summer.