Author: katherineambos

This morning at Madison’s school orientation she explored the snoozlyn room, had some sensory fun with cars and paint and tried out a new chair/foot rest combo. The new chair allowed her to sit up right with her feet positioned flat and legs at 90 degrees. She met some new friends and had another great morning.

Madison also got her AFO’S back today! They added extenders to the toes and calves and took the top part off her boot to allow for more movement and less top pressure.

Her swim lesson with Ryan tonight went great! She worked on bobs, side floats, back floats and kicking. The pool made a big difference tonight with her tone. When we did some physio tonight at home she was much more flexible and exhibited less tone with her movement.

Madison also tried her new chair from Corinna at the dinner table tonight instead of her highchair. She loved it and it was nice to all eat at the table together.

Madison spent her Sunday morning doing one of her favourite things with Nana & Papa…visiting the ducks! She loves to feed them and watch the boats and planes and say hi. Before she went down to the lake, her and Nana got ready by brushing each others hair.

This afternoon Madison had a big day with some of her physio. She is scared to stand independently against the wall, but we continue to try and today she did an awesome job! We usually sing to keep her distracted. Today she tried following the song actions with her hands and lasted a whole song! To top that off she climbed up the stairs all the way to the top all by herself! She brought her Mama to tears and her Dada cheered her on the whole way.

Madison had a good day of summer fun! No physio, stretching or classes. Her day started with breakfast with Auntie Em! Nothing like a Saturday sleep in, breakfast out and lying around the house. The whole family then had an awsome nap.

This afternoon Madison went to The EX!  She had poutine,  an ice cream waffle sandwitch and Tiny Tom Donuts! She went on the carousel, puppy dog ride and played the ducky game. She was excited to see the “neighs” as she calls any horse she sees, but when she went to sit on it for the ride her legs were too tight to allow her to straddle the horse. She ended up sitting on one of the sleighs. We can’t wait until she is old enough to receive therapy with the horses at CARD as it is clearly something she will benefit from. She loved going to see all the barn animals and seeing all the rides on the midway. It was a great summer day!

Madison was back at March of Dimes with Ben this morning doing their workout together. Madison pulled herself up off her sitting block by herself to standing using the ladder. Her and Ben are not fans of independent standing against the bars but are getting more confident each class.

Madison had a swim lesson this evening with Ryan. After a few short tears she had a great class. She did a bunch of bobs for Ryan, some kicking on her front, some side rolls with her head in and tried some bubbles. It’s nice to see her trying what is being asked of her and how much more comfortable she is getting with Ryan. The best part was seeing how relaxed her legs were after the class as they were stiff for most of the day.

This picture is of Madison about to go under for a Bob.

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.