Fun with Eddie

Finally a video of Noa swimming with her new friend Eddie. We were matched with this great program through Rusk Institute where Noa does physical therapy - the program, at Asphalt Green (around 90th and York), offers private swim lessons for kids with disabilities. We really lucked out with Eddie. The first session with him, Noa was a bit shy and we could see that Eddie was a bit stumped by a kid who can't see or talk (and who communicates with sign language, which he doesn't understand). But week two it was clear that he'd thought about solutions and/or talked to people or something - and he came in prepared and open to following Noa's lead (which always works for Noa).

This is lesson number 5, and Ben doesn't even get in the pool with them any more. Noa loves Eddie and they've found a level of communication. You can see, he's working with Noa on some swim moves, but in the middle lets her do a jump into the pool - which makes her happy. The sign she is doing on the side of the pool is: Daddy Play. I think she just calls him Daddy because he's a strong guy. She likes strong guys because they can throw her in the air, so yeah, she likes Eddie a lot.

As I'm sure it quite apparent from this video, Noa loves to be in the water. Its really one of her favorite things to do.

In other news - I leave for Ohio on Wednesday, then come back Sunday only to fly off again on Tuesday to Idaho. So this may be my last post for a bit. I'm totally in denial about being away from Noa for so long, but I feel like we're both as ready for this as we'll get (Ben... I don't know if he's ready yet but I know he'll do fine).

Swim Time!

This video is a great demonstration of what Noa can do when motivated! In this example - swimming is the motivation. It takes her some time to get the pants off, but she does it, and as you can see she is really proud of herself too.

Noa has been doing so many great new things - I hate that I haven't been able to keep up with all of them here, but really it's leaps and bounds. It's not just skills, though there have been a lot of those, it also seems to be a conceptual understanding of the world that is really expanding. For example, last weekend we started working on doing her "ears, eyes, nose, chin, mouth - that's Noa!" song with Mommy. At first, even when she found the parts on mommy the song still ended with "that's Noa!" But now she gets "that's Mommy!" or Daddy or Lissa - and she really gets the idea that these are the same parts that she has but on different people - which for someone who can't see is a big realization!

She also seems to understand more and understand more quickly. Yesterday all we had to do is tell her we were going to swim and she sat straight up from naptime and cheered and started to scoot out of bed.

News from Noa-land

This is just a fun video. Noa playing with her favorite toys: blocks. You can see in video that there is a real maturity to her face and her way of moving now. She's really not a toddler anymore! And boy can she throw! She loves to hit different things that make different noises and, of course, she loves it with she hits me and I say "ouch."

I'm trying to get a good video of all her talking but its hard. Like any kid she seems to know when there is a camera and then she clams up. But she is going through a fantastic phase of trying to repeat almost everything: words, sighs, the other day she even repeated a burp. She likes to count along with us: she is great at one, two, three and four but five and seven seems to be problematic (though often hysterical). She is also learning a lot of new signs. I can't even keep up with them in my sign book at this point!

Last week she suddenly became enamoured of this stuffed dog that she's had for over a year (its the first big stuffed animal she's taken a shine to) so we made a sign for him: Big Dog. I taught it to her once and the next day she asked for Big Dog. AND later that day signed that she was a Big Girl - which is huge because its putting together two signs all by herself (I taught her Good Girl and Big Dog but she figured out she was Big Girl).

I'm also hoping to post some video from her swim lessons later today, just have to get it off my phone - but she's doing really great with her swim teacher Eddie.

On a bummer note: got the results from the MRI on my shoulder. Apparently I managed to mess up every working part of my right shoulder (which I only messed up because I was overcompensating for having messed up my left shoulder). Most of it seems like stuff that will heal EXCEPT for the part where I tore my Labrum, which is the cartledge suction cup that holds your arm in that ball joint at your shoulder. Apparently that is one of those things that doesn't heal, and it's hard to strengthen that area enough to really protect it so I'll always have to be careful. Of course, before I can think of strengthening it I have to let it heal. The doctor said 4-6 MORE weeks of not lifting (of course he knows that's not totally possible, but actually Noa's walking is getting better and that helps... also if she collapses, I let her collapse now).

So all this leading to the difficult, but good for everyone choices of leaving Noa here with Daddy while Mommy goes to Idaho in June. Luckily we have a really great support network here and Noa will actually be in school the whole time. Considering how well she is doing there it would be a shame to pull her out. Still... kind of hard for Mommy to fathom. Ben and Noa will come out after school finishes for Noa on June 25th and we'll have some real vacation time then.