Is That a Couple Bucks Burning a Hole in Your Pocket?

Or are you just happy to be reading my blog?? Well, if it's a couple bucks then maybe you'll read on to find my shameless plea for donations to the Center for Independence. This is our 2nd year of Charlotte going to the Center and as my previous posts have shown they've had a tremendous impact on her progress towards becoming an independently mobile, little girl. Each year they host a fundraiser and this year it includes a golf outing, silent auction and dinner dance. The golf outing and silent auction are going to be held on Friday, October 2nd. Brian and I are planning to attend, but to be honest I wouldn't expect anyone else to want to (although when I hear "dinner dance" I think hey ..... what a great opportunity to go out and buy a new dress for myself). However, the part where you can help is through the raffle! If anyone is interested in purchasing a raffle ticket from me here are the specs:

• Each ticket costs $100
• Only 600 tickets are sold (so that means your chances of winning are pretty good)
• 1st prize is $10,000, 2nd prize is a 2009 KIA, 3rd prize is $2500, 4th prize is $1000, and 5th prize is $500
• You don't need to be present to be a winner
• Proceeds from the raffle go towards helping families with limited income and/or limited insurance receive affordable, intensive motor training

If you, or perhaps a few people together, are interested in purchasing a raffle ticket(s) please email me at achellyer@yahoo.com and I can arrange to get one to you. It is because of the donations received by the Center that they are able to offer parents a reduced hourly rate for therapy. And it is because of these donations that we will be able to afford to continue sending Charlotte there when our insurance allotment runs out (which by my calculations for next year will be before the end of January - c'mon Obama ... let's get that new healthcare system in place).

If you would like to know of other ways that you can help out or donate to the Center please let me know! Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Walk This Way

Every day when Charlotte arrives at the Center she walks in with one of the therapists, and heads over to the potty where she "does her thing". I took some video of her walking during the first week of her summer camp back in June and then took another video this past Friday to see the difference. Here's the video I took on Friday. Maureen (her PT) hardly touched her at all. This is nothing short of amazing! Brian predicts that by this time next year she'll be zipping around the house in her walker and we'll have a hard time keeping up with her. And to keep things in perspective, note that at this time LAST year Charlotte had not even sat up by herself yet.

Received word from the wheelchair rep that her wheelchair has been ordered and should ship in the next week. Keep your fingers crossed that maybe we'll get it by the end of the month!

Look Mom! No Hands!

No one else's hands, that it! Yesterday was awesome. While walking out of her summer camp session at the Center, Charlotte walked at least 30 feet, using her walker, without anyone having to hold onto her. The only thing Gaby, her therapist, had to do was help her to advance the walker forward every now and then. She's SO CLOSE to being able to do it completely by herself! It's so amazing how much stronger Charlotte is getting and how much more determined she seems lately to do things that all the other kids are doing. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me yesterday (bad mom), so I brought it with today to show you some pics of how great Char looks when she's walking. She needed a little extra assistance today, but that's okay. We all need that sometimes.

I really feel that this new strength has a lot to do with Charlotte's new eating habits. Over the last week we've been trying to feed Charlotte the same things that we eat for dinner. If we have pasta with turkey meatballs, then Char gets the same thing (albeit on an extremely smaller scale - see the pic of her first "real" meal below). I still give her some kind of purée with the calorie powder, but I'm trying to make that a smaller portion of her meal so she wants to eat more of the GOOD STUFF. I'm sure people think I'm crazy for being so over the moon about Char's eating, but it seemed for so long that she was going to be eating nothing but soup and coconut milk yogurt for the rest of her life. I even got to order something off the menu for her the other day. Yes, ME, cheapo Mandi, bought something off the menu for Char even though I knew she would only eat 1% of the dish. Who cares? My kid's eating FOOD!

Recently, Charlotte's ducky bathtub bit the dust (i.e. he sprung a leak), and we decided that it was time to find a new way for her to take a bath. She was starting to outgrow the duck, but we didn't think she would be strong enough to keep herself above the the water line if we just let her free in the big bathtub. First we tried a modified "bath chair" by cutting the legs off of a toddler-sized plastic patio chair. That worked for a while, but it soon became very apparent that she was having problems with her feet getting caught on the bottom of the chair. I've heard from several other sources that kids with cp can get very particular about their feet, especially if their legs are affected by the condition (is it a "condition"? I don't know ... I hate trying to find words to describe stuff like that, so let's just go with "condition"). Imagine you have limited control over your legs and then there's these two crazy appendages that hang off the end - your feet. Your feet are going to get stuck under/over/in/on everything and I can imagine that would be frightening for anyone. The modified "bath chair" only lasted a few days, which means .... Charlotte has graduated to the BIG BATHTUB! I can't believe it. She's like a little fish in there and hasn't had any problems yet. Now we're wishing we would have done this a long time ago. My little girl is growing up!!

I hope that everyone had a great 4th of July weekend. I took Char over to my friend Kathy's house to watch the fireworks just down the block from her place. Last year I don't think Char really cared one way or the other about the fireworks, but this year it was all about "GREEN!", "PINK!", "WOW!". It was a great night.

Quick side note - I'm sure people may have noticed through this post that I say "we" every now and then. Just thought I'd mention that no matter what happens going forward Charlotte will always have a "we", and I would want it no other way.

And speaking of Wii, have you tried Wii? OMG! I bought one for myself a few months back and I am completely addicted to rockin' out/jammin'/whatever you call it, on Guitar Hero. If anyone wants to come over at any time for a head to head Guitar Hero-off ..... IT'S ON!