Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

I'm having some issues uploading photos for November and December right now, so I thought I'd give a quick update in text.  We're very excited for 2013, as 2012 was such a great year for Gwenny's progress.  Since Halloween and starting the ketogenic diet we have seen even more progress. 

Gwenny is understanding that people and things have names and seems to understand words.  We've been continuing to work on body parts, her favorites are still 'ears', 'hair' and 'belly.' (Click here to see a video.)

Grammy Linda purchased the Baby Signing Time videos for Gwenny's Christmas present and Gwen has been eating them up!  She is mesmerized by the videos.  She can now sign 'want', 'baby' and her brand new sign is 'more'.  I can tell Gwen really wants to communicate with us and is just trying to figure out how.  I'm hoping the signs with help her with this.

Gwen's crawl has turned into more of a hop.  I'm a little sad about this because I wanted her to continue the cross-pattern crawl in preparation for walking, however, she's still mobile so we'll take it.  A couple months ago she figured out how to go down the stairs on her own and on New Year's Eve (after months of practice) she showed us how she can go up the stairs by herself! (video: Gwenny climbing stairs)


The ketogenic diet is still going really well.  Since being off the keppra and lowering the klonopin, Gwen can fall asleep without the aide of melatonin and she is more aware of what's going on around her.  I can see the wheels turning in her head and wonder if my sweet girl is frustrated that she can't show me yet how smart she is.  She is attentive to other kids playing around her, loves playing with toys, loves to be rough-housed, shows pride with accomplishment and praise and is mimicking much better than she was just a few months ago.

Gwen is pulling herself to a stand on everything! This is the next step to cruising and then walking.  We'll be working with Shriner's Hospital and PCMC therapies to help her walk.

G has developed a little 2 year old opinion, and while it can be frustrating, I'm excited to meet my girl sans drugs.

We are blessed.