October 4th, 2014- The 6 Month Surprise

We've had a lot going on since our last post!  Sorry for the delay in updates, but time is a precious commodity now that school and jobs are in full swing!

On September 2nd our Ally turned 6 months old!  On that same day she had her 6 month well check up.  I left work early to pick her up from Russell's parents (they have been keeping her during the day while we are at work) and take her to the appointment.

She has definitely grown!  Her weight is up to 12 lbs. 10 oz.  I was a little disappointed that she wasn't at 13 lbs because that would mean she would officially have tripled in weight.  However, I was delighted to find that this weight puts her back on the charts- at 2%, but still she is on there!  I think our pediatrician might be slightly concerned about her weight because she had us increase the amount of formula we add to her pumped breastmilk bottles from 1/2 tsp to 1 tsp for every 2 oz.  

After her examination, our pediatrician told me that she felt that Ally was showing signs of some slight low muscle tone.  She recommended that we get in contact with Early Intervention and try to get some physical therapy for her.  I was in such shock about this revelation I didn't think to ask any questions about what made her arrive at this conclusion.  She had seemed to be doing so well in my eyes I never expected this; but then again, I am not a doctor.  We had noticed that she was not bearing any weight on her legs when we would try to 'stand' her up, but Ben had done the same thing before he really started walking too so we weren't too concerned about it.  That afternoon I called Early Intervention and set up an appointment with our case manager.

One exciting thing that happened was the pediatrician cleared Ally for was to start solid foods!  I made some rice cereal and she started it a few days later.  It took some getting used to, but she did pretty good with it for her first time.  Since then, she has had sweet potato, squash, and peas.  I make all her baby food (I did it for the boys too) but I've had a hard time getting new foods ready when she can start new ones.  The plan is to try pumpkin and carrots next, then move on to green beans and then fruits!

A few weeks later we had our appointment with Early Intervention.  We agreed at the meeting to add the service of physical therapy for Ally.  Her first session was Monday the 29th.  The physical therapist also came to our home for the session.  Right now, our goals are working on getting Ally to sit up on her own.  The therapist showed me a bunch of different exercises we could do with her to help strengthen her core muscles and get her balancing on her own.  After working with her just in the session she was doing better with sitting!  We asked the therapist what she thought about the low muscle tone diagnosis.  She said that there are three categories of people: those with high muscle tone, which actually has specific categories of severity; very low muscle tone (where if you were to hold the person you would almost be afraid you would drop them because they are so limp); and then 'normal', which has a broad spectrum.  She did a quick evaluation of Ally and said she was on the low end of normal; if normal had a scale of 1 to 10, she would be at about a 3.  So for now we will be working with her at home and she will have a session of physical therapy once a month.  She is already doing much better with sitting since this session.  She can actually sit on her own at times for 30 seconds or so at a time.  I'm not sure if it is due to the exercises or just to her natural development, but either way it is encouraging!  

Ally also loves kicking and grabbing at toys that are dangled on a mobile or her floor gym, and she can roll across the room in no time!  She is really trying to get to her hands and knees to a crawling position!  She enjoys being on her tummy on the floor to play.  And she LOVES to watch everything going on around her- especially her big brothers.  There was one afternoon recently where she was sitting in her seat on the floor and both boys were on their knees in front of her, singing and dancing for her- her own private court jesters!

On my tummy!

With the changing seasons, that means a season of firsts for our Ally girl.  We are looking forward to all the fun things that accompany the fall- 1st pumpkin patch trip, 1st Halloween, Thanksgiving, and soon, Christmas!  We look forward to keeping you informed on all of the fun to come- and we hope that if you are a newly diagnosed Dandy-Walker family who has been googling late at night and stumbled upon us, we look forward to showing you how Dandy-Walker children are such a blessing and can have an amazing quality of life- contrary to many doctor's diagnoses.