Our Little Elle is Growing Up

It seems that Elle has made that ever so slight change from baby to little girl. She even looks more like a little person and less like a baby. Her emotions are starting to emerge, which is thrilling to us because part of her brain that is affected controls emotions. You can blow berries in her neck or on her tummy and 70% of the time, she'll giggle. She will also let you know when you have taken something from her that she wasn't quite ready to give up. We call this "screaming". She is doing very well with her eating. At 13 months, she is able to pick up larger pieces of food from her high chair tray and gets them into her mouth. I give her puffs each day to help her practice feeding herself. As soon as she sees the container, her little hands start searching all over the tray. Kramer is usually on stand-by in the event anything falls to the floor. He's very efficient :-) We still go to Physical Therapy and Occupational Therapy twice a week and are starting to see new abilities emerging slowly. We have been working on sitting for about 6 months and Elle is now able to sit non-supported for about 3-5 minutes before she tumbles over. She's even venturing out and lifting a hand to play with the toys in front of her. Her current favorites are her drums, a musical piano and a penguin that stands taller that she does! We recently started another day of Therapy to begin work on Elle's speech. Our current goals are to have Elle saying momma and dada by September. The speech therapist feels that she is still playing with sounds in her throat. The step before babbling. We are also working on teaching Elle to say "Up" while putting her arms up in the air.
Some of her favorite foods are- Oatmeal with bananas, carrots, kiwi fruit, mandarin oranges and chicken. I think she is also beginning to enjoy bath time. Usually, she is stiff as a board with hands clenched. recently, she has started kicking her legs and splashing the water all over. She actually held a tub toy last night (Thank you Aunt Carolyn). Now if we could only get that hair growing as fast as the teeth!! Poor thing has 5 teeth coming in at once. Needless to say...Elle is not happy! As far as Elle's condition, we are currently awaiting an appointment with a new geneticist in April. At her 12 month check up Elle was 19 lbs, 27 inches and her head growth had not increased. It also didn't drop off, so that's good. We are still planning on Elle's hip surgery this summer, but have not set a date. I am not looking forward to any part of that, but we'll all get through it. A toddler in a cast from the waist or chest down will be quite the challenge for all. The good thing is that Elle is so young, she won't remember it. We'll update everyone when we have a date set.