Walking and talking!

Hello everyone! Since most of my followers are facebook friends, you have probably already seen the video of Kara taking steps. I cannot tell you how exciting this is to us. We are delighted that she is learning to walk. Those of you who have special needs family members understand what a major accomplishment this is. When we brought her home, we weren't sure what we were facing with her future. God has enabled her to be a normal child. Her physical is a little late but the big thing is it is there. I can't tell you how much it delights me to see her get in to trouble. Even though it can be frustrating it is at the same time thrilling that she is able to do it. So our goal is to have her walking by two.
As always we are so very thankful for her. We had an assessment done with Babynet last month and the results were great. Her personal and Social score was exactly age appropriate as well as her self-help. Her cognition was 6% behind (every child is different so everyone would not meet the exact age appropriateness, they said there is nothing abnormal and that is actually behind until 16% behind). Her Communication was 4-7% behind which is once again in the normal range. We will be having a speech evaluation next week and I think we may be finally getting rid of speech after that. Then her fine motor and gross motor is still behind enough to need services. We have seen great improvement in her Occupational Therapy since she has gotten her glasses. Her depth perception was off before that and made such things as stacking extremely difficult. Physically she is growing with leaps and bounds. With the right motivation (which is tricky to figure out) she can pull herself into a standing position and walk alongside the couch. Without the right motivation she is a pretty hopeless case :-) .
What an adventure we have been on with this little girl. Life is crazy but we are praising the Lord for this wonderful opportunity we have to be her parents. I never pictured myself being a special needs mom but I love it! I never know when she is going to suddenly learn something new because there is no textbook answer for when she should be doing something. Keeps life exciting. She is the sweetest little thing ever and I love how she will still snuggle with mommy and daddy. She is never too busy to sit on our lap or lay on our shoulder. She loves hugs and says "love you" quite often. She quotes lines from pooh and is learning to say her ABC's and to count to ten (she does 2,6,9 and 10). We are thankful for our smart beautiful sweet angel. Wouldn't trade her for anything!