The Pink Walker

One of the major delays that Addison has had to deal with is learning how to walk. Because of low muscle tone, extreme flexibility and her very rough start to life with major health concerns, she has had to work VERY hard to accomplish simple milestones that a normal child wouldn't even think twice about doing.

It took her a long time to be able to pull up to stand...and then forever yet again before she was able to take simple cruising steps. She started to do that Memorial weekend (which, for the record when I said I wanted that to be a goal for her this fall, her team laughed at me saying that was a bit unrealistic because of her extra hurdles to overcome)

All summer she has been cruising around- holding on for dear life to furniture. She WOULD NOT stand for even a second independently, and she WOULD NOT take steps with her pink baby stroller. It is very light and moves forward very quickly and she couldn't keep up with it.

Her PT has worked with her faithfully...we have encouraged (and bribed) all to no avail. The harder you try to get Addison to do something...the more she refuses (even if she is capable)

The other day in therapy, Odette (her PT) was trying to get Addison to use her walker (yet again). After an hour and a half of refusing, while Odette was writing her note Addison snuck up behind her and just stood up to the pink walker and walked it almost halfway across the room....very calmly and deliberately with the air of "oh, I've always been able to do this...just chose not to."

Since then (Tuesday) I've been seeing a lot more of this:

and her independent standing has come unbelievably far even just in the last two weeks:

She is now SO CLOSE to taking independent steps..but then again, she's been close since Memorial Day, so who knows how much longer it's going to take her to get there! I am so proud of all of her progress. She has worked unbelievably hard to be able to accomplish these skills. YEAH ADDISON!!!!

The thing that I can't figure out is....

what changed her mind from extreme hatred to acceptance of her pink walker?

I guess we'll never know.