Today is Ella’s last day at school for the summer program. She will be going back there in September for the school year program. So far her experience there has been, as far as we could tell, wonderful. The team at the school is very communicative and helpful and seem to be doing a great job with Ella, There is a notebook that travels back and forth with her and through it we get reports of her daily achievements: ‘Ella walked to the pool today’, ‘Ella played make believe phone today talking into a toy phone’ ‘Ella didn’t touch her food today but instead tried to steal food from other kids’. She is always very enthusiastic to go, when we talk about her going on the bus to school she gets excited. Then she returns at 1:30 and she is exhausted. Goes to the bathroom and drops to sleep like a rock. Recently she has been in a consistently good mood, talkative and alert. She has also made progress with the gait trainer and now walks around the house in it with a little less protest than before. She still cannot control the direction properly, we hooked up one of Chamlo’s leashes to it and help her steer with that. Last weekend we took the gait trainer with Ella to the gym and had her walk with it from the car to the building and then round and round in the big basketball courts kicking a ball around. I think she is making cognitive progress, tough it is hard to put my finger on exactly what that entails.

Maybe it is the general feeling of her being more connected and alert with what is happening. After the last visit to the orthopedist Ella was prescribed a new wedge to sleep with. This monstrous contraption sits between her legs as she sleeps and keeps them apart. The thing is the angle is much more extreme than the previous one and seems more appropriate to hold someone while giving birth. I can’t believe she can sleep with that thing on. But she does… Hopefully it will make some positive change in the way her legs meet her hips and she won’t need to use it for very long. (historically our luck doesn’t work that way). On the positive side, we have been phasing out the use of her leg braces and now she is without braces half of the day. Her walking is better with the braces but just a bit and the difference is getting smaller. We get much fewer objections when we walk without the braces (nearly none) and even barefoot sometimes. (that was unheard of just a few months ago). Her bathroom progress is inconsistent. Sometimes it goes well and then there are a few days of no success at all. She has transitioned easily to a new bottle with a straw and uses that exclusively. I have concerns about her eating and mouth structure. As it is only very few teeth touch for chewing on the right side of her mouth. On her left… none at all. So if she wants to chew anything she needs to steer it to the one or two teeth that actually touch. I am wondering if there is something to be done about it, we will bring it up at Ella’s next dentist appointment.