Christmas in November

For more mornings than I can count, Jocelyn seems to think that getting up at 3am is the most appropriate time for starting her day, and here is one of her favorite early morning activities...

{"Hmmm, I've got two somethings to brush my hair - that's important.
Can't forget the smell good spray for my curls and oh ...
DON'T FORGET THE LOTION MOM!" She's so funny!}

So even though I'm constantly in a zombie, sleep-deprived state ... I just can't seem to be too terribly upset at this face!

Why do I feel like it's Christmas in November? Because our insurance (with a little additional encouragement from our primary physician and yours truly) approved some much needed equipment to help Boogie gain strength, endurance and hopefully independence.

 

I mentioned earlier in one of my blogs that we got some awesome equipment this last Tuesday, but wanted to snap some quick shots of Jocie in it.

 

What we ended up getting was a KidWalker (this is a gait trainer) and a Bantam Sit-to-Stand which both are crazy amazing!! We had to wait 1 1/2 months to get our "presents," but in the world of special needs equipment? That's pretty dang good so no complaints here!

 

We have been trying out a bigger sized KidWalker which we will be returning of course, and its so nice to have one in Jocelyn's size with all the bells and whistles. She really needs that extra support at her chest, abdomen and pelvis.

 

Here she is in her new walker.

When looking at the KidWalker from the side, it looks much more complicated than a traditional gait trainer, but this thing is probably the easiest maneuverable gait trainer we've seen and tried out.

 

Here's what the gait trainer looks like from the side.

{I love that the little clear wheels in the back light-up with all different colors when rolling}

In order for Jocelyn to learn to tolerate bearing her own weight, and to strengthen her bones (because we all need to bear-weight for good bone density), we needed a stander. The one we had been using prior to our new one, was a wooden TherAdapter vertical stander. It was perfect when Boogie was small because its hard to find a stander that comes in itty-bitty size!

Now that Jocie is taller and heavier, this Bantam Sit-to-Stand is perfect!! It does exactly what the name says, you sit your child into the device, secure them and then use the lever to raise them into a standing, vertical position. When you are ready to get out, you pull back on the lever and the hydraulics slowly lower the child back into sitting! Pretty nifty huh?

I love this concept because it makes a person go through the entire motion of getting from a sitting to standing positioning which is needed for brain mapping/learning. We also opted to get the swing away tray and knee pads to make things easier with getting Jocelyn in and out of the stander.

Here's a side view of Boogie sitting and then partially raised.

And here she is raised all the way up without the tray.

One of the things I love most is that this stander is user friendly so anyone can use it. And as you can see, we had to build up the foot plates because she wasn't tall enough. No matter, she will have plenty of time to grow into it which means more usage time for us! :)

Today we painted, sang songs and read in our stander -- she seemed to enjoy it!! Woohoo!!

These two pieces equipment were extremely expensive and I don't take having insurance for granted. I hate that Justin works all the time, is gone a lot and often worry about him when he's flying; but, without his job, we wouldn't be able to achieve our goals and be granted such incredible "Christmas" gifts!