smart girls.

Today totally renewed me after really starting to feel worn down over the last few weeks.  Both of my girls are doing some exciting things so I thought I would share.
While Shilo is still little, there are some things we can work on to help with muscle strength and basic infant skills that don't always come as naturally to kiddos with Ds.  We work on head control, pushing our head up off the floor or off of our shoulders.  Tracking with her eyes (focusing and following something) and gripping on to objects or fingers. 
She has been smiling for about a week now in response to us which is huge.  Today I noticed she tried to follow something I was doing with her eyes so I tested it a little.  For the first time she actually intentionally tried to follow something in front and to each side.  She started gripping (mostly Abigail's fingers) and is gaining strength for head an neck control everyday.  She actually has gained enough strength to practice the same Houdini tactics that Abigail did at this age so that she works her top half out of our straight jacket like intense swaddling skills.  We are pretty proud of the gains she is making since we have really only had opportunities to work with her since her release from the hospital on December 20th.

So then my other girl got a puzzle of the states for Christmas.  She is getting really good at doing it, and can identify a lot of states that friends and family live in, as well as some of the others.  In the process I also taught her the 'Fifty Nifty' states song.  While it plays non-stop a our house, sending me into fits if temporary insanity, it is amazing to me how quickly she has picked up on it.  She doesn't get all 50 of them quite yet, but we aren't far off.

And lastly, although she loves to read, and letters, she hasn't ever been interested in learning to write letters, or even tracing them.  I'm not too stressed about this since she's three, but tonight she wanted to know how to write an 'A.'  After a couple times of helping her she was making them all over her paper.  So I decided to try to explain to her how to write her name.  The girl only needs to be interested in something in order to take off and do it.

So there you have my two very amazing little girls, defying the odds, and rising above the labels!