Billy Goat Piper???

Piper had a PT consult this week.  We’ve seen her once before, but it was back in September or October, so it’s been a while. 

We have a couple things to work on, but Amy was glad that Piper’s sitting so well, getting up on her arms, standing, clapping, and kissing.  Our two new things are (surprise) trying to get her to bend more, and getting her to catch herself when she falls from sitting.  The catching herself piece is a little difficult because she doesn’t (and never really did) fall.  Not unless she intends to, but even then, it’s rare. And, on top of that, she has to tip a long way before her arms touch the floor (for those of you who don’t know, one of the physical indicators of Ds is short arms- Piper’s definitely got those…), so I don’t think that she sees it as a “benefit” to put her arms down.  So we’re working with her playing with toys at ground level on her sides.  It’s really forcing her to come out of her comfort zone of playing at midline, and I usually succeed in making her a little mad, but I do think it’s starting to get a little easier for her.

Now, as far as the bending piece goes.  She’s definitely starting to get better about letter her knees get up underneath her with straight arms.  You may remember several weeks ago when I said she doesn’t like to have her arms straight and knees bent, so we were having a lot of trouble getting her into the crawl position.  She’ll do it now, so now we’re working on getting her confident enough to get her arms and legs moving.  One thing we started that’s supposed to help is getting her to climb the stairs.  She LOVES it!  Seriously!  I think part of it is because she does get to stand-up (which she’s always liked doing), and she can tell she’s really getting somewhere.  She can do about half the flight three or four times in a row now, with a little help, of course.  She’s doing most of the muscle work herself (she’ll stand by herself, and if you get one knee up on the next step, she’ll pull up the other leg so that she’s standing on the next step).  Once again, her shortness is proving to add a little challenge, but she deals okay.  She barely reaches the step she’s supposed to keep her hands on, so we have to giver her a little more help that way.

So we’re doing lots of practice with her playing in squatting and kneeling so she gets used to the feel.  She likes to play on the couch cushions, so I think we’ll start trying to get her to climb up the cushion, play, and then climb up onto the cushion-less couch.  Looks like the height variances are about her size. 

It’s funny.  I’d never have thought of Piper as a mountain goat.