Thursday, May 26, 2011

Her Favorite Toy - a horse from Del Mar

Amelia's favorite toy is a stuffed animal horse that Siena got from the Del Mar racetrack before Amelia was born. Siena had no problem letting Amelia take over the horse and Amelia has loved it ever since. The horse has long arms and legs that Amelia likes to put around her head and neck as well as chairs, bed frames or anything else where it can hang down. Her favorite thing to do right now is to put her glasses on the horse or have the horse sit and slide while she makes the appropriate signs.

She lost her horse a few months ago and we could not find it anywhere! Grandma contacted the racetrack and managed to get in touch with someone who was able to find a new horse and promptly mailed it to Amelia. Yea Grandma :)! In the meantime, we found her old horse so now we have a back up in case it ever gets lost again (or falls apart......whichever happens first).



Monday, May 23, 2011

May 20th, 2011
Amelia is walking! We’ve been working on this for so long that I had to share it with all of you who have been praying for her so faithfully. She is still very wobbly and it’s hard to watch her make her way around furniture and other objects, but she keeps at it and has learned to fall and get back up by herself. She’s already cut her lip and got a couple of bruises to show for her efforts, but we have to let her keep going. Whew!
There is no major news on the brain stem implant situation, but the House Ear Clinic in LA is preparing their case for the FDA. The doctors have now decided that they stand a better chance for FDA approval of the brain stem implant if they can prove that they have already ruled out all other treatments such as the cochlear implant. This means that they want to perform a cochlear implant on Amelia, so she can then be a part of the clinical trials. Since we have already been told that a cochlear implant won’t help her, we are very reluctant to have her go through this additional surgery.
After many weeks of waiting for a response Kristina finally heard back from the clinic in Italy and they have requested Amelia’s information for their review. She’s busy getting all the information together for them. So as you can see, we are still in a holding pattern and continue to need your prayers in order to make the right decision for Amelia.
She is, of course, quite unaware of all this “angst” and enjoys just being an almost 2 year old. She plays with gusto and loves to learn new things. We have to work hard to keep her constantly challenged and she amazes us with how fast she learns. Just yesterday I got out Siena’s Memory game and Amelia took to it immediately by turning over cards to find the matching ones. She expects applause or a head rub after every correct choice! She gets into plenty of trouble too, and lets us know exactly what she wants. She uses either her growing sign language skills or if we are too dense to understand what she is trying to say, she pushes and pulls us to where she wants us. She has a very healthy appetite and she now knows the signs for dessert and chocolate and uses them after every meal, even breakfast!