She's on the move!

Ali Kate officially began walking two days ago, May 13th! Woo hoo! Way to go, girl. I am so excited for her that words can hardly express it. After months of therapy, she's really showing significant progress. She started standing unassisted last week which was a huge milestone in her therapy. Then two days ago she got on all fours and made herself stand up. She then took a couple of steps forward before falling. Well, she kept trying over and over again to repeat her walking. With lots of encouragement, we got her to try walking several times with the longest walk being eight steps. Abby and I cheered her on like professional cheerleaders. She was beaming from ear to ear! She was so proud of herself. Today in therapy Karen had her walking all over the house. Every time she would start to fall, Karen would balance her again. At one point, she went across the entire living room unassisted! I was thrilled.

Ali Kate is really exceeding everyone's expectations concerning walking. The neurologist said she's take another four or five months probably, and I think Karen expected it to be a little longer. She was shocked when I shared the news this morning. I knew it was coming, but even I thought she had several more weeks to go. Now we have to keep encouraging her so that she starts to prefer walking to scooting or crawling.

I'm just so thrilled that she made this milestone in a very reasonable timeframe for someone with her condition. She is actually just on the tail end of "normal," and that's awesome! Her other skills are zooming along as well. Today she said hot for the first time. We've added dozens of words the last couple of weeks including Elmo, light, fish, hat, eyes, more, and please among others. She's really making great associations and expressing her wants and desires clearly. It's awesome to watch how much she's developed in the last 5 or 6 weeks. We're proud of you, Ali Kate!