Poetry in motion

We've finally reached a long awaited milestone - AngelicA took her first few independent steps a few days ago. We knew that she getting there sometime soon, she has been standing without support for a few weeks now and then suddenly out of the blue about a week ago she took one tiny step - a wobbly, shaky one - then another and a third before lunging for the sofa near her. She was so pleased with herself, she was laughing her head off. Since then she's been trying to do many encores sometimes successfully and sometimes not quite.

I haven't got a video yet but here are a few pictures of her trying to stand:

Ready?


All set?



And up she goes...



Way to go girl. You did well. You can take a bow.

Did we get plain lucky with Angel? We were led to believe that we would have to wait a long time to see her achieve this milestone. May be we did get lucky or may be it's just the little things we did that helped her get there sooner.

When Angel was about six months old, I read some articles about how treadmill training helped babies with Down Syndrome walk three to four months earlier than the usual 24 to 28 months. Initially, we decided we would invest in a treadmill but finally we didn't end up buying one because we didn't find any that suited our needs. So instead of putting her on a treadmill we held her up and moved her legs to mimic the walking movement. We tried to do this for a couple of minutes everyday, in addition to her regular physiotherapy, and when she started pulling herself up to standing position with support, we started making her walk with the help of a walker.

And here we are now, applauding her as she tries to take one step after another, slowly and a little gingerly. She's still unsure and her gait is a little awkward. But for me, it's poetry in motion.

Thanks for reading,
JD