Sicky Baby feels a little better

The above photo is what Maryam looked like yesterday afternoon when she was REALLY not feeling well. Note that her shirt is wet, that is a combination of drool and snot. GROSS! Her nose was running like a faucet. I felt terrible for her. I just couldn't keep up with the amount of goop coming out of her. My mother advised me to put a bib on her and voila, a dry shirt!

The above picture here is of Maryam this morning. Clearly she is feeling MUCH better. She's even playing with an old toy in that photo.

Here is a picture of Brett cuddling with Maryam and Anna. They were doing the "jump, jump, jump" dance from Yo Gabba Gabba when I took this picture. It was super cute. Brett was singing and the girls were dancing and jumping all over him.
Maryam had PT today. Her therapist called it a "successful" session because Maryam accomplished a task by the end of the session that she was having difficulty with at the beginning of the session. I don't know if I'd call it successful or not. The task was climbing up the ladder of a slide, and sliding down all by herself. Well, she's done that before. For some reason today she just couldn't get her body coordinated enough to do it. Not to mention that the first 15 minutes of her session I had to be her therapist because she wouldn't let Peggy go anywhere near her! It was CRAZY. I'm going to chalk this one up to her being sick and irritable.
I told Peggy how I noticed that Maryam's left shoulder still seems to be terribly weak compared with her right shoulder and asked if there were any exercises we could do to help her strengthen it. Well, she suggested that we get out the tunnel and watch what she does she can see what I mean. She got the tunnel out and at first Maryam didn't want to go anywhere near it. It took me going to the other side and throwing a ball in there for her to get even remotely intrigued. I coerced her into the tunnel and she did wonderfully! In fact, at first I thought she was going to make a liar out of me! But then it happened. Maryam got out of the tunnel and took off really fast because she was excited to go back to the other side and go through again when she face planted. Her left shoulder completely gave out from under her and she went down. Once that happened it happened 3 or 4 more times. Then Peggy noticed that Maryam was using the palm on her left hand differently than the palm on her right hand. I thought that was a strange thing to notice, then I remembered, its her job! She said that I should get a tunnel and have Maryam crawl through it 4 or 5 times a day to help her strengthen her shoulders. And then I got the lecture on why she needed to crawl for as long as possible. I KNOW! But she then made me feel a little better by telling me that she knew I never encouraged Maryam to stand or walk that she did it all by herself...which is VERY true.
After all that Maryam started running around and engaging Peggy more. At the same time we noticed something really strange. When Maryam runs she only swings her right arm. She tucks her left arm into her side and has her forearm across her chest and takes off. She did this when she walked fast, made quick turns or when she was running. Peggy said for me to watch that and see if it continues. If it does, Maryam might need some more OT to work on her arm functioning properly. Why that's not a PT thing is beyond me.
We're not done, Peggy also noted that Maryam's stance is a little too broad. She said based on Maryam's walking and running skills, her stance should have narrowed more. So, she gave me an exercise to do on Maryam to help with that. I'm supposed to do it when I change her diaper. That way I can squeeze it in through out the day without hindering her play time. Then I remembered that Maryam starts toe walking immediately after I put her shoes on her feet. I asked Peggy about that and she gave me 2 more exercises to do to work on that. So, now we have 5 exercises (we only had 2 before today's PT session!) to do on Maryam EVERY time we change her diaper! Can you imagine? Note to self, "it can always be worse, it can always be worse, it can always be worse....oh wait, it's been worse, it's been worse, it's been worse." My new mantra!