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Monday, March 22, 2004

A trip to the mall and lying down on the job

Sunday we went to the mall. We didn't see anyone we knew, and we only stayed about 2 hours, but it was fun. We started at the Kaffeeklatsch and had coffee. We also picked up some of our favorite scented shower soap at Bath and Body Works and some new clothes for Linda at Eddie Bauer. Everyone was very nice and accommodating. The sales person at Eddie Bauer actually fetched clothes for us and brought them to where we were for Linda to look at. It felt vaguely like Pretty Woman.

Today Linda got some new tongue exercises to help her build up K and (hard) G sounds. You can try it. Put the tip of your tongue between your front teeth and try to leave it there while swallowing. You can really feel how the back of your tongue has to work at it, and that's the point. Linda can do it with effort already, and I expect soon she'll be a lot stronger.

My favorite therapy of the day was the morning OT session. The therapist had Linda lie on her back on the mat and then do various hand/arm exercises with her hand in the air (generally with the elbow on the mat or supported by the OT). I was very impressed by the amount she could do, particularly with her right arm. She could do all kinds of coordinated bicep, tricep, rotator cuff types of movement. There was only one movement in the whole set that she seemed very weak on yet, bringing her bent elbow up to her chin. Her left arm was nearly as good although not as strong. The OT suggested that the hand-over-hand feeding was responsible for strengthening her right arm. Perhaps we'll start making her eat with her left.

I didn't see the afternoon therapies since I was headed back to Kirksville. I did have a pretty good evening with Ellie. She isn't so different than before, and threw a fit about 10min after I picked her up from day care. She ate a good supper (provided by a volunteer) at least and was pretty fun to play with all evening. As usual, she resisted taking a bath, but she went to bed pretty much without event.