slow down

5/25/11 Wednesday
Jewel had a great day of homeschooling, which mostly consists of her core subjects of reading to her, phonics, history reading, math and books on DVD and clocking in time in her stander.  She is halfway through the fourth Harry Potter book.
Here Da and sissies took her swimming and she got to go in her stander and gait trainer twice!
She was constantly aligned in a supportive position in her wheel chair, stander or gait trainer in her AFOs.  Jewel has been talking a lot today, mostly repeating words and three word sentences.  Today she copied Raven and said, "Chai tea late", wow how cool it that, and it was crisp and clean, with perfect annunciation.
We took her to feed the horses and work in her planter box.  There are twelve planters full of food growing, a couple of banana trees, a taro patch and two of the planters are labeled as Jewel's garden.  I supported Jewel for her to be able to stand up, look about and we encouraged her to take some steps.  Giving Jewel support at her hips helps a lot.  Raven did most of the watering and tending to the garden and she fed and topped the water for the horses.  I  just decided to chill with Jewel and enjoy the moment with out constantly spoiling the moment with demands and pressure of do this and do that.  We have a Maui bumper sticker that says it perfectly, 'Slow down this aint the mainland.'  I tend to be a human doing instead of a human being :)  So we just slowed down and enjoyed the time at the garden together, I lightened up and had a good time.  Jewel did well with less pressure and she stood nicely and took some steps here and there.  I encouraged and praised her.  We had fun.
Her aunties came by that evening and we put her in her gait trainer and put some music on.  Jewel, sissies, Aunties, Grace and I all danced in our tiny living room.  This KidWalk II gait trainer Rocks!!  Thank you to the people at Prime Engineering who designed this amazing piece of freedom equipment and to Marian and Gill who blessed Jewel with this wonderful gift!  Life is like planting a sunflower seed, you never know how much of a harvest awaits when that flower blooms and the center is packed full of sunflower seeds.

Winnie the Phooh quote-"If ever there is tomorrow when we're not together ... there is something you must always remember, you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem and smarter than you think, but the most important thing is even if we're apart I'll always be with you."