Playful Rooted

There are many, many moments in my life lately where I’m overcome by emotion, looking at my baby girl, and I think to myself, “If only I had known. During that incredibly tumultuous pregnancy, during that lonely, anxiety-filled first year of her life. If only I had known the person she would become, at just two years old. I could have relaxed and enjoyed that time so much more. I would have spent so much less energy and mental capacity worrying, catastrophizing, paralyzed by fear. If only.”

However, I do believe there is value in struggle, even in suffering, and I know that I am a better person for having this particular experience. I have grown so much in empathy, understanding, patience, tolerance, flexibility, and the list goes on. I have gained so much knowledge about the body and child development and respect for the therapists that have helped us so much. I am grateful for our journey, as hard as it has been.

And I am INCREDIBLY grateful to have such an amazing, funny, sweet, sassy, healthy little two-year-old.

The biggest news first: Pria is W A L K I N G! She finally walked at 22 months. It was a long wait, but it made those first determined steps even more amazing to witness. She had taken a few steps here and there at home, but it was during our trip to St. Louis that she actually just started… walking! Ben had the boys at a convention with some of his friends, so I took Pria to a little children’s museum in St. Charles, just the two of us. After spending some time playing there, I was carrying her back to the front of the museum. I set her down to stand so I could grab my diaper bag, and — she stayed standing. A first. Amazed, I started inching backwards, and she followed me! She walked! Twenty-four steps all at once, all by herself.

It. Was. Thrilling! I scooped her up and screeched and tossed her in the air, and I’m sure everyone there thought I was nuts, but I didn’t care one bit. It was the BEST!! I was sad that Ben wasn’t there to witness it, and also happy that I was there. After all the work I’ve put into PT with her, I would have been devastated if I had missed her first intentional steps.

The second big thing is that we started speech therapy a couple months ago. Because Pria has Joint Hypermobility Syndrome, her muscle tone is lower than normal, and although she’s only hypermobile from the hips down, the low muscle tone seems to manifest throughout her body, including her mouth and tongue. Because of this, although she was saying lots of words, she was having trouble making certain sounds, like “m.” Pria couldn’t say “mama” until 23 months! She would call me “baba” instead, and that was getting old. 😉 The pediatrician wanted to “wait and see,” as they do, but I knew in my heart that she needed intervention. So I took her in for an evaluation, we got started with twice-weekly therapy, and she has grown by leaps and bounds in the past few months, starting with finally saying “mama!” She’s not talking nearly as much as the boys were at her age (I remember at Luca’s second birthday party, he said to someone, “Don’t sit on that chair because it’s not very stable,” so… yeah. Kind of an unfair standard.), but she’s doing really well. She goes at her own pace and always will, and that’s okay.

This can be a really hard thing as the mom of a child with extra needs. I’ve spent so much of my motherhood journey with the boys unlearning old patterns and learning how to trust my children to do things on their own time and in their own way – however, Pria does need some extra help. So it’s a tricky balance, trying to give her the help and motivation she needs but then also backing off to let her go at her own pace. But we’re doing it, little by little! My goals for her by the time she turned two were to say “mama” and to walk on her own. And look – she’s there. Pop the bubbly!

So, she’s amazing, but she’s also really fun and funny. She cracks me up every day.

Whenever she does something she thinks is impressive (unfolding a piece of paper, building a cube out of MagnaTiles, blowing a big bubble), Pria wants everyone to clap for her. She’ll point at you and clap her hands until you do it, too. Then, she’ll go around the room – or even the whole house – looking for other people to give her applause. She makes sure to get claps from me, Ben, Luca, and Sawyer, and sometimes from the dog as well. 😉

I used to have to sneak a bow in her hair and hope she didn’t realize; otherwise, she would rip it out immediately. Now, she LOVES having a bow in, and there are certain places she refuses to go without a bow, like physical therapy. If she spies herself in the car mirror without a bow on, she’ll point to her head until I put one in her hair. I’ve learned to keep a stash at the ready in my purse for such emergencies!

Pria is obsessed with bubbles, and every time we go to speech or physical therapy, she waltzes in saying, “bubba! bubba!” Her speech therapist obliges her and lets her blow bubbles at the beginning of every visit, but her PT does not. She prefers speech.

I find it so interesting and sweet how Pria shares so many personality traits with Luca. Both of them ALWAYS need to be touching another human, making sure they’re not alone, chattering away and demanding attention. They are really cute together as they’re so similar; although, it’s a LOT having two of them in the house! And then I have to remember to go find Sawyer and make sure his love bucket is full too, since he doesn’t get in my face and demand attention nearly as much as these two do. 😉

Pria got new AFOs (leg braces) two months ago, which was a fun adventure when the orthotist cut them incorrectly, so then we had to wait another month and go back to the clinic to get them redone. I think all the brace differentials were actually a good thing though because they seemed to help her learn to walk without the braces! Just a couple weeks ago, there was NO WAY she could walk even a couple steps without her braces on, and now she can walk the entire length of the house, brace-free. It’s pretty remarkable. Her feet still naturally turn out wayyy too much, and her lower legs are still very low in muscle tone, so she will be in braces for a long time to come, but it’s truly huge progress that she can walk without them.

Whenever Pria calls to FaceTime my parents (and their cat), she demands to see all of them – Nana, Papa, and Kitty. Her preference is for them all to be in the same frame at once, but she’ll accept individual shots if she must. She plays all kinds of made-up games, like she’ll pretend to be stuck in her learning tower and beg me to come “help” her, but then she’ll pop up at the last minute and crack up. Or she does this thing where she folds her arms, and that’s her signal that you’re then supposed to copy all of her arm movements. It’s so funny and cute. She also loves stuffing toys down the front her shirt or dress. Often, when I pick her up, a bunch of Legos fall out of her clothes.

We went to Grant’s Farm in May, and because I was alone with three kids, I caved and paid the $15 to go into the bird room and feed the birds. (I also paid for the boys to go on a camel ride. When the dad’s away, the mom will… do anything she can to survive solo parenting.) Anyway! These birds were intense. They would not only eat food from your hand, they would also, without hesitation, land on your head and nip at your skull! I thought it was really funny, but Pria, well. Didn’t.

She was also not the hugest fan of the Grand Canyon.

I, however, am her biggest fan. She is such an incredible gift. A child more wonderful than I could have hoped for, just as amazing and precious to me as both of her big brothers. We are embarking on such an amazing new chapter. Pria’s “baby phase” was very, very long – a gift in some ways – but now that she is an official walking, talking toddler… well, life is just getting better and better.

xo!