Great things ahead!

Lauren is doing awesome and is recovering so nicely! She is willing to take a few steps at a time, heavily supported by both hands held. She is not yet able to put all of her weight on her left foot, but she can stand unsupported for a few seconds!!! Over the weekend and today she wanted to ride her tricycle. We tried her newer pink tricycle and she was really unable to propel/steer independently. So we used the older red one with a handle for me to steer/push. She did amazing!!! She did the pedaling and even steered for most of it. I'm so proud of her.

That being said, this is the first year Lauren can't fit in my baby bike seat (though last year was shaky and unsteady if I'm honest). It has been one of our favorite spring/summer/fall traditions, to ride around while she talks to me, talks to neighbors, points out animals, colors, etc. In short, it's her happy place. I've been sad to have to end that stage of our lives. Until we ordered this bad boy! It should arrive next week and will have to be put together. The company suggests a bike shop put it together...but Greg's going to give it a try. The passenger weight limit is 135lb so we should be able to use it for many, many years. Lauren is so super excited and even picked out a new helmet so she would be prepared! Ryan is really working on learning to ride a two wheel bike this summer so hopefully family bike rides are in our near future!

Today I got her to agree to homework. Generally, we don't do homework. She doesn't have the attention span OR the desire to do it. That makes it nearly impossible to get done and definitely impossible to do without arguing. She did two pages tonight! She did the math, told me her answer, and I wrote the answer in highlighter. Then she traced over it with pencil. How amazing is this?! Yes, I suck at drawing frogs. LOL.

Also, today Greg told me Lauren got herself up the stairs, used the toilet in our bedroom independently, got herself back downstairs, and then got herself into the basement to play. This is huge!!! Not only physically, though I know she butt-scooted for all of it. But the fact that she was able to problem solve what she wanted, and was willing to do this independently was huge for her. We're really working on getting her to do things independently when she is capable of doing them. She really does just seem so much happier overall since her surgery.

Ryan went for another mile long walk with me tonight which makes it I think 3-4 times in the last week. He has a friend coming home with him from school tomorrow, so he is really excited about that. He has a Spring Fling at school later this week and in the past his anxiety has really prevented us from going/staying. This is the first year he's really excited about it!