Understanding

Last night, Lily was sitting in my lap, facing me. Dave was sitting beside us. I told Lily that it was time for bed and that she needed to get kisses from her daddy. Immediately after I told her that, she looked right at Dave as if to acknowledge that she knew I was talking about him.

It seems that recently, this little girl has exploded with her understanding of the world. All of her therapists have commented about this. Lily is sitting up to the point where I will put a pillow behind her and walk away. She is beginning to put weight on her arms when placed in a crawling position. She watches people as they walk across the room. And she signs the word more.

I'm not kidding! Lily signs more! Her speech therapist started this with her. She would help Lily dance and then place her hands together. We caught on very quickly because (1) when she's dancing, Lily is standing and (2) Lily LOVES to stand. With this motivation behind her, I had no doubt that she would do well with this task.

I'm attaching a video of Lily dancing. In between her dances, watch her head and her hands. When she moves her head crazily and rolls her eyes, she's telling us that she wants to dance. When she puts her hands together, she's telling us that she wants more. In her own way, she's telling us she wants to dance some more.

I know the song I sing to her is irritating. It irritates me! But I sing it repeatedly because I want her to understand and anticipate. I'm also hoping that one day, she'll catch on to the sound of the song. We do play other songs with her and sing other songs to her, but I do this one a lot. In fact, there have been times when I swear she's matched the pitch of a note on her toy.

When I jump Lily up in the air, notice her legs. There was a time when she would be stiff. Now, she lifts her legs up. My hope is that this is somehow good for her abs. Sometimes when I bring her back down, she lands with stiff legs. Other times, she bends her legs. I let her strength bring her back to straight legs.

It saddens me to think about the crisis our state is going through with Medicaid. Insurance does not cover Lily's therapy, sadly, so we have to rely on Medicaid. Basically, they are saying that children with Medicaid will get 75 hours TOTAL for their therapy, yearly. Currently, Lily gets 1 hour a week for pt, one for ot, and one for speech. Do the math. If we gave up two weeks for vacation, it would take 150 hours. Something is going to either get taken out or cut back. Seeing Lily's progress and knowing how she regressed when we moved and went two months without therapy makes me shudder. Plus, everything is retroactive, starting April 1, 2010 (I think. . .or maybe it's July). If Lily has met those 75 hours, she'll have to wait until the next fiscal year to get therapy again. (There are loopholes with doctor recommendations, but I'm not sure how willing the doctor will be to do the paperwork.)

After so much progress, I'd hate to see Lily lose out.