Two Videos

At long last, we're getting a chance to post some videos. Kirsten took these two days ago and they are a good representation of how Madeleine spends her days. In the first video, Madeleine is laying in her crib at HSC. We haven't taken in our mobile for her to use so a crafty nurse made an improvised version by taking trach tie material and tying it across the top of the crib. In the video, Mr. Octopus (not sure why the Mr. is necessary but that's what we call him) is dangling over Madeleine and Madeleine is alternating between sucking on her right hand and swatting at Mr. Octopus. What you don't see is that when her arms get tired, she's developing a pretty firm roundhouse kick with her right leg (only her right leg) and she catches Mr. Octopus unaware every once in a while.

In the second video, HSC's speech therapist is holding Madeleine up and is trying out a new toy-- a vibrating teething ring. Madeleine loves oral stimulation and we thought she'd love this toy. She does seem to like it but she's still not 100% sure about it. In the video, she's pretty infatuated with the camera. This video shows you both how far Madeleine has come in the past few months but also shows how much work we have to do. At her age, she' understandably delayed on issues related to muscular/skeletal but cognitively she's doing pretty well. She smiles all the time-- the smile in the second video is her normal reaction whenever you play with her-- and she's really into toys and interacting with others. She's making noises with her mouth, blowing bubbles, and we're just starting to try out a voice box that goes on her vent line. The trach makes it difficult for her to vocalize so we're excited to use the voice box to encourage her to vocalize.

That's all-- no medical updates. Just some cool videos of our daughter. We're still hopeful of getting her home next week and will continue to post pictures and videos. Have a great weekend.