Go Girl Go

This week was better then any Christmas day, any vacation and any amount of money. I would give up everything to give what I witnessed on Tuesday. Mobile children don't understand how gifted they are. Even our children who are mobile, playing sports, racing miles around their sister who isn't, don't really grasp the concept of not being able to participate. To be fully dependant on someone else. On Tuesday our daughters wheelchair and her adapted trike arrived. Her manual wheelchair designed especially for her we waited since last summer. Many people don't know the work our daughter has ahead of her, learning to push the wheels forward and back. Learning to steer left and right. Our daughter also has cognitive delays so the process will take some time. Although she's smart, eager, willing and wanting to move! It will be physically hard developing muscles in her arms. Everything concerning our daughter is work. Then there is children complaining they have to walk to the bus stop or to go play outside! Our littlest son who's now 14 months old has already passed our 5 year old daughter's milestones. Our daughter doesn't complain, she doesn't even know she's compromised. She's usually very happy and she loves everybody. Just life is a gift to her. I love her very much and my husband has this soft spot within his heart. As equal as we are as a family, some need extra attention especially being fully dependant like our one daughter. (We will provide the world for her) Tuesday was a special day. Not only did she receive her wheelchair, she received a special needs adapted trike. A trike that she can learn to peddle and to develop the much needed muscles in her legs to hopefully walk one day! A trike where I can help push and steer from the back while she develops confidence within herself that she can do it! We can finally go on a family bike ride with our daughter on her own bike! She was so happy on her trike, she didn't want to come off. She actually ate a few bites of dinner still sitting on her trike! For now, we have the mobile equipment inside, where she can start to learn on easy ground. One of our children said, "It's just a wheelchair" It's not just a wheelchair, it's mobility, freedom developing independence and confidence that we all have on our own two feet. Something our daughter watches from a distance - children playing. When our daughter sat in her wheelchair for the first time and put her little hands around those wheels to move across our living room floor it was beautiful witnessing how happy she was because she DID IT! She does bumb scoot everywhere, and rolls in the rolling chair we made her but this is for everywhere, outside, grocery stores - you name it, she's off the ground and off my hip. It felt like a milestone, our little girl is not a baby anymore. Normally I don't share too many identifying pictures but I'm so proud of our little girl on her happy day! (And these are huge smiles) "Set your sights high, the higher the better. Expect the most wonderful things to happen, not in the future but right now. Realize that nothing is too good. Allow absolutely nothing to hamper you or hold you up in any way" - Eileen Caddy. If you have a mobile body, use it to its fullest potential, our daughter is!