The Baby Expert: One Little Step

For the past several months now, we’ve been taking Caitlyn to do physical therapy at the hospital to help work on her leg muscles. In the beginning, it was because she would constantly tense them up, so they would teach us how to massage her muscles to help them relax.

When it was time for her to begin crawling, they showed us the proper way for her to crawl. And now that it’s time for her to begin walking, the therapist has been showing us different ways to get her moving on her own. They say Caitlyn has shown much improvement since the beginning, but that her leg muscles are still a bit weaker than where they should be, and that she’s still lagging behind others in her age group.

She’s closing in on 14 months now and still hasn’t walked on her own yet. I’m not too concerned about this because the time frame for walking is pretty wide. However, before all this therapy, I never really thought about teaching Caitlyn how to walk or crawl. I thought these were things that would come naturally to her. Heck, I didn’t even think there was a proper way for her to sit or crawl or stand, but apparently, there is. But while babies do learn on their own, we still have to be here to guide them in the right direction.

Our physical therapist said we needed to try to make walking more fun and interesting for Caitlyn so she would be encouraged to do it on her own. So for the past two or three weeks, we’ve been cheering her on and coming up with various ways to motivate and keep her interested. That mainly means tempting her with treats.

And it seems to be working. In just this short span of time, Caitlyn has become more willing to take assisted steps and has started to walk longer distances than before. My dad has even set the lofty goal of seeing Caitlyn walk on her own before he flies back to the States. Anything is possible!

I know this because the wife and I managed to see The Dark Knight Rises the other day. In my opinion, it was rather disappointing, especially in the way it portrayed Catwoman and Bane. Plus I thought it was full of plot holes. 7 out of 10 at best from this harsh critic.

Anyway, the point is, my parents were able to pull off the seemingly impossible – taking care of Caitlyn with the two of us gone. And for four hours at that. I thoroughly congratulate them for being the first ones to succeed, but hopefully not the last!