Let's Get Physical.

And not in that fun sweat banded, Olivia Newton John way...

So aside from Alexa seeing the ped on Tuesday for her illness, she also was there for her 9 month well baby visit. My baby is NINE months old. She's been here longer than I was able to stay pregnant. She did pretty good this time - weighing in at 14 pounds and is now 25.5 inches long. Considering 9 months ago she was 3 pounds and 17 inches, I feel its safe to say we've come a long way, baby! She's on the growth charts FINALLY with her head circumference, but is still on her own curve for the weight and height charts. Clearly Alexa feels 'Screw your growth charts.' Which hey, normally I'm all about, but this time some not so good came out of her appointment as well.

Alexa isn't meeting milestones for babies in a timely fashion. Hell, she's not even meeting them in a timely fashion for her adjusted preemie age. She is capable of doing some things, sitting up unassisted for a few minutes on her own, rolling over completely in all directions, passing toys from one hand to the other, and certainly she gets an A+ at knocking her spoon out of my hand at feeding time. She's got great hand-eye coordination. She pushes up on her arms and gets her knees bent into an almost but not quite crawl position. My humble opinion - she's lazy, and slow moving in doing things. She chooses to do them in her own way on her own time line. The Doctors' humble opinion - she needs physical therapy.

I will be receiving a referral letter in the mail this week to send Lexi off for an evaluation by a physical therapist. I will then - MOST LIKELY - have to take her for weekly treatments with one. She needs to gain strength in her torso and arms, and even in her wee little legs, so she can learn to do all the things babies her age are doing.

I assure you, this will be 10 times more trauamatic on me than on her. Alexa does not like to be pushed to do things she doesn't want to do. It will break my heart to see her cry when someone MAKES her do something. It will break my heart even further to see those real little tears roll down her chubby cheeks because her Mama can't run over and scoop her up and tell her it's ok -not this time. I have to let her learn, and I KNOW it's what needs to be done, but that doesn't make it any easier on me. With any luck, she'll like it, and will adjust accordingly and in a short period of time. I've been making Alexa work those little arms and legs for weeks, but clearly I'm missing out on some important thing here, because otherwise she'd be doing things already. Here's to hoping that this works out well. My little one is a fighter!