Standing Tall

Ryan has been working tirelessly in Physical Therapy. Ashley has been hitting him hard with sit to stands, standing, balancing, and walking in his gait trainer. On Monday we had a bit of a breakthrough. Ashley had him standing and she was keeping her hands around him as needed for extra support or to remind certain muscles to kick in and do their job by tapping those muscles. The more we work with him, the better he gets (duh) and after a few tries, she was able to remove her hands and let him stand on his own. This is nothing new - he's been doing this for quite a few weeks, but usually only for 2 or 3 seconds or so before he loses his balance or one of his hips collapses or something similar. Today, however, he stood by himself for probably 30 whole seconds! Of course we weren't counting it or timing it, but Ashley and I were just looking at each other, wide-eyed, in disbelief for how long he was standing there. I feel so good about it and am certain this is a true indicator of some great things to come!

After he sat back down, Ashley and I both broke into huge applause for him and were just oohing and ahhing over how well he did. Ryan was on Cloud 9 and he could tell that we thought he did something great and he was just beaming!

After that long standing period, I went to grab my Flip camera to record him doing it again. Of course, when I had the camera in my hand, I wasn't able to use his toys as a distraction/motivation and he didn't do quite as well, But this will give you a preview of what he's doing now and how far he's come. I am so proud of him!