Physical Therapy Popcorn Popper

Chloe's PT, Lois, visited on Thursday. The last time she saw Chloe was June - right before we went on vacation. And Chloe didn't start walking until we returned from vacation. Lois has been hearing stories about Chloe's new walking abilities from the other therapists and was anxious to see her. And Chloe did not disappoint! Lois was thrilled and, other than letting her continue practicing walking, her only bit of advise was to have Chloe kick a ball for balance. She didn't realize that kicking a ball is one of Chloe's favorite games. She dribbles the ball (for all you non-soccer players like me, that means kick it) around the whole house. Dave and I joke that Chloe's going to be our big soccer player.

Something else that we've been working on is getting Chloe's arms down. (Interestingly, she tends to keep her arms down while dribbling a soccer ball.) She walks with her hands up at about shoulder level in, what Vision Therapist Linda calls, a "defensive" position. This is common for visually impaired kids. The problem is that it's not good for balance. Chloe still tends to fall a lot when she's walking with her hands up. I pulled out this little popcorn popper a few weeks ago and it's taken a while for her to get the hang of it but she can finally do it! I tend to not let her walk outside on the sidewalk because she falls so often that her knees get scraped up every single time. With the popcorn popper, though, she kept her hands down and only fell once!

As long as I can keep her moving forward with both hands on it it works great! She gets lazy sometimes and pulls it. Then she can start running and fall. She started pulling it going down the driveway once and she's fast! Fortunately, I grabbed her before she got completely out of control.

She can pick up some speed going down the driveway! Immediately after taking this picture Bluebell bulleted past us and stopped right before getting to the street. I don't know if she didn't want to be left behind or was placing herself between Chloe and the street. I wouldn't put the latter past her. She's a good dog and natural herder.

Taking a little break. "Hi Bobo!"