Our Little Makayla

Makayla has been a joy to us since the day she was born. We have all been through several challenges with her but we feel that she is worth every struggle we have been through. She has a developmental delay - low muscle tone - that has required many hours of physical and speech therapy to help get her caught up with children her age. While she was not walking, she crawled faster than any baby I have ever seen! There is no medical reason that she should not walk after all the tests they could not find any reason for her delay.

I am happy to say that all of the hard work is showing through. In the summer of 2007 she was walking with the assistance of her walker or whoever fingers she could grab which we were so proud of her, (considering that the year before she had a hard time standing up at all!) She wanted so badly to be able to play with her friends and cousins and was having a hard time staying up with them because by the time she crawled to where they were they were off to a new game or adventure. It was heartbreaking as her parent to see her want something so bad and almost get there and be disappointed.

We would try our best to try to make her walk more to build leg strength or do more exercises but in typical Makayla style we had to do things at her pace! She started wanting to carry toys everywhere she went but was crawling on the top of her wrists to be able to carry toys in her hands so we made a rule that if she wanted to carry the toys that she would have to walk. And before we knew it she was cruising around all by herself! It was so great to see her walking without assistance. We are still dealing with a little bit low muscle tone in her legs but she is getting stronger everyday. And I never knew that seeing a little girl walk out of her bedroom when she woke up could make a person so happy!

September 2007 we bought Makayla a little potty to start potty training, we had a slow start but by the beginning of November she was getting the hang of it. She was wearing panties during the day by the middle of December and in the beginning of April she starting crying at night when we would go to put Pull Ups on her. So we decided to try having her wear panties to bed at night. She has done so great and has had no night time accidents ... yet! Right after this she started going potty all by herself, she will go when she needs to and we don't have to remind her all of the time! Her teachers are amazed that she was able to potty train so fast. Simply because she has not been walking for very long and she has been low muscle tone and they did not think that her muscles would be ready.

She is doing so awesome and now we just need to get her words to come out more clearly! We are getting there but have lots of help by her great pre-school teachers that help us so much. She is a little angel and we are so blessed to have her in our family.