I said I’d be back to continue the updates on my little Squish and her delays, and then, well, life got in the way! But here I am, AGAIN, with more updates. (Check out the rest of this series here, here, and here.) If you find any of these posts helpful, as always PLEASE leave a comment. It helps me and other readers so much! If you have more questions or want to talk closer, don’t hesitate to contact me.

Last I left off, Olivia was 11 months old and in 4 regular therapies: Physical Therapy (45 mins weekly), Occupational Therapy (45 minutes weekly), Speech Therapy (30 mins every other week) alternating with Feeding Therapy (30 mins every other week). Busy? Who, me?! Understatement of the year, but I digress. Since then she’s been busy meeting milestone and inchstone one after the other, like an actual hero. Read on for long and long overdue update.

Well hey there, you’re back! Which tells me you’re not sick of this series I’ve been doing on my youngest. (No idea what’s going on? That’s ok! Check out parts 1, 2, and 3 here to get caught up.) For now, I think I’ve mostly given a high level update from birth through about ten months old. In this post, I’ll continue to share our toddler’s journey with hypotonia and the process to diagnosing or ruling out any causes of the delays in her gross motor development.

Between her birth story and the first in a series about hypotonia, it seems my girl is stealing the show around here! Part of my mission in motherhood is sharing the details along the way, so I think it’s important not only to share the struggles but also the progress and the wins as well. The only way I’m surviving three kids, special needs, and a pandemic anyway is all the solidarity. So, might as well pay it forward, right?!

About two months after she was first referred to PT, Olivia saw the pediatrician again to check her tone, progress, and joints. We were hearing a lot of popping and cracking, which seemed to be getting worse but she was not in pain or seeming bothered by it so we were told it’s just the tendon sliding over joints; it’s apparently common for kids with low tone to have hyper mobility in their joints.

Why Won’t My Kids Listen?

Spoiler alert: you don’t (and they won’t). Wait wait wait, please keep reading, I promise there’s something useful here! If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a ton of times: it takes a village. My friends and neighbors and small group and Mothers Ministry are my village, and someone from each one of those groups has either parented their children or somehow given me a tidbit of wisdom in PRACTICAL real-time situations that stuck with me. What I mean is, I read tons of blogs and books and listened to tons of podcasts on parenting, but there’s just something about seeing a mom interact with her five-year-old who is having a colossal meltdown in front of you that makes it stick with you more than all the best blog posts in the world.

Read on, and don’t forget to comment at the end if you have something that’s been particularly helpful in your season. Share so we can all benefit (myself included)!