Warning, pictures ahead!

Our physical therapist is across the ocean blue this week, so Marissa gets a reprieve from the weekly manipulations.  Just because the weekly therapy appointment is postponed for another week, doesn’t mean that the Wife and I don’t work her.  Situps, check; yoga ball balance, check; stander, check with a gold star!

She’s doing much better in the stander than I thought she would.  She hates restraints.  Hug her too tightly and she gets wiggly.  Sit in the carseat for too long, and it’s misery for all concerned.  The five point harness plus leg restraints in the stander I thought would be the infant equivalent Torquemada, water boarding, and the iron maiden all rolled into one contraption.  Two days.  It took her two days to get up to tolerating an hour per session in the stander.

These pics are from yesterday- she’s out cold today.

This is progress for sure.  More progress, and this made me a bit weepy last Wednesday.

Not immediately apparent is why this is progress.  Marissa is 18 months old in a few days.  She can’t sit, talk, hold things, or feed herself.  She was holding the pacifier, examining it, tracking it well with her eyes and trying, trying desperately, to bring it to her mouth.  Easily, this is the most coordinated we’ve ever seen her.

Between only one drop seizure during therapy and the coordination, it’s more hope, and that’s in short supply some days.  Fill up the tank when you can!

As a minus, we had a nasty cluster of 45 spasms at 3AM this morning.  Time to up the Vigabatrin dose to 3/4 of a tab at night, and a half in the morning.  We’re not at the optimal dose yet, but we’re getting close.  After an attack like that she’s normally just out of it and crabby for the rest of the day.  You’d never even tell that she had any seizures this morning, let alone a mega-cluster based on how she’s acting today.

Otaku Fairfax

Anime for me started fairly early but petered out before it really got a toehold in the United States.  I religiously watched Star Blazers (Battleship Yamato for you purists) when I could find it on Channel 38 out of Boston as a kid.  Battle of the Planets was decent (but doesn’t hold up to modern viewing, even after the Turner edits have been removed), and Voltron was a bit too late in my childhood to be truly absorbed and appreciated for what it was, but I am fully buzzword compliant on the Lions versus Vehicles argument.  The anime mania of the nineties and whatever we’re calling the first 9 years of this century (the double-aughts?) I completely skipped due to a confluence of factors, not the least of which included making the world safe for democracy doing 5 knots to nowhere somewhere in the Atlantic ocean.  I do understand the draw of Anime, but just don’t have the time to get so involved, nor am I the targeted demographic.

Ozine Fest 09 was held a few days ago at the Megamall in the Phillippines.  Marissa’s Godfather’s kids went with their Mom.  The enclosed cosplay pictures are PG, tops, so don’t get too excited.

Maybe I’ll get a Hello Kitty hat for Fairfax for his next convention.  Meta!  Thanks, guys!  Have a good trip back to your Papa on the 16th.