14 Months

Since I wrote Jenna's last update based on what she was doing at 1 year I decided to do a quick update on what she's been doing since then. The biggest thing is that she is finally pulling up!

This is her first official time pulling up on her own. (13 months 2 weeks 3 days old)

She had been working on pulling up since her first birthday and had been pulling to her knees for quite some time, but just finally was strong enough to make it all the way to her feet. We're so proud of her and how hard she's worked to do it! After a few days of pulling up only on very sturdy objects she started pulling up on some more precarious surfaces and can now pull up on almost anything.

Seriously, have you seen a cuter girl?

Like a lot of babies, once she learned to pull up, she couldn't quite figure out how to get back down. Because we've had to teach her how to do each new skill I knew she wouldn't be able to figure out how to get down on her own. It took her 2 hours to go to bed the first night because she kept pulling up, throwing her paci out of her crib, and then crying until someone rescued her. Thankfully, her physical therapist was already scheduled to come the next day and gave me some tips on how to help her learn how to get down. She's still very tentative and uncoordinated getting down on our wood floors, but has perfected the drop in her bed.

A few days after mastering pulling up she began attempting to climb up our stairs. The first day she managed to get up two and the next day she went up all of them (we only have six, so it's not a full flight). Her physical therapist has been so happy with her progress, and we are too! Now, we're just working on strengthening her hips, cruising (which she is also doing!), and walking while holding onto our hands in order to be able to walk independently. With how quickly she's been progressing she could be walking in a couple of months! No matter how long it takes her, we're so thankful that God has seen fit to allow her to continue to develop, grow, and become stronger each day.

One last thing that I don't think I've written on here yet, on Jan 29th Jenna was seen by a developmentalist (a dr. specializing in development and developmental issues) and was officially diagnosed with benign congenital hypotonia (low muscle tone) and hypermobile joints (very flexible joints), but the doctor didn't see any other areas for concern! There was always a concern that the low muscle tone was a side effect of a larger problem (most likely neurological if anything), but Dr. K felt very strongly that there isn't anything else going on with Jenna. She also reassessed her development and Jenna is now at 11-12 months in almost all areas of development! She is delayed in feeding and gross motor skills, but is just a little behind in the rest now. She has begun feeding therapy, and is quickly catching up in that area as well.