Sunday, January 11, 2009

Ava’s little personality is beginning to blossom!

Just a short recap…when a child suffers a traumatic brain injury, whether at birth or in early childhood, it can take months or years to regain what was lost.When it happens at birth, like Ava’s did, they are periodically evaluated by an Early Intervention Specialist (usually employed by your county of residence) and they tell you where your child is, developmentally.The last time Ava was evaluated, at around 9 months of age, she was said [developmentally[ to be that of a 3 month old infant.This basically means that she can ‘physically’ do what a 3 month old can.Like I said, when you have a child that is recovering from a brain injury, you learn to relish the little milestones.Well, we had an exciting last couple of weeks!Our first shift nurse, Mikki, and I were talking by Ava’s crib one day and heard her cooing.The cooing was rather persistant and it made us look over.We saw the bumper of her crib pulled down with this little hand on top of it and two little eyes looking at us like, “Are one of you gonna pick me up?”We laughed and grinned and just were amazed at what we were seeing.She heard us talking and, in order to get our attention, had grabbed the crib bumper and pulled it down to see us!For a little girl that has gone through what she’s gone through—that was cause for celebration!