Tag Archives: Mia

A True Outlier: Mia Skins the Cat

Dr. Karen Pape wrote the following post on her site in August 2013. Sadly, Dr. Pape died on June 2, 2018. As a tribute to her, I’m reposting it here. Below her post, I share a comment about falling that I wrote in response to her original post. Shortly after Dr. Pape wrote this, I shared my  Reflections on Outliers Post by Dr. Karen Pape which in many ways was the seed for the career transformation that I have undertaken this year.  

In a previous post, I asked people to write me about Outliers…children who were doing more than expected after an early brain or nerve injury. This is Mia, demonstrating a new skill on her 4th birthday.

When you watch her “Skinning the Cat”, it is hard to believe that she had a stroke in the early days of life. The damage was to the left side of her brain, causing a right hemiplegia. Yet holding on to the rings, both hands and arms are working equally hard. Both legs swing up and over. There is no evidence of the hemiplegia. This result is not magic – it is the result of a determined child who has adopted the “I can do it” philosophy taught to her by an equally determined mother. I think both of them qualify as Outliers!

This is the link to the full story of how Mia first learned to swing, then to lift her legs up and finally over the top. http://marazoemia.net/2013/07/11/case-study-skin-the-cat/

Her mother’s description, still shots and videos, take you step-by-step through Mia’s learning process. First and foremost, Mia expects to be able to accomplish this task and she works hard, through many failures, until she reaches her goal. She is encouraged by her mother and also has the added role model of her older sister. If Zoe can do it, then I can do it! I am quite sure that during the learning process, Mia has taken some falls. She probably had a few bruises as well. Learning a new skill is a series of failures, trying new methodologies and finally success. Mia has the advantage of watching her older sister work through the same sequence of learning and she is up to the challenge.

How many children with an early brain or nerve problem are allowed to fall? When I was in clinical practice, I always checked young children for bruises on the legs. It is a normal finding in growing, exploring children. The absence of bruises often means there is an excess of watchful helpfulness. The cognitive neuroscience experts…and master coaches…understand the simple reality that learning is an experiential process. No able-bodied child has ever learned to walk without a lot of falls. Brain neuroplasticity is activated by a novel challenge. In the absence of challenge, the child’s normal habits dominate. In the past, many therapists had tried to get Mia to extend her arm and grasp. She learned how to do it when she had to…new habits are formed by novel, challenging tasks that have consequences. Read the whole post about Mia’s learning process. Her mother and sister offer some guidance and ensure her safety, but the process of trial and error…by Mia…is the way her brain learns the task.

At the end of the video, Mia says, “I flipped”. Her pride in herself is a precious gift and I am grateful to Mia’s Mom for sharing her story. We need more of them.

August 7, 2013 
Mara commented:

It’s such an honor to have Mia featured here along with Zoe and me. Thank you.

And, you guessed right, she definitely has fallen over and over. She falls all the time and happily proclaims before I can say anything, “I’m okay Mommy!” Then, she hops up and continues doing whatever has captured her attention. And manipulating band-aids for all those little boo-boos is excellent fine-motor practice for both hands, fundamentally a bimanual task.

Just yesterday, we were at a play structure and Mia was playing on a triple trapeze swing, similar to the one in the video above. Just six weeks after first doing skin-the-cat, she continues to take new risks. She can hook her legs with knees bent over the bar and hang head down. She was so bold as to let go with her hands and hang there for a few seconds seeking a thrill. And then, just as I was starting to panic wondering if she’d be able to find her grasp again on the rings she did and she flipped off the bar and had the biggest smile.

It takes some training as the parent to stand by and witness this kind of courage and determination, but the rewards are tremendous and often surprising.

Sisters Pogo Sticking

This morning, I mentioned to my girls that a year ago I had posted about their pogo sticking feats. Zoe reminded me that she led the way and inspired Mia to want to learn this new skill. When I commented that Zoe hasn’t been pogo sticking lately, she said that she has outgrown the one pogo stick we have so it’s time to upgrade.

Here’s Zoe in action with Head-and-Shoulders thrown in for fun in March 2017 at age 10.

Zoe’s tricks on the pogo stick motivated Mia to master her own tricks. A year prior to this, Mia had a hard time making the pogo stick go down.  Here is Mia “one handed” with her tongue out to help focus! Variety is one ingredient in healthy movement development so part of what I am sharing this month are many of the different activities Mia tries. Pogo sticking requires balance, timing, and comfort with falling. Here’s Mia in 2017 at age 7.

And, here is Mia this year in 2018 at 8 years old.

Library Brick – A Permanent Marker of Reading Streak

This picture is from the grand opening celebration of the Christa McAuliffe Branch Library in May 2016. An artist drew these fun henna tattoos on the girls’ hands. I bought this brick nearly a year prior to support the library construction. At the time of the brick installation, we were at 1327 consecutive days of our reading streak. Now, we are a month beyond 2000 Days of Reading Aloud.

These days, I spend a lot of time at the Christa McAuliffe Branch Library. It has great light, tons of windows, and plenty of quiet working space. Each time I enter, I find our brick.

While I’ve read to both girls since birth, Zoe initiated the reading streak, and we have promised to keep it going as long as we can. Mia’s interest and endurance come and go, sometimes it’s “too many words” and other times she joins us. Both girls are capable readers and still love being read to at least once and sometimes twice each day. Sometimes we have two read-aloud books going at the same time, one of each girl’s choice. Car rides got easier once both girls were interested in the same books. This beats the couple of years when our long drives alternated between an hour of quiet (Mia’s frequent choice) and an hour of listening (Zoe’s preference), and all the associated negotiations about who gets to go first and when it’s time to transition, especially if we were mid-chapter.

About ten days ago, in anticipation of the release of The Penderwicks at Last, the fifth and final book in the series by Jeanne Birdsall, Zoe was rereading Harry Potter, and she told me that she planned to finish reading the sixth and seventh Harry Potter books then reread all four Penderwicks books so she’d be ready for the fifth book. She did it. The newest Penderwicks book arrived yesterday and she read it straight through. Some school and household tasks get put off when she’s in a reading burst like this; it’s hard even to convince her to stop to eat or move her body.

California Bound

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A week from tomorrow, Zoe, Mia, and I are flying to San Francisco for fifteen nights in California. I’m making lists, trying to find things, working on packing after the girls are asleep, and some when they are awake, pouring over maps, contacting old friends, and making plans. Earlier this week, Zoe decided that she really wants to bring her American Girl doll, Sage, to California to show her cousin Alison who is getting married near the end of the trip. These cousins have bonded over American Girl dolls. I said no. I’ve been telling my girls that they are pretty lucky, getting to go to California at ages seven and five.

I first arrived in California twenty-three years ago, the summer after I graduated from college, for an internship with the United States Geological Survey (USGS). The summer before that, I spent several weeks at a geology field course in Wyoming and South Dakota. My hard work earned me this internship, and a wise professor of mine helped me contact one of his colleagues at the Menlo Park office of the USGS to see if he could use some help. He could and so it was that I got to join his field crew in Mammoth Lakes, California, working with five guys, driving a 4-wheel-drive government truck around mountain roads at night to measure crustal deformation with a two-color laser geodimeter. By day, my field crew buddies taught me to recreate – mountain biking, rock climbing, hiking, and backcountry skiing in winter. I was lucky then and in the ways that life is circular, here I go again, retracing some of my path through California and eager to share it with my girls.

Back then, I was twenty-one, fresh out of college, and keen to drive cross-country to begin my adult life. My father had died a few months earlier of a brain tumor. My mother threatened that she would drive with me if I didn’t find someone else to make the cross-country trip. So, I found Jenny on the ride board at Brown University, looking for a ride to San Francisco. I loaded my little red Honda Civic with my graduation gift mountain bike standing tall atop the car, picked up Jenny in Ohio and taught her to drive stick shift as we meandered to San Francisco. I vaguely recall dropping off Jenny and sharing a meal with the eccentric family that was hosting her in San Francisco. I had friends in Palo Alto then as I do now, different friends, but a place to stay nonetheless. I checked in to the Menlo Park office to do some paperwork and then drove back east over Tioga Pass to the East Side of the Sierras to learn my field job.

The job itself involved a lot of driving on mountainous dirt roads at night to set up retroreflectors for the laser to point at for measurements. About one week out of each month, we took the show on the road to other temporary networks we monitored throughout California. I was able to extend my summer internship through the end of the year. It was eye opening in so many ways. Perhaps the biggest was that it was a pause in my life from the achievement of school, before “real” adult pursuits. It was well-timed as I was still grieving my father’s death, and welcomed the mountains to explore and inspire.

As I got restless intellectually after some months, I applied to graduate school for a Ph.D. in geophysics, both on the East Coast and on the West Coast. I visited both of my top schools. On the East Coast, an MIT professor asked me during my interview, “Have you traveled much?” I thought I had and rattled off places I had been in the United States, and on a few family and school trips to Europe. I think he was trying to sell the travel opportunities in a field focused on studying the Earth. On the West Coast, I stood on the balcony of the beautiful redwood building that is the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, part of Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego. The Pacific spoke to me. I could easily imagine spending years there. And, I did. Five to complete my Ph.D, and another year as a postdoc. Perhaps that MIT prof had planted a seed too as I traveled extensively, spending nearly a year abroad of those five years of graduate school. I spent a summer field season in Indonesia, took a sabbatical with my advisor in France, participated in research cruises in the Southern Ocean and off the coast of Baja California. And, while in La Jolla, I studied, researched and swam around the pier with friends and colleagues most days from April to October each year, as long as the water temperature was at least 64 degrees.

These are some of my stories that I want to share with my young girls on our trip. Our planned itinerary is oddly similar to my own route over the seven years that I called California home. We start with visiting friends in the Bay Area, then Yosemite, then the East Side of the Sierras, then San Diego with extended family for my niece’s wedding. Both of my girls and their three young cousins are all in the wedding.

I plan to mail our clothes for the wedding sometime this week so we don’t have to worry about keeping them safe through the mountains and driving adventures. I’m attempting to connect with friends along our route, including the lead guy on that USGS field crew who is still on the East Side, and some of my book group buddies from a book group I cofounded with other women in science seeking community way back in 1993 that is remarkably still active.

I may blog during our trip, or I may wait until we return. Meanwhile, back to packing! There’s an awful lot that needs to happen here at home and at work for me in the next week but indulging in these memories and sharing the anticipation helps me prepare too.

My Last Daycare Check

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My last daycare check is in the mail. I reach this milestone with a mix of emotions.

In the first picture above, Zoe was visiting Mia and me in the hospital. Mia was just thirty-six hours old. It was a dozen hours before she had her first seizures which meant she had to be sent alone with medical staff by ambulance from the hospital where she was born to a bigger one across the river, with a full NICU, and the ability to diagnose her stroke.

In the second picture above, taken last week, Mia and Zoe are goofing around, far too big to be in the bike trailer, but asking me to take them for a ride for fun. Zoe is seven. Mia is nearly five.

In both pictures, their sisterhood is so present. It’s ironic to me now to see Mia sucking her left thumb and Zoe studying her right thumb. This was before, before we knew that Mia would become a lefty for sure.

It’s a leap of faith to have a child, perhaps a blind leap of faith to have a second as a single mom. I leapt twice and somehow we have all made it, not just surviving nearly five years as a family of three, but really thriving even in the face of some daunting challenges.

Last year, I actively participated in Pediatric Stroke Awareness Month, blogging daily through the month of May. That effort has had many benefits, new contacts with families and professionals interested in pediatric stroke, sharing information broadly that seems to benefit others, and most personally, helping me affirm how far Mia has come with my support. It was cathartic and healing to be able to share more details of our journey. And, we raised significant funds for Children’s Hemiplegia and Stroke Association.

This year, I considered repeating my blogging streak. I could easily have written updates on all the topics of a year ago, showing Mia as an even more competent kid, now almost five. But, I made an active choice not to blog. I am investing more this year in my own self-care. Blogging that intensively last year meant lost sleep. And, this spring, we are in a big transition. I wanted some space to feel my way through the changes.

To work full-time outside the home as a single parent requires tremendous logistical support. Zoe was in a family daycare in our neighborhood her first two-and-a-half years, but even before I was pregnant with my second child, I had visited the daycare/preschool where I would later send both girls. I loved it then and still do now. Some of the teachers have been there more than twenty years. They care for infants all the way through pre-K. Both girls started there when my maternity leave ended. Zoe was in the youngest preschool class and Mia was in the infant room. For three years, both girls went there full time. For the past two years, Mia has been in preschool there and on Monday she goes for kindergarten orientation at the bilingual school where she’ll join Zoe in the fall.

Mia has just three weeks left at this beloved school. Today, she hosted me as her special guest in her class brunch. I’ve been feeling nostalgic as the end of this era approaches. I’m putting some of that energy into making a special gift for the school and cards for the teachers.

Of course, my budget will be easier without having the expense of daycare. I look forward to seeing my bank balance when my mortgage payment exceeds my childcare expenses again. That has not been true since before I had my second child. I feel grateful to have been able to afford such excellent care, to have had the amazing continuity so that both children have had many of the same beloved teachers, and that we’ve been there long enough to feel like they are part of our family, certainly part of the village supporting me in raising these beautiful girls.

When I signed us up for two spots in this daycare, even before Mia had been born, I had no idea that she would have any special needs. And then she did, and I took a lot of time in the beginning to orient the caregivers to exactly how to handle Mia when picking her up, not to prop her in sitting but to let her lie down and find her own way there. As a toddler, she went to school wearing a splint on her unaffected left hand to give her time every day to practice with righty, modified constraint therapy. The teachers followed my suggestions for sensory play with my promise that whatever was good for Mia would be great for other children too. Mia played with shaving cream, sand, water, rice. And then, after eating snack with righty, the teachers could help her take off her splint so she could go outside to play and she could use both hands and arms to master the playground by climbing, swinging, traversing the monkey bars, and sliding.

Each year that Mia has transitioned, I have met with the new teachers to orient them to her needs. I have written up a one or two-page set of suggestions for how to best support Mia’s development. Remarkably, this year, both of Mia’s teachers have marveled at her curiosity, eagerness to participate, persistence and independence, and self-care skills that are on par or ahead of some of her peers. It’s through their eyes that I have come to see Mia as so ready to take the next step, to leap from the early childhood years into elementary school with her big sister leading the way.

And, it is nearly time for me to make that transition too, to escort Mia to kindergarten orientation, to believe that we made it, not just through the financial hurdle of getting care for two kids from birth to five while working full time, but through the developmental hurdles put in our path by Mia’s stroke.

Here are my girls in action recently, Mia on her 16″ bike, confidently making a turn, Zoe joyously swinging on the trapeze swing.

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I will close with gratitude for making it to this transition with the love and support of many. Here’s one of Mia’s recent pieces of art, where she so clearly affirms her left-handedness.

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Case Study: Ponytails and Folding Socks

Zoe is a great inspiration to Mia. Just this morning, Zoe put her hair in pigtails, and before I knew it, Mia had too. Zoe is seven. Mia will be four years and nine months old tomorrow. Zoe wasn’t even aware of the idea of doing her own ponytail or pigtails until she was in kindergarten last year and saw a classmate doing it. Mia has the good fortune of watching Zoe do everything day after day so she gets the idea that she can too.

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I don’t always see it coming with these new challenges that Mia defines for herself. A couple of weeks ago at bedtime, I noticed that Mia was brushing her hair a ton with leave-in-conditioner and getting frustrated with the tangles. I thought her frustration was related to hairbrushing. It wasn’t until the next morning, when I was sitting on the couch reading to them and Mia was attempting a ponytail and getting frustrated and then going into the extensive brushing routine again that I realized her quest to give herself a ponytail.

Mia is very dominantly left handed and she can do a lot with her right hand, especially in bimanual (two-handed) activities, but learning a new skill behind her head seemed pretty daunting to me as the observer.

So, here’s what I observed in an e-mail I sent to her occupational therapist. “Mia has embarked on teaching herself to do a ponytail on her own hair. She has many of the concepts and steps but not all so is getting frustrated. I am looking for ideas and ways to support her. She puts the elastic on her left hand, uses both hands to gather the hair into her right hand to hold it there. She uses her teeth to get the elastic from her left wrist onto her left hand, and then manages to get it around the bunch of hair somehow but gets frustrated and stuck after that. She then claims her hair is tangled and embarks on a lot of spraying of leave-in-conditioner and brushing with her left hand which migrates her part further to the right. Can you help Mia work on this, break it down, etc?”

Then, I went online and searched for “one-handed ponytail” and posted to ask other families with stroke survivors for their experience with kids learning to do ponytails. One replied that her daughter had learned at age eight. Another told me how ambitious Mia is to be attempting this so young.

I thought about putting out elastics of various size and texture to let Mia experiment. But, life is busy, and I haven’t done much to support her, and still she’s learning, very much on her own initiative and with the ongoing model of Zoe.

At Mia’s weekly occupational therapy, that first week of March, they talked about how frustration comes with learning something challenging. They experimented with doing things in front of Mia so she could see and feel to get the concepts more solid. The therapist even offered that Mia could try on her hair. Instead, they made a bunch of yarn to use for practice. And, in that way, Mia learned the concept of twisting and doubling over the elastic to loop it through a second time.

I’ve seen Mia successfully make a ponytail in her hair once. Even doubled over, the elastic was too loose and fell out after about half an hour. I had no idea she could do pigtails, and since I didn’t see her doing them, I don’t know exactly how she managed, except that she must have reached over around her head to do the major work with lefty.

Since I don’t have good video of her working on this new skill, I thought I’d share another recent clip of a different self-defined fine-motor task. I got the girls new socks and Mia set herself the task of folding them all into balls. Enjoy and look to see how she uses her two hands differently. And, if you listen, you’ll hear Zoe in the background, alternately vying for attention and cheering Mia on as she folds socks. That’s our normal. Zoe said just this morning, “Mia’s learning early with the pigtails and ponytails!” Mia’s persistence, determination and inner drive are all quite remarkable, even more so because she’s not yet five.

Update from March 21, 2014

I managed to capture a video of Mia making a pigtail. Notice how she gives each of her hands different jobs at every stage of the process. And, you can see her moment of pride as she accomplishes what she set out to do. Enjoy!

Mia’s Skating, Play Detective with Me

Play detective with me as you follow along in this post and the videos.

Here’s Mia skating forward this past Monday, eight weeks into the hockey season, skating twice each week.

Note that when she skates forward, she can rotate her left leg (unaffected side) outward and push off on the inner edge of the skate blade. But, she is doing something else with her right leg and foot (affected side). She has the foot oriented such that she’s leaning on the outer edge of the blade and the foot is pointing straight ahead. When Mia skates fast at hockey practice across the ice, she literally starts at the goal line and ends up at the blue line and turns around and does the same thing again, progressing at roughly a forty-five degree angle across the ice from where she starts. At first, I thought she was trying to get to where Zoe was along the boards. But, now it makes sense. Her left leg is doing most of the work to propel her forward so she’s not skating in a straight line.

Here’s Mia skating backward from the same session.

Note that she has a hard time spending much time bearing weight on her right leg and doesn’t seem to know how to orient it. Unlike many beginning skaters, her ankle is bent outward.

Each practice, the kids do some routine skating drills including “making snow” where they brace one foot against the boards and use the other foot to repeatedly push outward to make a little pile of snow. They do this first with one foot and then with the other. After that, they do “C cuts” which helps them learn to skate backwards. Mia has complained that it’s hard for her to do these skills with righty. This might be her first direct experience of finding something difficult with her right leg and foot. She has expressed similar frustrations with her right hand when trying to do certain tasks.

Other coaches sometimes help orient Mia’s stick so it won’t trip the other kids, packed tightly, nearly forty of them lined up along the boards between the goal line and the blue line.

In my previous post about Preparing for First Hockey Season, Mia was not so advanced in her skating so she was essentially walking on ice, falling and getting up. There was no obvious difference in how she was using her legs in that video clip from two months ago, repeated here for reference.

When walking and running, Mia has no obvious issue with her gait, despite her early stroke. I’ve been wondering about her footedness. In soccer, she chooses to kick the ball with her left foot, and briefly balances on her right foot. She has grown skillful on a scooter, balancing on her left foot and pushing off with her right foot, even using her right foot to depress the rear brake on the scooter which is an advanced maneuver. Here she is on the scooter in early November.

In recent discussions on a forum for families with children who have hemiplegia or had a stroke, there’s been a discussion about how to support the development of these children’s affected foot or leg. I chimed in mentioning my observations about her scooter usage and her soccer preferences, and suggested that skating would be an excellent activity and indicated that Mia is learning now. Part of my goal in documenting Mia’s learning process in detail here is to share the nonlinearity of learning, even for Mia who by all accounts has so far had the best possible recovery from her early stroke.

Mia’s attitude continues to be incredibly determined. She was moved up from the “chair pushers” after just a few weeks to the Red group. Then, when she outgrew her skates and had a few rough practices as she adjusted to her new skates, I offered that she could go back to chair pushers. She declined. Then, in a moment of frustration, she asked to switch groups. She only stayed with the chair pushers a few minutes before returning to the Red group. She is starting to skate faster and wants to keep up and learn. She seems to not mind being among the slowest in the group, and may not notice as she’s so focused and determined.

As I observe and document Mia’s progress, I wonder what to do to help her. My goals are to support her in having fun and learning new skills that are good for her overall development, regardless of whether she wants to continue with hockey.

I could pursue a direct route and send her for private skating lessons or talk with Mia about what she’s doing and how it affects her skating. For now, at this age, I prefer a playful approach combined with giving her neuromuscular system time to mature and figure out how to skate.

I’ve been consulting with others and thinking myself of off-ice activities, inspired by Feldenkrais to introduce variablity in a playful way that will both wake up and strengthen Mia’s ability to stand upright on her skates, and freely shift her weight and use her legs and feet in a variety of ways that she will hopefully be able to transfer at some point into an improved skating stride. I will attempt to experiment with some new warm-up activities for all three of us, so it’s just something we do as a family to get ready for skating, and see what emerges.

Gymnastics Update – December 2013

The girls had a makeup class for gymnastics today as they missed their usual Wednesday class last week when we were traveling. I was able to go watch today for the first time, and was very happy to see them both enthusiastically practicing their skills.

As a young child, I was kicked out of gymnastics because I was not able to do handstands and cartwheels to someone’s satisfaction. And, then that story got told and retold by my mother in a way that was shaming. So, it’s with some relief and joy that I can see my kids in this environment that is clearly very fun and supportive.

Here’s Mia (purple leotard) in action, though somewhat distracted:

And, Zoe (black leotard) too, hamming it up for the camera:

Today, I chatted briefly with Mia’s teacher, who is not her usual teacher, and he hadn’t noticed her right side being weaker. He said she did great! It was hard to get good still pictures with the camera I had on hand so I’d like to go again with a longer lens to get some shots of Mia doing the crab walk and other weight bearing activities that are awesome for her strength and balance.

I struggle with wondering if our lives are oversheduled. It’s a lot to keep up with, even with the help of an au pair. But, then I saw the quality of teaching and therapeutic value of this activity and we’ll keep it for now. The next session starts next Wednesday for both girls.

In beginner hockey, the girls are improving their skating through practice twice a week, but the ratios are not great so it’s mostly through practice and less through instruction that they’ll learn. When we go to open skating, I can give my girls more 1-on-1 tips.

In contrast the gymnastics classes are small, and the teachers are insisting on proper form, offering lots of encouragement, and keeping an eye on helping the kids develop their skills. Mia’s class has three or four kids. Zoe’s may have six or seven.

Preparing for First Hockey Season

My girls think it’s hysterical that my first hockey shin guards were improvised, soccer shin guards paired with foam knee pads. That didn’t hold me back. I played one year with boys, starting when I was eight, and then joined the girls’ league. I went on to play Division I hockey at Brown University, just as the game was shifting to a more competitive level.

Two weeks ago, I signed the girls up for hockey and myself up to coach. The season has already started, but soccer still fills our Saturdays for another couple weeks. After figuring out that their skates still fit, and Zoe had a helmet, but Mia did not, we went shopping. I bought full sets of equipment the first weekend we decided the girls want to play but we hadn’t had time to touch it since. Sunday, they tried it all on, I showed them how to tape their sticks, we labeled it all with their names and color-coded tape (green for Mia, pink for Zoe), and the girls got so excited that they wanted to go to public skating.

October 2013 – Mia 4.25 years old, Zoe 6.75 years old
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It was not crowded, skating was fun and leisurely. Both girls wore their hockey gloves. Mia brought me her right one and asked for help to find spots for each finger. She kept it on easily throughout the hour of skating.

Both girls picked up where they had left off with their skating after a season of lessons last winter. Zoe was too fast to capture well on video in the low light. She progressed a great deal last winter, which was the first year when it was feasible for me to take both girls skating regularly, both to open skate and to weekly lessons for four months.

Here’s a moment when Zoe wanted to skate with Mia. For me, it was so lovely to be on the ice with them both. They needed much less help from me than last year, or any prior year, and I can glimpse ahead that in a few years, they’ll be skating circles around me. Zoe told me that she feels lucky that I know all about the equipment and about hockey. She has noticed that most of the soccer coaches are men and it already makes a difference to her to have me there on the ice with her.

In this tiny clip, I captured Mia falling and getting up quickly and easily. Anyone familiar with hockey knows this is the first and most important skill. The notable moment of this video for me is that to stand up, Mia first stands her right foot. Last winter, she used her left foot exclusively. Her right side is the side affected by her stroke. I’m so happy to see her using both sides now to fall and get up. And, I was also happy that she was able to manage her glove on her right hand.

The girls wanted to stay to watch the Zamboni clear the ice but there had been so few skaters that they didn’t need the Zamboni. I promised many more opportunities to watch the Zamboni.

Just to show our history of attempting to skate each winter, here’s a photo log. We missed one winter when Mia was an infant.

January 2008 – Zoe, 1 year old
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January 2009 – Zoe, 2 years old, with Mara (pregnant with Mia)
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January 2011 – Mara helping Mia get her skates on
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January 2011 – Mia, 18 months, with Mara
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January 2011 – Mia, 18 months
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January 2011 – Zoe, 4 years old
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Thanksgiving 2011 – Zoe, almost 5 years old, with cousin Alex
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Thanksgiving 2011 – Mia, 2-and-a-half
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Thanksgiving 2012 – Mia, 3-and-a-half
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Thanksgiving 2012 – Zoe, almost 6 years old
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October 2013 – Mia 4.25 years old, Zoe 6.75 years old
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Occupational Therapy – October 4

Mia has her weekly half-hour occupational therapy session on Friday mornings. Tighter school security means I can no longer observe. Fortunately, Mia’s therapist takes time to describe what they did together, sometimes using pictures as she did this past Friday. The sequences are so compelling that I want to share them.

Mia chooses where she wants to start and the therapist goes with Mia’s preferences while still keeping her goals in mind.

On Friday, Mia wanted to start in the gross motor area, throwing balls from inside the ball-pit Jump-o-lene into an inner tube with righty.

Here, Mia is carefully using her right hand to pick up a ball. Notice how she is concentrating.

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Really beautiful extension with her right arm as she throws a ball.

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Cleanup time. Mia spontaneously used both arms to help put all the balls back in the ball pit!

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Fine motor practice next. Mia was feeding the ball pennies. She initially tried to pick up the ball and squeeze it with her right hand but that was too challenging so she switched hands and held the ball with her stronger left hand while practicing pincer grasp with righty.

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Picking pennies up off the table with pincer is tricky so you can see in the final picture that Mia got creative using righty pointer to slide the penny to the edge of the table.

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