June 17, 2005
This year has been a really busy year so far! Natalie was in and out of the hospital a couple of times, she graduated preschool at Stephens Elementary, and has graduated from the Perlman Center at Children’s Hospital. She is going to Redwood this summer for their summer program, and is attending an adaptive communications class at the Perlman Center again.
She is doing really well making choices with switches and computers, so we are hoping to be able to get her one of her own to use all the time in the near future. She is growing like a week still, not so much in weight, but she is really long! Natalie has been laughing a lot lately, especially when little sister Phoebe plays with her or gets in trouble. She is also much more alert and we have been using eye gazing and hand positioning to allow her to communicate her choices to us, and when she makes a choice, she is definite about it!
We recently went to the Disney store to purchase a new swimsuit for Natalie, and held up two of them for her to pick from. She liked the little mermaid one. Even switching them around in front of her several times, she kept going back to the little mermaid. We are seeing more and more of her personality each day, and it is amazing for a child that they said would never come off the ventilator or open her eyes again!