SO, how awesome is that?!!!! Man, Lindsay did awesome (talking about the abc 33/40 video linked here). If you know her, you know how terrified she was to be on tv. It took a lot of coaxing and encouraging. I’m so thankful she got some much-deserved attention. Her Mom-ness is amazing. New word, “Mom-ness.” -Proper adjective? Grammar was never my forte. I just think Lindsay did so great. It’s funny. I know plenty of you have been around a filming of something, but they shot almost 6 hours of footage for a 4min spot. The camera man said he was just loving getting it all. Nicole put together a great story as well. Thank you. I also appreciate you not calling it a blog.
Well, here we go. Bentley has made so much stinking progress over the last few months. It’s really amazing to see what God has done through Lindsay to help Bentley get stronger and become more vocal. I know I keep saying it, but I’ll put together a video showing some progress soon. Finding the time to piece it all together is a little tough.
Her speech is really coming along. We have entered the world of music and as you can imagine, this is really getting her going. My Spotify playlists are starting to fill up with all sorts of random kiddy songs. Almost every morning, on my long drive to work, my music gets interrupted with the Good Morning song by The Kiboomers. Each morning Bentley gets to hear the Good Morning song. Her face lights up as soon as the lady starts singing. It’s so cool. That’s our new way of saying “GOOD MORNING!!!!!!!!!!!!” She seems to like it. I tried “Good Morning Vietnam” with Robin Williams, but didn’t get the same response. We have Bentley a little piano and she can bang on it for days. We discovered if you sit her in front of a real piano you have instant baby sitter, as long as she doesn’t fall off the bench. She hasn’t. Although she did fall off the bed. It was inevitable. Blind toddlers do that sometimes. Lindsay was beside herself. I reminded her, one day Bentley will walk into walls, right now she crawls into floors.
Bentley’s strength is not progressing quite as fast as we would hope, but showing improvement. We do standing exercises multiple times per day. We have this cool “standing chair” that isn’t a chair at all. It’s a convoluted harnessed contraption. It’s basically two poles with a bunch of straps between them holding her up. She stands in that 10-15 min a day. Then I do some exercises with her each night. She’s starting to lock-out her legs some, which is nice. Crawling still really isn’t happening either. She kind-of scoots along the floor dragging her arms behind her. Lindsay does some serious crawling training during the day. I’m, honestly, terrible at it. You have to keep her legs narrow together and help her move her arms ahead of her so she kind of pushes and pulls herself. We do some assisted pushups hoping to encourage her to push herself off the ground. The thing is, she loves the ground. It doesn’t bother her at all. That’s not what you want when teaching her to push up. I really wouldn’t be surprised if she walked before she formally crawled. That could be in 2017, but it could happen.
Well, here we go. Bentley has made so much stinking progress over the last few months. It’s really amazing to see what God has done through Lindsay to help Bentley get stronger and become more vocal. I know I keep saying it, but I’ll put together a video showing some progress soon. Finding the time to piece it all together is a little tough.
Her speech is really coming along. We have entered the world of music and as you can imagine, this is really getting her going. My Spotify playlists are starting to fill up with all sorts of random kiddy songs. Almost every morning, on my long drive to work, my music gets interrupted with the Good Morning song by The Kiboomers. Each morning Bentley gets to hear the Good Morning song. Her face lights up as soon as the lady starts singing. It’s so cool. That’s our new way of saying “GOOD MORNING!!!!!!!!!!!!” She seems to like it. I tried “Good Morning Vietnam” with Robin Williams, but didn’t get the same response. We have Bentley a little piano and she can bang on it for days. We discovered if you sit her in front of a real piano you have instant baby sitter, as long as she doesn’t fall off the bench. She hasn’t. Although she did fall off the bed. It was inevitable. Blind toddlers do that sometimes. Lindsay was beside herself. I reminded her, one day Bentley will walk into walls, right now she crawls into floors.
Bentley’s strength is not progressing quite as fast as we would hope, but showing improvement. We do standing exercises multiple times per day. We have this cool “standing chair” that isn’t a chair at all. It’s a convoluted harnessed contraption. It’s basically two poles with a bunch of straps between them holding her up. She stands in that 10-15 min a day. Then I do some exercises with her each night. She’s starting to lock-out her legs some, which is nice. Crawling still really isn’t happening either. She kind-of scoots along the floor dragging her arms behind her. Lindsay does some serious crawling training during the day. I’m, honestly, terrible at it. You have to keep her legs narrow together and help her move her arms ahead of her so she kind of pushes and pulls herself. We do some assisted pushups hoping to encourage her to push herself off the ground. The thing is, she loves the ground. It doesn’t bother her at all. That’s not what you want when teaching her to push up. I really wouldn’t be surprised if she walked before she formally crawled. That could be in 2017, but it could happen.
Vocally, Bentley has got the “ah” sound down pat. She can say “ah” just about 3,000 different ways. We play the Apples and Bananas song a lot to get her used to the other vowels. She really doesn’t move her mouth much when making her noises though. You kind of have to move your lips to get other vowels. A constant steady grin doesn’t do it. She has started to discover she can make different shapes with her mouth. Occasionally if she gets silent, you’ll look over at her and she’s moving her lips and mouth in to all sorts of crazy shapes. Now we just need to connect the two, sound and lip moving. Putting her hand on my mouth doesn’t register yet. Except with one thing, banging her teeth together. She does this funny thing where she chomps her teeth together over and over. As she’s doing it she is placing her hands all over her face and head, feeling the jolt caused by the sound. She starts with her cheeks, moves to both eyes, then her forehead, then the side of her head, next the back of her head, and finishes by placing both index fingers under her chin. It’s hilarious to watch, yet amazing all at the same time. She even does it to me. I can get going with the chomp, and she will put her hands on my face and start the investigation. Then she’ll go back and forth a little. She’ll do it, and I’ll do it. Pretty awesome how she picks up on that. (Just realized I may have talked about Bentley’s talking already, up a few paragraphs. That’s what I get for taking multiple nights to do this. Oh well.)
Got distracted on a walk with mom. As summer has progressed you can imagine she’s spent quite a bit of time in the water. Lindsay has taken her to Water World a couple of times now. I assume she likes it. We’ve discovered Bentley is fond of anything that can squirt or spray water. Shower heads are a favorite. We’ve been able to make it down to the beach with friends and family two weekends this summer. Both times had some water fountain things Bentley could play in. She can sit on a splash pad and play with one stream of water for hours. She just loves it. The actual beach, to include the sand and ocean, was not been instant successes. The first time all she wanted to do was be held. She did ok with the sand when there was a light wind and not much surf, but the next day when the wind was howling and the waves were crashing it was obvious there was a little too much stimuli. We let her run silent for a while, and she was just as happy as can be. You can tell sometimes the noise just overwhelms her and she needs to chill for a minute. Let her get her bearings and then turn her back on. She’ll be fine. The second trip Lindsay was more prepared. With a baby pool in tow, she sat under the umbrella and played with her cousin Carson for hours. The waves never appeared to bother her then. She just needed some distraction. Did I mention she’s really cute in her itty bitty swimsuit? Cause she is. I said ‘itty bitty.”
First day of school picture I’m not sure what else to update you on. She had a great, progressing, last few months. Lindsay still makes her weekly trips to Birmingham. Lindsay rotates staying with her sister and mine. Lindsay’s dad is kind enough to make the trips with her pretty often. B’s been able to hit up the sensory room a couple times as well, once for another interview. I haven’t seen the article or video for it yet. I can’t thank ABC 33/40 enough for the great little segment on my two girls. They filmed a ton of video for the 4min spot, and talked with Lindsay for 2 hours or so. I really can’t pass up the opportunity to show people, because it really is answering the prayer I pray every night. I just want God to use her to touch the world. Lindsay and I are both so proud of how she handled herself. Bentley hasn’t gotten a big head about it yet. Haha. I’m just glad Lindsay could stop sweating long enough to film. She was so nervous I really thought she would cancel at the last minute. Lindsay, you were awesome!
Bentley had her first day of school today. Like everyone else lately. The next class she begins at The Bell Center requires Lindsay to drop her off and leave during class. It’s a group where volunteers help the kids do their activities. Lindsay is pretty anxious about it. I’m trying to get her to just go grab a turtle deluxe at O’Henry’s. Who am I kidding? Lindsay barely made it out of the building. Bentley did great though. When Lindsay walked back in she was sitting up at a table just talking away.
We’ll let you know how it goes. Ok guys. Ya’ll have a great week. Thanks for the prayers and support for my angel. Thank YOU for being awesome.
Bentley had her first day of school today. Like everyone else lately. The next class she begins at The Bell Center requires Lindsay to drop her off and leave during class. It’s a group where volunteers help the kids do their activities. Lindsay is pretty anxious about it. I’m trying to get her to just go grab a turtle deluxe at O’Henry’s. Who am I kidding? Lindsay barely made it out of the building. Bentley did great though. When Lindsay walked back in she was sitting up at a table just talking away.
We’ll let you know how it goes. Ok guys. Ya’ll have a great week. Thanks for the prayers and support for my angel. Thank YOU for being awesome.
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