10 Years Old!

I can hardly believe it as I say it.  Sophie is 10 years old today!


What a beautiful, strong, happy, determined 10 year old she is too!  She is already giving us the tween attitude and I love every bit of it.  I can hardly help but laugh when she gives us such sass, she knows what she wants and man does she let us know!

10th birthday

10 years flew by and it seems almost impossible that it is true!  At the same time, so many of our life experiences in her first few years seemed to go in slow motion and I thought we would never get back to real life speed.  Such is the life of a girl with complex medical needs.  We have so much to be thankful for, of course the biggest thing is that Sophie is here with us celebrating this milestone birthday.

1 day old

I didn't meet Sophie in person until she was 7 days old.  It was the hardest 7 days being separated from her, not being there for her as I longed to be.  I was the first to hold her though when she was 8 days old and it was the best feeling in the world and we both knew that we were meant to be together and everything seemed ok. 


Some days Sophie still just needs her mom.  She yells and cries until I am there to hold her, no one else can calm her and I am so happy that I can do that for her.  She is a daddy's girl but sometimes mom is just what you need.

8 days old

10th birthday

This year we were able to really celebrate Sophie's 10th year by being granted a dream trip by a wish granting organization, the Sunshine Foundation.  It was the most magical week for our entire family and it just came at the most perfect time.  We made memories like never before and Sophie just soaked it all up.


Sophie is the light of our lives, as is her brother Lucas and I am so excited to celebrate every birthday that is to come.  But this was a special one, a birthday we really didn't know if we would ever see and I know that we are so blessed to be here, all of us together.

Happy birthday my sweet Miss Sophie! xoxo

A Customized Wike

I have posted before about our love for the Wike Special Needs bike trailer/stroller that we have for Sophie.  I found it on Kijiji a few years ago and we use it every summer at the cottage as Sophie's mode of transportation at the beach.  It is made by a company in Guelph, Ontario and they made the price very accessible, usually something like this the price skyrockets when it is labelled "special needs".  Wike is coming out with a new special needs bike/trailer combo and I am excited to see what it looks like in its' final form.




As Sophie has grown it has become difficult, almost impossible to get her in the Wike safely.
The photo above from a couple years ago shows how high Sophie sat up in the Wike before customizing it for her. 


We have always strapped her into a car seat in the Wike in the past.  Now that she is so big, her head skims the roof of the trailer when we are putting her in and she barely fits in the car seat anyway.  So I approached our seating clinic to see if they could custom make a seat or insert for the Wike for us.  One of the techs took it on as a project over the winter.  We talked through what I did and didn't want, the safety aspects we both felt were important and comfort for Sophie too.  He loved the challenge and boy did he deliver. 


In March we went in to see how it was going and to have a test.  This is what it looked like.  The old bench seat was ripped out and there was a new seat that was lowered and velcroed in.  There is a new seatbelt bolted to the base, so it is still usable as a bike trailer.  We re-used a few pieces of equipment.  We used all the harness strapping, clips and seatbelt from the old car seat.  That saved us a bunch of money.  We also took in an old wheelchair seat we had but they ended up using a larger one someone had donated to the centre.  They constructed the new laterals and made the back.











Here it is all complete with a new contoured seat and colour matching covers!  I was so excited when I saw it, I knew how much effort had been put into her new Wike and it was fantastic!








Sophie now has lots of growth space and it is easier for two of us to get her into the seating because it has been lowered so much.





Here are some action shots from our first summer with her new customized Wike.

Checkout those storm clouds, time to pack up and beat it.

Sometimes your cousin wants in on the action too, it is a nice ride after all.  Sophie is happy to share :)

What a lucky girl, even Nana and Papa and her Oma love to explore at the beach with her.  It is such a relief knowing that we can easily tour around with Sophie at the beach for years to come.

Halloween

Sophie wanted to be Emma Wiggle for Halloween again this year.  It didn't matter what we suggested she made it quite clear that Emma was the choice.  So, Emma it was!  Sophie's grade is part of the parade at school as well.  Here she is with her nurse and EA.

Lucas was Smurfette.  What can I say, I have a daring boy with a good sense of self and humour!

Zoe was Rapunzel and she came trick or treating with us for the first time.

Lucas went with all his buddies again this year and a couple of the moms tagged along with them, they became the candy haulers as it is all about the quantity for these boys.

Sophie went with all her school friends for the third year, these girls love Sophie to pieces and Sophie was so excited to be out with them all for trick or treating.  They are always sure to bring Sophie some candy from each house.  She can't eat any of it so I get a few snacks ;)  Zoe had a blast with the older girls and they made her feel so welcome.

The best part is it only rained a tiny bit and it was much warmer than last year.  Hurray!

Therapeutic Riding

Sophie had been on a waitlist for a local therapeutic riding place nearby for well over a year.  We had waited three + years before that for her seizures to stabilize so that we could even apply.  We finally got a call in October that they had a spot open up for her.  I used to ride competitively when I was a teenager so I was over the moon that my girl was going to ride horses!  When we arrived Sophie was visibly excited and didn't want to take her eyes off the horses.

Lucas gettting in on the horsey action. lol.

We took her out for an assessment and we were sooooo excited.  Unfortunately that excitement was blown to smitherines pretty quickly.  We got her up on a horse and they expected her to hold her trunk up mostly by herself.  Sophie doesn't have that muscle tone needed to keep herself upright and she was a rag doll without any support.  It went downhill really fast and before I knew it we were being told that she wasn't a candidate for the institute.

I was devastated, we had been excited for this for so very long and it was gone just like that.  I was a mess, crying right there.  Sophie had a cut on her nose from the helmet when they let her head smash on the neck of the horse.  They were obviously not prepared at this facility for someone with such severe CP and it showed right away.

I have a number of friends who have successfully enrolled their children in therapeutic riding/hippotherapy with kids as severe as Sophie or more so.  Once we lick our wounds we will start looking for a new place to try.  In the meantime I have these adorable photos of Sophie in her riding helmet.

This photo was when the OT finally went in to help.  They took her off the horse shortly after as they thought she was in distress.

Thanksgiving Smiles and Sunshine

Back it up to October again.

Thanksgiving was a little later this year on the weekend of October 12th, so many leaves were down but it was a beautiful day, if not a bit chilly.

We headed out to my mom's for dinner a little early and took a detour to the park we go to each year for Thanksgiving photos.  This year it was just the four of us but I got some great photos.  We rode the little train and the carousel and just had a nice walk while Lucas scootered along up and down the hills.

We have so much to be thankful for. Sophie and Lucas have both been very healthy this fall.  When days are hard or especially tiring I remind myself of that.

Lucas wanted to ride both the carousel and the train and Sophie was quite happy to do the same.  We had the carousel all to our selves.  The train was busy and we had to brake for some Canadian Geese which added some excitement for the kids.

The holiday weekend was over in the blink of an eye as always.  I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!