July/August Update

As you can tell from the pictures, Amanda continues to be one happy, active, little girl. She is making good progress in all areas. She got to see Nana and Papa in Florida in early July and then got to spend some time with Grandmama and Grandpa in California in late July so she and Katie have had lots of fun times this summer. Amanda's appointments at UCLA went well. The doctors felt like she was making good progress, praise God! We also are implementing a new plan of attack to try to put c-difficile behind us forever. She will be on antibiotics (2 kinds) every six hours for six weeks and at the same time will be on pharmaceutical grade lactobacillus and bovine collostrum. We will keep you posted on how things go.

Amanda's latest new skills include walking in a regular walker with assistance (see above), kneeling (both high and low -- low shown above); "walking" up the stairs holding onto someone's hands; holding herself in a crawling position; army crawling on the floor to get toys (usually backwards or sideways but sometimes frontwards); and being a total wild woman on our bed (she sits up turns over and dives; and she also kicks so hard on her back that she almost does a headstand). She continues to say Dada, Mama, more, baba (bottle), Bo (her therapy horse), kiss, and a few other things. She still loves to give kisses and is getting more consistent with waving. Her favorite food is Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal. She also loves to swim and go to the beach. At the beach, she sits in the small waves and giggles when the water runs against her tummy.

We hope you are having a wonderful summer! Thanks for all of your wonderful thoughts and prayers. May God Bless you and yours!

Susan