Madeline is making great strides with flexing her arm. We have created a couple of exercises that she enjoys doing. She shows the ceiling her palms then the floor, then the ceiling, etc. The exercise she really enjoys is sitting in her little pink chair with her hands on the armrests and she raises and lowers herself; she turns this into a bouncing game which is good since it really takes her mind off of what she's suppose to be doing and ends up bending her elbow more than she would if she were paying attention!

Her HUGE motivation is riding her bike. We've told her that if she can touch her left ear with her right hand then she can ride her bike. The catch is that we go back to the way it was in the beginning with one of us walking beside her. She won't get to ride on her own until after she gets the OK from the doctor. When she remembers the motivation, she jumps into her chair and starts bouncing. Yesterday, she was climbing all over her playstructure, and like I said, when she isn't paying attention, she bends her elbow much further and doesn't make note of it. The rest of the time, she babies it, but it has only been 1 day after all! She's even swinging on her bottom again! Yeah!!!

We have a camping trip scheduled for this weekend, so she's very excited about that and I think much progress will be made then. She's in very high spirits so that's good. Last night, she and Zak set up the tent to air it out and she was beside herself excited. She loves an empty room so as soon as it was up, she got inside and ran & jumped around. We had to remind her that it is not a bounce-house.

There are so many other things going on around here. I don't want to give the impression that it's all about Madeline's arm. Madeline forgets about it most of the time, so of course, we do too. She still says off-the-wall things (none of which come to mind at the moment), and runs around like a wild jack-rabbit most of the time. Her Polly Pockets are her primary source of entertainment and she's really into playing albums on the turntable, the Disney tunes are her favorite.

I'll take a minute to post a couple pics from our zoo trip last week. I'll try to get the video up of Madeline with a SlothBear... whenever Madeline (no one else) came up to the glass viewing area of the enclosure, the SlothBear would chase Madeline back and forth. When she went away, he looked for her, then when she came back, it was right back to running back and forth. We tested it with me and PopPop, and other kids nearby, but it was fascinated with Madeline and that flower headband. It was funny, but a little scarey too.