Funny Fridays With Natalie

I saw Natalie yesterday, My Fridays With Natalie. My biggest fear in all of this would be that Natty would never be the same. She is a very uplifting and silly little girl. I was so scared that she would lose some of that. Yesterday confirmed that she is still Natalie. She is still so funny and silly!!!!! She was very alert. She smiles and communicates through sign language because her jaw is still sewn shut. She spells things out. Thank goodness she took sign language last year. She nods her head a lot.

When I first got there the physical therapists came in to work with her. They got her to sit up in a wheelchair. This was her first time up out of the bed. They wheeled her out to a window so she could look outside. This was painful for her back and her bum so they took her back to the bed. She tried getting out of the wheel chair by herself. We had to hold her back. The therapists asked her some questions like where are you? She signed h o s p i t a l.

After that her sister Kara came to visit. That sure seemed to make Natalie's day. Kara read her some letters and cards. While reading her a letter from someone the speech therapist came in. She had Kara ask Nat some questions about the letter. They asked her who the letter was from. They asked yes no questions and had her give thumbs up and thumbs down. They asked her if the letter was from a girl on her cheer squad and she gave a thumbs up. Then the therapist asked if the girl was good at cheer? First Nat shook her hand like "sort of" Then they asked her if Natalie was better than that girl and she gave a big thumbs up. No offense to the girl. I think it was Nat just being silly Nat. She is so funny. We all laughed really hard!!!

Kara and I worked on Nat's nails. We gave her a mini pedicure and manicure. Her mother massaged her feet with lotion. She loved that. In fact every time I would get close to her she would kick out her leg and wrap it around me to trap me in so I could sit with her and massage her leg and stretch it for her. Kara was sitting on her bed with her and when Kara left Nat tapped the empty space on the bed and I said, "you want your mom to sit by you?" She pointed at me sharply and tapped sharply. It was funny. So I took my place. What I did was read to her all of her facebook messages. She loved it so much.

Another sign that she is still Nat: Her mom and Kara made her a list of friends and she was supposed to look at the list and tell her mom who she wanted to come visit her the most. She pointed to everyone on the list. It was so funny. She is little miss social butterfly and that has not changed.

My other favorite thing: her listening to the IPOD. She listens to Kara's ipod and she is very funny about the songs she likes. She would make a funny face and that was sign to change the song. If she liked the song she would move her head back and forth and dance to it. You could tell she was trying to sing it. She would even start moving her arms and hands to the music. So cute. All of these signs made me so happy to know that she is still my natalie.

I gave her some cards Maelee made for her. One of them made me laugh so hard!!!! I wished I would have made a copy of it. It said Natalie on the front and on the inside it read, "We are friends but you say we are sisters." And that is it. So funny. Natalie is always trying to convince Maelee that they are sisters. Maelee has been very sad about not being able to see Natalie. I am going to take her up to see Natalie today. She is excited. Natalie is very cuddly and I know she will love Maelee crawling up into her bed to cuddle with her.