Ezzy on the Move

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I am so excited that I don’t even know where to begin.

I guess I will start by saying that Ezzy’s new whiz bang gait trainer arrived (FINALLY!). It is darling and so much tinier than I expected. It is the Mini Pacer gait trainer made by Rifton.

It works differently from the Trojan Pony. The Pony has sort of bicycle seat so it provides support no matter what. It cannot grow with Ez as she needs less and less support to stand. The wheels also stick so she has not been able to move it across carpet and in wide-open spaces she turns in circles. Finally Ez is not entirely stable in it. She is so flexible that she can throw her head back and touch the pad at her lower back!

Don’t get me wrong, we LOVE the Trojan Pony and will continue to use her for now and then pass her on to another child who needs her very own Pony.

But the Pacer is a whole other level. The pacer has a flexible design that will add and subtract “prompts” (different kinds of supports) as her needs change. It strips down to what is, essentially, a walker, or can provide the chest, arm, and pelvis support Ez needs now.

But as excited as I was to get the new gait trainer, Ez was really not impressed the first couple of times. And I was thinking…after all this work, she is going to hate the thing!

But the third time was a charm. I got everything adjusted better, and put the iPad on the communication tray long enough for her to relax into the supports. Then I took the iPad across the room and asked her to come get it–uncertain if she could make the pacer move, especially on the carpet. But she did, and once she realized it, she was on the move.

Today we took her to the mall…thinking we might go a few feet. But the second we got her strapped in and took the breaks off, she took off like a shot. We went in short bursts of her moving her legs like she was walking, pushing with two feet and gliding, and taking rests with her head on the communication tray.

She was smiling, babbling, making friends, and exploring, while we were busy picking our jaws up off the floor. It was so much fun and completely hysterical. We imagined her rolling through the mall saying: “Liberté toujours.” And so the Pacer has been dubbed La Gauloise.

I love this kid.