We have been working on Esmé’s mobility for some time now. She can roll. She loves to roll. But lately she has been increasingly interested in being upright. The problem is that she is not strong enough to hold her own weight or coordinated enough to balance…but she is also TWO, and she does not want her mommy holding her up. She pushes my hands away from her, only to collapse back into my arms.
Her brain and her desires are frustratingly disconnected from her body’s abilities.
So, I got it in my head that my child needed a gait trainer. For those of you who aren’t familiar with such things, a gait trainer is a frame of one kind or another that helps a person stand and walk. Like this. And here is some info on the benefits on early mobility, if you are interested.
I think that *some* people thought I was a bit nutsy. That it was too early for her to try this. But I just knew that it was time.
So, we started the process of ordering one through insurance…in early December.
Things were not moving fast enough for me with getting Ezzy the new wiz bang gait trainer (which is a giant surprise all-round). So being the obsessive personality that I am, I started searching for one.
And, lo and behold, we found the Pony.
The Pony was a floor model of the Snug Seat gait trainer at a durable medical equipment (DME) supplier in our area. The Pony looked vaguely sad and abandoned in the photo in the used equipment listing…and when we went to try her out, the old gal proved to be a bit worn around the edges (which only made me love her more). But she really came to life when Ezzy took her for a ride–you know, moving in infinitesimal increments this way and that.
So we brought her home.
Once home, however, we faced the issue of the Pony’s name…people kept assuming that Ez had started in hippotherapy (horse therapy)…which is obviously a huge problem.
Well, you remember my friend Dana, don’t you? She is the one who first called The Cute Syndrome by it’s proper name. Well, Dana struck again…feeling that it was rather important that Esmé’s trusty stead have a proper name, she offered some name suggestions, among them: “Trojan (because it isn’t really a horse, and because Ezzy kicks ass when people don’t expect her to).” I liked it less than The Hell Bitch, another one of her suggestions, but figured that The Trojan Pony might be more appropriate for a two-year-old, while leaving room for some good adult humor.
And thusly, the Pony became The Trojan Pony, Esmé’s constant companion.
The Trojan Pony is not the perfect fit. When riding, Ez needs someone right next to her as Trojan Pony is not as secure as the wiz-bang walker will be. We still will need the other one in order to support her at school (in a few months) and to feel safer letting her have adventures further from us…
So, meanwhile, we are still waiting on the equipment provider to gather all the paperwork needed to get our shiny wiz-bang gait trainer (apparently this takes a month and a half). We will still have to wait the month that insurance has to approve or deny. AND then the month for the appeal of the likely denial. AND then the month for Medicaid to cover the rest.
But while these folks debate the validity of such equipment for my child, she has taken off and left them in her dust.
And they say Ez has delays…