I love trying to stay healthy and help my kids build healthy life skills… I run as often as I can and I love taking a Body Combat class when it fits within the kids’ schedules. Jordan has shown interest in distance running with me… And slowly she and I are learning ways to run together. The trick for me is she runs the most if she’s holding my hand. It is really hard to run long distances when a little child is holding my hand. We’ll work on that habit eventually.

My biggest hope for Jordan and keeping healthy is in swimming. It’s one activity that she can do where she can use both arms to her fullest. She has learned some of the basics of pilates at Camp No Limits… but I think swimming is an awesome activity. And keeping a six-year-old focused on pilates isn’t the easiest thing to do.

So we’re getting back to swimming now that Jordan has her new arm paddle. Even her swim instructor was impressed with its ability to dig into the water. Jordan and her brother both aren’t very good at keeping their face in the water as they swim… but that’s why we take lessons. Both kids tell me they want to swim this summer on a swim team. Our pool’s manager encouraged them both to swim this year. Amazingly, they continue to tell me that is a summer goal. Once a week the kids will take lessons and I’m going to try very hard to find time each weekend to get them to the pool for fun. Their teacher told me after this week’s lesson, she’s confident both kids are on track to be good swimmers. The best way to accomplish good swimming is being in the pool! Check out her progress:

This morning at breakfast, Jordan discovered another fun thing she can do with her helper arm:

Our snow has melted… But before it did, Jordan spent as much time out in the cold stuff as possible. I actually had to bribe her with hot chocolate to come inside.

I caught a few moments of her outside… she wanted to build a snowman, but we didn’t really have that much snow. But I did convince her to make a little arm snow angel:

Introducing Miss Jordan’s new swim paddle! Before we left Chicago we had a chance to hop into a hotel pool and test it out.

The paddle is attached to her arm with two rubber bands and velcro. It’s very different for Jordan since it holds on tightly and she’s not a fan of how it looks on her arm. (She says it looks “smooshy.”) But she did enjoy playing with it in the pool.

Check out the video of our test run and I hope we’re going to be back to swim lessons soon so we can really see if this is a solution. By the way, we wanted to work on creating a paddle because when Jordan swims without any assistance, she ends up swimming at an angle instead of straight forward. A paddle might give her a little extra pull.

We have had a very exciting weekend in our household. Jordan and I are gearing up to head back to Chicago to build her next helper arm. She had the challenge this weekend to pick out the next design for her arm. The cool thing about the type of prosthetics she uses is we can find any fabric design and a chemical turns it into the cover of her arm. Last year she found a fun Disney Princess fabric that gave her the ultimate princess helper arm. This year she picked….

Hello Kitty! 

Jordan’s never been a crazy Hello Kitty fan, but she likes her and this pattern was just all kinds of fun. Look at all of the colors! I didn’t have any say in the pick, but I’m excited with this. I think Jordan will have fun with it.. Plus, it needs to last 18 months if we can help it. I think this fun pattern will be able to keep her interest for a while.

As we were shopping for matching ribbon for her helper arm, I got an email alert from Jordan’s birthday fundraiser. It told me someone donated $700 to her effort to send more kids to Camp No Limits. Seven. Hundred. Dollars!!! Jordan and I were both squealing in the parking lot of Hobby Lobby. We’re honored and touched. We have now raised enough money for four kids to attend camp and only $75 away from sending a fifth.

We’re so excited and Jordan wanted to do a quick video this afternoon… She  also gets to reveal her newest look (that matches her new helper arm)!

The outdoor swimming season isn’t over for us! To add to the fun… Jordan was in a show off mode yesterday. First, she was all about grooving and dancing to the music at the pool last night. It was almost totally empty now that the school year has started so she had all kinds of room to groove.

Every time we show Jordan video of a person doing something cool with a limb difference, Jordan just does not react much. I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again. We’ve given Jordan access to so many awesome and able limb different people, she doesn’t expect anything less than awesome. So when Randy found this video on ESPN, she watched with interest, but didn’t seem too shocked:

Another ESPN film that I think is pretty awesome is “A Fighting Chance.” It’s a movie produced about Kyle Maynard who is a quadruple congenital amputee. It’s a super strong wrestler and an incredibly positive person. (He wrote a book called “No Excuses.”) For more than I year, I’ve worked with the producer who was trying to collect videos and photos of limb different kids to show people who watch the film that Kyle isn’t the only kids who is inspirational. ESPN ended up cutting the montage out of its version that aired on TV, but it’s going to be a DVD extra when it goes on sale. (Hopefully soon)

If you’re interested in seeing the film, it has one more chance for viewing ESPN Classic at 5pm ET on December 25, 2010. You can see a little on the film’s website. I look forward to the DVD!

Another project I have quietly followed is nearing completion. It’s called “The Sweetest Gift” and is about arthrogryposis multiplex congenita (AMC). It’s a film focused on telling the story of this condition and how children and adults are living life. This is a condition I hadn’t heard of until a friend of mine had a sweet little baby and doctors think he might have AMC. I don’t know when the full piece will be complete, but here’s this film’s trailer:

So… Getting a sled to move in the right direction is tricky for any almost four-year-old… But it’s even trickier when you’re working with one hand. So when I plopped Jordan onto a sled yesterday, she ended up riding in an old-school wooden sled that we just let go. No steering, just sliding. She ended up hitting a curb and flew out onto the snow. I ran down to make sure she was okay. And she was giggling and telling me how AWESOME it was to go so fast.
My girl is all about adventure. I love it.

Oh… And by the way. Here’s a funny piece of video of Jordan playing in her new playhouse on Christmas day. I love it.

Anyway. We tried to clear away a bunch of leaves and piled them at the bottom of the front yard. Cam was SO excited and he showed Jordan the ropes on how to play in the leaves. It was adorable. So adorable that I had to run into the house, grab a video camera and shoot a bit of it. And that’s what this video is all about. (Note how Jordan is screaming about the leaf blower at the start of the video. She got over it.)

Cam’s such a good big brother. Jordan’s a lucky kid.

Yesterday Jordan’s sixth tooth arrived after all that hard work. Thank goodness. This morning we had fun with breakfast. I enjoyed taking pictures of her and I decided to capture just a normal moment with my girl in video. We giggled at each other while she popped Cheerios and threw her sippy cup on a regular basis. So here’s just a little moment in the high chair:

Jordan has been working very hard on words, but lately it seems her standing and pulling up skills are trumping words. But in the last day, she points at pictures and dolls and says: “tritty” I have to believe that means “pretty.” I find that to be pretty darn sweet.

Can you believe she’s 13 months old now? Just amazing.

I’ve started working out again… I got up at 5:20 this morning to exercise. So why amd I still awake? That’s a good question. Randy just gave me a stern talking to before he went to bed. It just feels like I can never do enough — with work, with blogging… with just brainlessly surfing the web or knitting (which I learned how to do this weekend). So I should head off to bed. I just wanted to update with a few smiles to share with everyone. I’ve been pondering heavier thoughts… But I’ll hold off for another day.